COBI Volkswagen T2b Krankenwagen Set 24619

COBI's Volkswagen T2b Krankenwagen is a 1:35 model built from 169 blocks, 14 cm long, in the red-and-white livery of a German ambulance, with rubber wheels and printed markings.

Why the ambulance became a van

German ambulances before the 1960s were mostly long estate cars — a stretcher went in the back, and the attendant sat beside it with his head bent. You could transport a patient that way. You could not treat one.

The Transporter changed that because a person can stand up in it. Once the crew could work upright beside the stretcher, the vehicle stopped being transport and started being a treatment room, and the equipment followed: oxygen, suction, monitoring, all of it needing somewhere to be mounted.

West Germany then wrote the practice down. From 1976 the DIN 75080 standard specified what an ambulance had to contain and how the interior had to be laid out, which meant a crew from one town could work in another town's vehicle without hunting for anything. Much of European ambulance design still descends from it.

In the COBI range

Part of the 1:35 Volkswagen collection. Set 24622 is the T2b in German fire brigade livery, set 24621 the passenger bus.

Specifications

Pieces: 169 · Scale: 1:35
Model dimensions: 14 × 6.5 × 6 cm (5.5 × 2.6 × 2.4 in)