The Europa Jeep was a multinational military vehicle project that was ultimately abandoned before it could enter production. During the 1960s, several

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

an governments began cooperating on development of a vehicle known as the Europa Jeep, a lightweight, amphibious four wheel drive vehicle that could be

mass-produced Mass production, also known as flow production or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines. Together with job production and ba ...

for use by various national military and government groups. Development of the vehicle proved time-consuming, however, and by 1979 the project had been abandoned. The

West German West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

government was in need of a limited number of light, inexpensive, durable transport vehicles that could fulfill their basic needs while the Europa Jeep was being developed and put into production.

Volkswagen Volkswagen (),English: , . abbreviated as VW (), is a German motor vehicle manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1937 by the German Labour Front under the Nazi Party and revived into a global brand post-W ...

was instead instructed by the West German government to create the

Volkswagen 181 The Volkswagen Type 181 is a two-wheel drive, four-door, convertible, manufactured and marketed by Volkswagen from 1968 until 1983. Originally developed for the West German Army, the Type 181 also entered the civilian market as the Kurierwagen ( ...

. After the abandonment of the Europa Jeep a number of

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

countries also adopted the 181. The

Bundeswehr Museum of German Defense Technology The Bundeswehr Museum of German Defense Technology also known as ''Wehrtechnisches Museum Koblenz'' and ''Wehrtechnische Studiensammlung Koblenz'' (WTS-Koblenz) is the official Bundeswehr's Defense Technology Study Collection in Koblenz. It is o ...

in Koblenz has protypes of ''Europa Jeeps'' in the exhibition.

External links

Off-road vehicles Wheeled amphibious vehicles Amphibious military vehicles {{Classicpow-auto-stub