COBI Panzer VI Tiger I no 131 Set 3123

COBI's Panzer VI Tiger I no. 131 is a 1:35 model built from 898 blocks, 25 cm long, developed with The Tank Museum. The turret rotates, the gun moves, the wheels and multi-link tracks run, the hatches open for figures, and a mini Maybach engine sits under the service flap or displays alongside. A commander figure in tropical uniform and a plate with the museum's logo are included.

Thirty Tigers went to Africa

The figure wears tropical dress, and that is the historically interesting part. Germany sent only around thirty Tigers to Tunisia in total — a rounding error against the 1,347 built — and they arrived in early 1943 when the campaign was already lost.

Yet it is a Tunisian Tiger that everybody knows. Tiger 131 was disabled near Medjez el Bab in April 1943 when a British shell jammed its turret ring, and the crew abandoned it almost intact. The British had been trying for months to capture one; every Tiger knocked out on the Eastern Front was either burnt out or behind Soviet lines.

So the one surviving running Tiger in the world, and the reference for nearly every model of the type ever made, comes from the smallest and least important Tiger deployment of the war.

In the COBI range

COBI makes Tiger 131 at four scales: this 1:35, the 1:28 set 2588, the 1:48 sets 2710 and 2734, and the 1:72 mini 3095.

Specifications

Pieces: 898 · Figures: 1 · Scale: 1:35 · Removable engine · Developed with The Tank Museum
Model dimensions: 25 × 11 × 9 cm (9.8 × 4.3 × 3.5 in)