COBI Volkswagen Passat B1 Variant Set 24641

COBI's Volkswagen Passat B1 Variant is a 1:35 model built from 110 blocks under official Volkswagen licence, 12.5 cm long, with movable wheels on rubber tires and printed detail.

The car that came before the Golf

The Passat is usually remembered as the sensible one, but it came first. It launched in 1973, a year ahead of the Golf, and it was Volkswagen's first modern car: engine at the front, water-cooled, driving the front wheels, body by Giorgetto Giugiaro.

That was not a small matter for a company whose entire output had been air-cooled and rear-engined for a quarter of a century. Volkswagen got there by using Audi's work — the Passat is mechanically an Audi 80 with a different body, and Volkswagen had owned Audi since 1965 without ever having used what it knew.

The Variant is the estate, and it is the version that explains why the model sold. A long flat load bay behind a car that drove like a saloon was, in 1973, exactly what a European family wanted and rarely got.

In the COBI range

Part of the 1:35 Volkswagen collection. Set 24644 is the Passat saloon, 24645 the Variant in police livery, and 24643 the Passat with a caravan and picnic diorama.

Specifications

Pieces: 110 · Scale: 1:35 · Officially licensed
Model dimensions: 12.5 × 5.5 × 4.5 cm (4.9 × 2.2 × 1.8 in)