COBI Volkswagen Golf Cabriolet Set 24360

COBI's Volkswagen Golf Cabriolet is a 1:12 model built from 1,494 blocks, over 30 cm long. The doors and boot open, the bonnet is held up by a support arm, the steering turns the front wheels, and the interior is reproduced in detail.

Volkswagen did not build it

The Golf Cabriolet came off a production line in Osnabrück belonging to Karmann, the coachbuilder that had already made the Karmann Ghia and the Beetle convertible. Volkswagen supplied the bodies; Karmann cut them open, reinforced them and built every single one.

Cutting the roof off a hatchback removes most of its stiffness, and the fix is the feature everyone remembers: a fixed roll-over bar across the car behind the front seats, with the hood folding down behind it. German owners named it the Erdbeerkörbchen — the strawberry basket — after the woven punnets sold at markets. It was meant as a joke and became the car's identity.

It worked. Launched in 1979, it was the best-selling convertible in the world for much of the 1980s, and this first generation stayed in production until 1993 — years after the hatchback it was based on had been replaced, because nothing else on the market did the same job.

In the COBI range

Set 24358 is the Golf GTI at the same scale, the hot hatchback version of the same generation.

Specifications

Pieces: 1,494 · Scale: 1:12 · Age: 11+
Model dimensions: 30.5 × 11.5 × 13 cm (12.0 × 4.5 × 5.1 in)