COBI Willys MB & Trailer - Executive Edition Set 2804

COBI's Willys MB & Trailer Executive Edition is a 1:12 model built from 1,580 blocks under original Jeep licence, 45 cm long with the trailer coupled. The steering wheel turns the front wheels, the wheels run on rubber tires, the engine and interior are reproduced, and a heavy machine gun and accessories are included that stow in the trailer. The markings are those of a vehicle of the 101st Airborne Division — COBI owns a 1944 Willys in exactly this scheme and used it as the reference.

The company that designed the Jeep did not build it

In 1940 the US Army asked 135 manufacturers for a light reconnaissance vehicle and gave them 49 days to produce a running prototype. One company met the deadline: American Bantam, a small firm in Butler, Pennsylvania, with fewer than twenty employees left on its books.

Bantam's design worked. The Army then decided Bantam was too small to build the quantity needed, handed the drawings to Willys-Overland and Ford, and let them build it. Willys refined the engine and put its name on the result. Bantam received an order for trailers instead — including the quarter-ton trailer in this set — and never built a single production Jeep.

Around 640,000 were made during the war. Bantam went out of the vehicle business entirely.

In the COBI range

Set 2805 is the Willys MB on its own with 1,207 pieces, and 2806 the medical version. Other 1:12 vehicles are the Kübelwagen (2802, 2803) and the Tiger 114 (2807).

Specifications

Pieces: 1,580 · Scale: 1:12 · Official Jeep licence · Includes trailer, machine gun and accessories
Model dimensions: 45 × 15 cm with trailer (17.7 × 5.9 in)