Special Hobby Military 1/35 VW Type 83 Kastenwagen (Ambulance Van) Kit

In the late 1930s on Adolf Hitler’s direct impulse, Ferdinand Porsche, a German automotive designer was developing a car suitable for wide masses of Nazi Germany. This development gave birth to the so-called KdF-Wagen vehicle, named after the Kraft-Durch-Freude slogan, literally meaning Strength Through Joy, the car to be better known as the VW Beetle in the post-war era. In 1938 as the war was getting closer and closer, the development of military versions began, producing two main branches of the type, the first of which was the Typ 82E with rear wheel drive and the other was the Typ 877 with all four wheels drive. These vehicles were widely used by Third Reich’s military and other state sectors all the way through the war.  Many various subversions, conversions of the main type and also various improvements and upgrades arose during the war too, some of them being, for instance, a wood gas drive conversion and others. One of the quite important subversions based on the Typ 82E was the series of Typ 83 and Typ 86 Kastenwagen vehicles, characterized by a box-shaped wooden superstructure mounted on the rear of the car body. The two Types differed from each other by having a different interior of their superstructures depending on the roles the vehicles were used in. The large internal space of the Typ 83 was mostly used for mail transport with the Reichspost while the Typ 86 saw service as an ambulance car.

The model of the Typ 83 was once available under CMK label, cat.no T35018. As it has been sold out for a rather long time and modelers kept asking for it, a decision was made to get the model back into production.