Random set of the day: Mobile Crane
Posted by Huwbot,
Today's random set is 955 Mobile Crane, released during 1979. It's one of 12 Technic sets produced that year. It contains 512 pieces.
It's owned by 276 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you should find it for sale at BrickLink or eBay.
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31 comments on this article
The early Technic sets have so much charm.
I got nothing, this is actually too cool to make fun of.
So ancient, but it's a work of art
I didn't have it but my friend did, so we traded just for building, I build his mobile crane and he build my 8860 car. Didn't own it but still got to build it.
@Maxbricks14 said:
"The early Technic sets have so much charm."
Yeah, those little pictures showing the mechanisms were great.
Technic turned out to be a bit of a waste for me, I didn't seem to have the mind for it to get much creative use out of it. But there probably is no other Lego set I had as a child that provided me with more fun. Played with both the crane and tip-truck versions to what was likely an unhealthy amount.
Small though it may be, if someone kicks you with this thing, you are indeed going down.
Love it.
LEGO is probably the main reason why I became an engineer.
@TheOtherMike said:
" @Maxbricks14 said:
"The early Technic sets have so much charm."
Yeah, those little pictures showing the mechanisms were great."
I love those schematics. It was really about the technical functions and engineering solutions back then. Now it's just the looks and branding.
They really got everything out of the technic parts that existed, back then. No lazy handful of new parts every year to solve design solutions when the very concept of Technic was so new that all technic parts were still just a couple of years old. But even then... this set is so beefy and heavy duty. So focussed on function. It's beautiful in how unabashedy focussed it is as a building toy.
Function over form until function becomes the form out of necessity. That's the essence of Technic.
From when Technic still looked like it owed a lot to Meccano
Considering the very limited parts range back then, the model looks good and works great. The very first Technic sets from 1977 had some design flaws, but the sets from 1978 and 1978 show improvements. Quite naturally, the designers also had to learn and to improve their skills.
My personal hero is 856 Bulldozer, imho from today's view it looks very realistic and works perfect.
An uncle of mine owns this set. As a kid back in the eighties I loved playing with it and his other lego sets. He owned a lot of technic.
Back when Technic was fun and educational - not just brands and unfunctional gearboxes packed in panels and stickers…
Kinda funny to see how these early Technic sets relied so heavily on regular System pieces, making for a very finished look. Dare I say almost Model Team avant la lettre? Very cool set, all about function yet still looking great.
This was my white whale when I was a kid! I used to stare at the pictures that showed you how you could make a bigger 4 axle mobile crane out of this set, 850 forklift and I believe one of the supplementary parts packs (?), but was never able to build it out of my collection at the time (I owned neither this set nor the forklift). As an adult collector I made sure to rectify this and now it stands proudly alongside fan favorite 42009.
I think this is the last Technic set I had before the dark ages hit. It was fantastic. Memories of it drove the purchase of 42082, which was also great.
I miss the old packaging - the lidded box and the vacuum-moulded plastic trays. Made the sets feel special. Wasteful in space, but spiffier than single use bags.
Also one of my fav models. I would often rebuild it as a three axle mobile crane with a cabin and steering.
I recent years, I made a smaller tribute to it using modern technic (Sorry for the spam)
https://flic.kr/p/2jQZAQj
The earliest technic used a lot of regular bricks, slopes and plates, as in, pieces without holes.
For this set, they did well with the limited color scheme available, the contrast between the vehicle sections is done really nice, and the alt-builds are very different from the main thing, basicly 3-in-1 long before it got a name, and even before Technic was used as a name.
As a 7 year old for some reason I was obsessed with steering wheels so I never had this, just the tractor and latterly (mint in a box) the forklift. This does look great though although like some others, I never had the engineers brain to be able to adapt Technic stuff into other things, I was more into buildings and structures. Probably why I ended up as a building engineer!
@darthmar said:
"An uncle of mine owns this set. As a kid back in the eighties I loved playing with it and his other lego sets. He owned a lot of technic.
"
Sometimes this site makes me feel old. I had this new as a child as my birthday present my first technical set as they were then called was my Christmas present in 1977 851
a great time for lego in the UK
1977 - Technical
1978 - Town with the new fangeled mini figures
1981 - 12v Trains
@thor96 said:
" @TheOtherMike said:
" @Maxbricks14 said:
"The early Technic sets have so much charm."
Yeah, those little pictures showing the mechanisms were great."
I love those schematics. It was really about the technical functions and engineering solutions back then. Now it's just the looks and branding. "
Unless the set has pneumatic functions. I love playing with 42128 .
@fredrigl : Very cool MOC.
@tomthepirate said:
"Love it.
LEGO is probably the main reason why I became an engineer."
Nice! Thanks for sharing.
I also became an engineer, but not a great big fan of Technic (still have 853 though), definitely more into Castle, Space, pirates, etc. Maybe that's why I've moved to sales/management (dealing more with people / minifigs). Maybe Lego still did that, haha,
I love the Technic sets from this era, I learned so much from them. Even little 8020 was one of the most bang-for-your-buck sets ever produced in terms of what you could build and learn from it. Like many of you, I too was inspired to go into engineering in part by these sets.
@thor96 said:
" @TheOtherMike said:
" @Maxbricks14 said:
"The early Technic sets have so much charm."
Yeah, those little pictures showing the mechanisms were great."
I love those schematics. It was really about the technical functions and engineering solutions back then. Now it's just the looks and branding. "
That's not the case with every set these days. Look at the 42146 Liebherr Crawler Crane for example.
Those early Technic sets taught young me how to make my creations stronger. It was easy to see the benefits using standard Lego connections and then adding connector pins and axles.
I recently bought 853 used in box on ebay, because it was originally available slightly before my time. I had 8860 as a kid (the largest set I ever had back then) though, which was awesome as well.
@Rimefang said:
"Those early Technic sets taught young me how to make my creations stronger. It was easy to see the benefits using standard Lego connections and then adding connector pins and axles."
Would that the person who designed the ventral hull of 10179 had learned that same lesson...
This reminds of my godfather's Technic set he had, i remember thinking that his 'special Lego' were nearly all yellow and had holes in the bricks!
@Euroseb11 said:
"This reminds of my godfather's Technic set he had, i remember thinking that his 'special Lego' were nearly all yellow and had holes in the bricks! "
They did previously make parts in Switzerland...
@PurpleDave said:
" @Euroseb11 said:
"This reminds of my godfather's Technic set he had, i remember thinking that his 'special Lego' were nearly all yellow and had holes in the bricks! "
They did previously make parts in Switzerland..."
Ah yes, Switzerland, land of incomplete cheese and incomplte bricks!