The Volkswagen Type 82 K\u00fcbelwagen, or simply K\u00fcbel, is a military light utility vehicle designed by Ferdinand Porsche and built by Volkswagen during World War II for use by the Nazi German military. Based heavily on the Volkswagen Beetle, it was prototyped and first deployed in Poland as the Type 62, but following improvements entered full-scale production as the Type 82.<\/p>\n\n\n\nngg_shortcode_0_placeholder\n\n\n\n
The four-wheel drivetrain that was prototyped in the rejected Type 86 version went into mass production in the Schwimmwagen. The Type 86 performed better in comparative testing, but the additional costs of the more complex four-wheel drivetrain (both financial, as well as making the light car heavier and thirstier) did not outweigh the benefits from the German viewpoint. The K\u00fcbelwagen was intended to be able to be manhandled by its crew when they got stuck. Easily seating four men, the 725 kg (1,600 lb) empty weight K\u00fcbel was easier to lift than the 300 kg (660 lb) heavier jeep. The rear bench would seat three in a pinch, for a total of five inside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
K\u00fcbelwagen is a contraction of K\u00fcbelsitzwagen, meaning “bucket-seat car”. Before the war, this term became popular in Germany for light open-topped cross-country and military field cars without doors, because these were typically equipped with bucket seats to help keep occupants on board, necessary in an era before the adoption of seat belts. This body style had first been developed by Karosseriefabrik N. Trutz in 1923.\u200a The first Porsche Type 62 test vehicles had no doors and were therefore fitted with bucket seats as K\u00fcbelsitzwagen, later shortened to K\u00fcbelwagen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Volkswagen Type 82 K\u00fcbelwagen, or simply K\u00fcbel, is a military light utility vehicle designed by Ferdinand Porsche and built by Volkswagen during World War II for use by the Nazi German military. Based heavily on the Volkswagen Beetle, it was prototyped and first deployed in Poland as the Type 62, but following improvements entered […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1876,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wwii-artillery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/infinitemodeler.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/infinitemodeler.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/infinitemodeler.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infinitemodeler.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infinitemodeler.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1896"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/infinitemodeler.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1910,"href":"https:\/\/infinitemodeler.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1896\/revisions\/1910"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infinitemodeler.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/infinitemodeler.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infinitemodeler.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infinitemodeler.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}