COBI Volkswagen T2a Camper Van - Executive Edition Set 24361

COBI's Volkswagen T2a Camper Van Executive Edition is a 1:12 model built from 2,775 blocks, 38 cm long, with a brick display base and a black nameplate. Doors open, the engine is reproduced, the steering turns the wheels on rubber tires, and the roof opens with a lifting tent.

The interior is the point of this one: a gas stove, a sink, a fold-out bed, a folding table, cupboards and storage lockers, all built in.

Volkswagen sold the van, someone else built the camper

Volkswagen never made a camper. It made a van, and shipped bare shells to Westfalia, a coachbuilder near Bielefeld, which fitted the beds, the cabinets and the cooker and sold the result through Volkswagen dealers. The arrangement started with the T1 in the early 1950s and ran for decades.

Westfalia's most useful idea was the elevating roof. A van you cannot stand up in is a vehicle; a van you can stand up in is a room. The pop-top added headroom and two more berths without making the van any taller to drive or any harder to park, and it is the single feature that turned the Transporter into the vehicle people took to live in.

The T2a arrived in 1967 with a one-piece panoramic windscreen, replacing the split screen of the T1.

In the COBI range

Set 24362 is the T2b Bus, the later facelift of the same van in passenger form.

Specifications

Pieces: 2,775 · Scale: 1:12 · Also included: display base and nameplate
Model dimensions: 38 × 16 × 17 cm (15.0 × 6.3 × 6.7 in), 18.5 cm high on the base