Having seen a photograph in Jet Blast of a wind up model submarine has reminded me that when I was about six years old my parents bought me a clockwork RAF rescue launch. We were on holiday in Scarborough at the time the launch was in plastic with a clockwork motor. The rudder was brass, but the propeller was plastic.
Having "sailed" it for years it finally succumbed to rust in the engine department and a propeller that had been repaired so many times it was unrecognisable. It was consigned to the model shelf until my four year old sister (nine years younger than me) found it, called it silly and threw it down the well in the garden.