COBI Volkswagen T3 Krankenwagen Set 24636

COBI's Volkswagen T3 Krankenwagen is a 1:35 model built from 141 blocks, 14 cm long, in German ambulance livery with rubber tires and printed markings. No stickers.

The sound you are hearing in your head

German emergency vehicles do not wail. They alternate between two fixed notes, and that sound has a name and an inventor: the Martinshorn, after Max B. Martin, whose firm patented the compressed-air two-tone horn in the 1930s.

The interval is a fourth, chosen because it carries through traffic noise and because a repeating two-note pattern is harder to mistake for anything else than a rising siren is. Every European country that adopted it inherited the sound from the same source, and a generation of Germans can identify it from two streets away.

The other recognisable feature of a T3 ambulance is the raised fibreglass roof, fitted so a paramedic could stand beside the stretcher. In German service the T3 appeared as a KTW for patient transport, an RTW as a full emergency ambulance, and a Notarztwagen carrying a doctor to the scene.

In the COBI range

Part of the 1:35 Volkswagen collection, with the standard T3 (24634), the fire version (24635), the police version (24637) and the camper (24638).

Specifications

Pieces: 141 · Scale: 1:35 · Age: 7+
Model dimensions: 14 × 6 × 6.5 cm (5.5 × 2.4 × 2.6 in)