COBI Volkswagen Passat B1 & Caravan Set 24643

COBI's Volkswagen Passat B1 & Caravan is a 1:35 set built from 361 blocks: the Passat at 14 cm, a camping caravan at 14.5 cm that couples to it for a combined 28 cm, plus a picnic area with a barbecue, food, a tree and a bin, a tourist figure and a cat.

Why the car and the caravan are the same size

A 1970s family towing caravan was not a scaled-down house. It was built to be pulled by a car with around 75 horsepower, which meant the whole thing had to weigh about as much as the car did — and no more, because a trailer heavier than the vehicle in front of it becomes the thing steering.

That constraint shaped everything about them: aluminium or thin GRP skin over a timber frame, a single axle, no bathroom worth the name, and a shape that got progressively more rounded as manufacturers discovered what drag did to fuel consumption on a long motorway haul.

The result is the combination in this set. A Passat estate and a caravan of roughly the same length was the standard European summer holiday for about twenty years, and the reason every autoroute rest stop in August still looks the way it does.

In the COBI range

Part of the 1:35 Volkswagen collection. Sets 24641 and 24644 are the Variant and the saloon on their own, and 24645 the Variant in police livery.

Specifications

Pieces: 361 · Figures: 1 plus a cat · Scale: 1:35 · Age: 8+
Model dimensions: car 14 × 5.5 × 4.5 cm, caravan 14.5 × 6 × 7 cm, combined length 28 cm (11.0 in)