COBI RAM 3500 Dump Truck Set 24659

COBI's RAM 3500 Dump Truck is a 1:35 model built from 296 blocks under official RAM licence, 18.5 cm long, with a tipping cargo bed, an opening tailgate, an opening toolbox, movable wheels on rubber tires, and a figure of a construction worker. All markings are printed; the set contains no stickers.

Not a dump truck — a dump body

A proper dump truck is a purpose-built machine on a commercial chassis carrying ten tonnes or more. This is something else: a one-ton pickup chassis with the pickup bed removed and a tipping body bolted on in its place, raised by a hydraulic ram behind the cab.

The reason this vehicle exists is licensing and access. In the United States a truck under 26,000 pounds can be driven on an ordinary licence, so a landscaper, a small builder or a municipal works crew can put anyone in the seat. It also fits down a residential street and onto a driveway, which a real dump truck does not.

So it carries what small jobs actually need: two or three tonnes of gravel, topsoil, mulch or demolition waste, tipped in twenty seconds rather than shovelled out over an hour. Most of the construction work anyone sees in a given week is done by these rather than by anything larger.

In the COBI range

Part of the 1:35 RAM collection, with the 3500 ambulance (24609), tow truck (24611) and fire truck (24612), and the 1500 and 2500 pickups.

Specifications

Pieces: 296 · Figures: 1 worker · Scale: 1:35 · Age: 7+ · Tipping bed and opening toolbox
Model dimensions: 18.5 × 7.5 × 6.5 cm (7.3 × 3.0 × 2.6 in)