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Amphibious Encyclopedia · Amphibious cars

Trippel amphibious cars (SG6)

Hans Trippel was a German designer who built amphibious cars from the early 1930s, most notably the SG6, which was sold to civilians and then produced for the German armed forces in World War II [2][4]. During the war he built the SG6 in the Bugatti factory at Molsheim in occupied Alsace [4][5]. After the war he designed the car that became the Amphicar 770 [1][6].

  • Amphibious cars
  • 1932 to 1943
  • Germany

Early cars

Hans Trippel, born near Darmstadt in 1908, was a German designer and racing driver who is best remembered for amphibious cars [5]. According to the Wheatcroft Collection, he built his first amphibious prototype in 1932 and began producing the SG6 at Homburg, in the Saar, in 1934 [2]. Hagerty also dates the SG6 design to 1934, while Wikipedia, drawing on German sources, says Trippel began designing prototypes in 1935, set up a factory in Hamburg in 1936 and built the SG6 from 1937 [1][4].

Rather than fitting a floating body onto a car chassis, Trippel built the SG6 around a streamlined tub-shaped body with the running gear fitted inside [4]. Early cars had four-wheel drive, an Adler four-cylinder engine and a propeller for use in water [2][3]. Trippel aimed them at civilian buyers such as large estates, forestry work and hunting and fishing parties [2]. In September 1938, as publicity, an SG6 drove from Hamburg to Naples and then crossed about 28 km (17 mi) of open water to the island of Capri [4].

Wartime production

The German army placed an order for 20 SG6s, and military versions followed [4]. After Germany defeated France in 1940, Trippel took control of the Bugatti factory at Molsheim in Alsace [2][5]. Wikipedia cites a lease signed on August 12, 1940, that moved his company's headquarters there [4]. The SG6/41, built at Molsheim from 1941, had an Opel 2.5 L six-cylinder engine of 55 hp and, by Wikipedia's figures, weighed 1,660 kg (3,660 lb) and reached 95 km/h (59 mph) on land and 14.5 km/h (9 mph) in water [4]. The Wheatcroft Collection gives the military models a top speed of 50 mph (80 km/h) and says Molsheim built about 20 a month [2].

Estimates of total SG6 output range from about 800 to about 1,000 [2][3][4]. Production ended in 1943, as the army turned to the lighter and cheaper Volkswagen Type 166 Schwimmwagen [4]. The French site MVCG notes that the army ordered roughly fifteen times as many Volkswagens as Trippels [3].

Trippel was an active supporter of the Nazi regime and a member of the SA, according to Wikipedia, and the Wheatcroft account gives him the rank of Obersturmbannführer [5][2]. After the war, French authorities held him for about three years [3][5].

Link to the Amphicar

Trippel went on testing amphibious designs in the 1950s [3]. At the 1959 Geneva motor show he showed a prototype called the Eurocar Alligator, which first used a 948 cc Austin A35 engine and then the 1,147 cc engine of the Triumph Herald [1]. Hagerty reports that he persuaded the German government to back the project as an export opportunity [1].

The design became the Amphicar 770, introduced at the 1961 New York Auto Show and built by the Quandt Group at Lübeck and Berlin-Borsigwalde [6]. Hagerty gives its price as about DM 10,000 in 1961 [1]. About 3,878 Amphicars were made, and the last were sold in 1968 [1][6].

Survivors

Few SG6s survive. One is displayed at the Musée des Blindés, the tank museum in Saumur, France, and the Wheatcroft Collection owns another that passed a swimming test in 2012 [3][4][2].

Sources

  1. Cars That Time Forgot: Amphicar 770, Hagerty UK (Richard Dredge) (2023-03-06). www.hagerty.co.uk/articles/cars-that-time-forgot-amphicar-770
  2. EXCLUSIVE: Wheatcroft Collections Tripple goes for a swim, War History Online (The Wheatcroft Collection) (2012-04-11). warhistoryonline.com/military-vehicle-news/exclusive-wheatcroft-collections-triple-goes-for-a-swim.html
  3. La bassine de Hans Trippel, MVCG France (in French). mvcgfrance.org/la-bassine-de-hans-trippel
  4. Trippel SG6, Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trippel_SG6
  5. Hans Trippel, Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Trippel
  6. Amphicar, Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphicar

Last reviewed November 2026. Spotted something to correct or add? Tell us and include a source.

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