This week, owners of more than 50 amphibious vehicles brought their World War 2-era military transporters, jeeps and vintage-style cars to Switzerland St-Blaise for their annual European gathering. Fitted with colourful sun umbrellas and decorated with flags, what looked like a motley crew of vehicles carrying families including babies and dogs drove off the port and glided smoothly into the water, before moving across Lake Neuchatel.

Briton Paul Foley was driving an Amphicar, a 1960s German-built cabriolet which was also the only civilian amphibious vehicle to be mass produced, although only 3878 were made. Patrick Amerijckx drove his favorite vehicle the military Dukw truck 21,147 of which were produced for the US army during the Second World War - and of which an astonishing number are still in use.