COBI Volkswagen Passat B1 Set 24644

COBI's Volkswagen Passat B1 is a 1:35 model of the saloon built from 107 blocks under official Volkswagen licence, 12.5 cm long, in green, with movable wheels on rubber tires and printed detail.

Named after a wind

Passat is the German word for the trade wind — the steady easterly that carried sailing ships across the Atlantic. Volkswagen chose it in 1973 and then kept going: the Scirocco is a Mediterranean wind, the Jetta the jet stream, the Bora a cold wind off the Adriatic, the Golf the Gulf Stream.

The scheme was deliberate. Volkswagen was replacing the Beetle, a car known everywhere by a nickname it had never been given officially, and the new range needed names that worked in every language and suggested motion without meaning anything embarrassing in Portuguese.

Underneath the name was Giugiaro's three-box saloon on Audi 80 mechanics: front engine, water cooling, front-wheel drive. The first of the cars that turned Volkswagen from a one-model company into a modern manufacturer.

In the COBI range

Part of the 1:35 Volkswagen collection. Set 24641 is the Variant estate, 24645 the Variant in police livery, and 24643 the Passat with a caravan and picnic diorama.

Specifications

Pieces: 107 · Scale: 1:35 · Colour: green · Officially licensed
Model dimensions: 12.5 × 5.5 × 4.5 cm (4.9 × 2.2 × 1.8 in)