George S posted:Nice Plank!
I’m thinking your swamp boat might be a reproduction. There are a lot of them being made now. I have a few repro Paya windup cars. The people in them look similar to yours.
George
My mind went down the reproduction path too George 
The bloke also looks like the Marx tractor drivers too However in my searches not even reproduction models showed up ? Which I would assume they would if they were like the Paya re-issues (*cough chinese made )
I didnt pay a lot for it but it was listed rather badly too as possibly an Arnold (which I am pretty sure it isnt )
I dunno , things like the patina on the brass prop collar etc
It's either been repainted or exceptionally well stored , the ref pic above shows the Bing as painted rather than litho as well ...
I think the only way to figure it out will be when it gets here if I can see the mechanism ?
Another thought I had is after the 1st world war Japan was ripping off some of the weirder toy designs so it might be from that era as well ... Light bulb going off!!!
( rushes to check my photo gallery )
Bingo???
Key on it has the same markings as a post WWI Japanese Automatic Car set up I have ( idea stolen from Technofix)
Interesting to note the box this came is has Made in Japan painted out and the car is marked FOREIGN ( which the UK instituted as Made in Germany had "stink" about it at the time , so manufacturers instead had to mark as "foreign, japan did the same on many toys between the great wars )
This set was made by WU which has very limited information ... I hit a brick wall researching this one too 
So maybe early Japanese which opens a whole 'nother can O worms 
