The VW 166 Schwimmwagen magically fits the SCX10 Chassis, so that’s the plan for this summer, especially as i am locked in my flat during corona.
So as always i made a 3D mockup in blender 3D, based on photos and blueprints i found on the net, and in this case developed a bow mirror in Affinity Designer, my preferred vector drawing app.
The original is basically a VW beetle chassis with a boat hull, and the beetle chassis is the first thing i had to adopt as it uses swing axles in the rear and torsion-bar suspension in the front.
It also features portal axles in the rear which would be available for the SCX10, but as the gear ratio of the front and rear axle obviously has to be the same, adding portals in the read would mean adding portals in the front too.
My solution to the “problem” is that i will skip portals, swing axles and torsion bars (for now) and opt for two 3rd party SCX10 axles with remotely lockable differentials as thats a feature of the original i definitely want to have in my build.
And because i built so many RC cars in the past, the axles are the only thing i will have to buy for this project which makes it perfect for a COVID19 build as stuff from china will take forever to deliver anyway.
Another feature i want to have my version is that in the original there is 2WD drive for gear 2-4 and 4WD drive with locked differentials for 1st and reverse.
For the body i will model a positive from styrofoam that i will cut with a heatwire, glue together, sand and then make a negative plaster form that will end as negative for a glasfibre-body
The original tires would be 25mm wide in 1:6 but there are wider tires on some pictures. Seems like they changed the tire width somewhere in 1944.
I will most probably use the Mud Plugger 1.9 Scale Tires as they are 101mm in diameter which is pretty perfect, and 31mm wide which “fits”… kinda..
My main tire concern is that i would need 1.9 tires on 2.2 rims to get the utimate scale look, gotta investigate that. For now i will use what i have from my various other builds and probably upgrade if the non scale look is too annoying.
Thing i will add as always will be:
.)simulated gear shifts with an arduino
.)fpv, probably without a gimbal this time as the chance of getting the “driver” wet is pretty high.
.)full light kit
.)full sound kit based on a small subwoofer like in my 1:14 Tamiya truck
.) fully functional cockpit, the original only provides a speedometer anyway, so that will be a 4,5g servo as in the M07 Tamiya
Next steps are building the hull, and waiting for the axles which will arrive in a month or so.
A mid-development turntable rendered with the cycles renderer.
I N E V I T A B L E C R A F T S L A B 