As might be expected for a small country, when the Swiss decided in the early 1950s that they needed modern tanks, their first thought was to buy them in from abroad.

As this was at the height of the Cold War, with a very hot one raging in Korea, this proved impossible. A stop gap was found in the form of French AMX 13 light tanks, while work started on a home grown design. This came to be known as the Panzer 58. Essentially this was the same as its immediate successor, the Panzer 61, except for its main armament; the Pz58 had the British 20 pounder and the Pz 61 the 105mm L7.

The tank was conventional by the standards of the day, with a torsion bar suspension, a 630bhp Mercedes diesel engine and a crew of 4.

After a production run of 150, a further set of modifications and upgrades resulted in the Panzer 68 which was in service throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Ultimately it was replaced by the Panzer 87, a license-built Leopard 2. The Swiss Pz 58/61/68 series never found export customers and the survivors were sold for scrap in 2005.