COBI
COBI 1937 Horch 901 kfz.15 Set 2405
COBI's 1937 Horch 901 Kfz. 15 is a 1:35 model built from 185 blocks, 13 cm long, in European theatre markings. New brick types were introduced for this model, useful for building cars generally. A figure of a German driver with binoculars and a printed nameplate are included. All markings are printed.
Germany tried to standardise its cars and failed
In the mid-1930s the German army set out to solve a real problem: it had hundreds of different vehicle types, each with its own parts, and no workshop could stock spares for them all.
The answer was the Einheits-PKW programme β the standard car. Three universal all-wheel-drive chassis, light, medium and heavy, with bodies fitted according to role, built by several manufacturers to one specification. The Horch 901 is the medium one.
On paper it was exactly right. In practice it went wrong in a way that is worth understanding.
The engineers, given a clean sheet, produced vehicles that were genuinely excellent and completely impractical: four-wheel drive, independent suspension on all four wheels, sometimes four-wheel steering, and a level of mechanical complexity that made them slow to build, expensive to buy and difficult to repair in a field. A standard car that costs three times a civilian one and needs a trained mechanic is not a standard car.
The programme was cancelled in 1943 and replaced by simplified designs based on ordinary commercial vehicles β and by the Volkswagen KΓΌbelwagen, which cost a fraction and worked.
In the COBI range
Set 2256 is the same vehicle in Afrika Korps desert paint. Sets 2802 and 2803 are the KΓΌbelwagen that replaced this whole idea.
Specifications
Pieces: 185 Β· Figures: 1 driver with binoculars Β· Scale: 1:35
Model dimensions: 13 Γ 5.5 cm (5.1 Γ 2.2 in)
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