Classic LEGO sets: Town cars
Posted by Huw,
We resume our series of articles on classic LEGO sets with this one written by Wouter about classic Town cars:
I'm WoutStopmotion, a TFOL from the Netherlands. Despite being born after a lot of Town sets were released, I still favour older LEGO rather than newer LEGO. The sets were simpler back then, using the bricks there were. There weren't a million brick colours, nor bricks wouldn't be made simply because they were needed in a set. The same goes for minifigures, at least, for me.
For the past few weeks, I have been adding sets to my collection for this article, mostly cars. Despite the second piece (and a few other articles) in the series being about cars, it more or less talked about trucks and utility vehicles. A well-running LEGO town also needs some normal vehicles and race cars, right?
6644 - Road Rebel
Coming from 1990 is the Road Rebel. It features one minifigure, a red sports car, a trailer and a black motorcycle. I'm not sure what the Road Rebel from the title actually is - it could be the car, or the motorcycle. That doesn't take away that it's a nice little set which used to retail at $6. For the price, you get what I described. The red car, although small, looks very nice. It has a neat tilted spoiler, a yellow stripe on the bottom, and it's definitely distinguishable as a sports car. The key part of the set has got to be the motorcycle though. It's a racing motorcycle - number three, as the tiles on it tell us - in a classic 90's design. Altogether, if you'd want to fill your Town with some small vehicles, this is a good choice. Boxed sets go around $25, but without box you can find it for in between $6 and $13.
1665 - Dual FX Racers
Again from 1990 are the Dual FX Racers. This set contains a few minifigures and two race cars, one in a black and yellow scheme and the other is red and white. The cars in the set are technically six studs wide, which really is an odd one out compared to the other line of vehicles released in the 90's mostly being four studs wide. This set features some interesting piece usages, the yellow spoiler being a snow scoop attached with a few hinge bricks and using grey cups as engine parts. With the small amount of pieces (at least, it's less than we have today) available, these racers still look nice and have some nice details. I think they have not outdated a single bit, even though they have been released in 1990.
I'm not a big expert on eBay as we have our Dutch equivalents for it, but this set doesn't seem to be available anywhere right now, most likely seeing as this is a limited release.
6530 - Sport Coupe
Contrary to a lot of internet searches, this car isn't from 1992, but from 1990. Although this is a very small set, it has a sleek and futuristic design and looks very modern. What mainly imposes here has got to be the windows. They really just connect as a whole, which looks pretty much awesome. Since this is a smart-car, yes, it's very comparable to the infamous 3177 City Car. The set contains a female minifigure with a suitcase. Although there's not many play features, the roof can flip open which looks very nice. Just like the previous set, this is a very good choice for adding smaller vehicles to your LEGO city. This set can go between $40 and $50 MISB, but I got it without box for just $6.
This also has a police counterpart with lower wheels and a modified back bumper as set 6625, Speed Trackers.
6648 - Mag Racer
1992 also saw the release of the Mag Racer, a buggy-like rally racing vehicle. And of course, everyone's favourite gasoline company has sponsored this awesome vehicle! The design is neat and looks just like what a buggy should look like, its Octan colour scheme works very well for the model. Not to mention that the printed spoiler (just like the Dual FX Racers) is a really nice part usage of a snow scoop. It comes with one minifigure which is unique to this set, which is (interestingly) a Blacktron minifigure with a red helmet. Probably the coolest feature about this car is that it's wheels have springs. If you'd want to build a car with hydraulics AND collect some old sets at the same time, this little rally car will work out very well! This set is priced cheaply around $6 to $9 and none are available in the box at the time I wrote this.
6646 - Screaming Patriot
To end this article, I've chosen to get and review set 6646, the Screaming Patriot. It's a very desirable set that's probably looked after by a lot of collectors. For anywhere between $7 and $15 you can get yourself this awesome custom muscle car. Although the car may look a bit square-y, it's perfectly big and obviously very American, sporting a red, white and blue paint job, two gigantic exhaust pipes and a spoiler made out of two printed tiles featuring stars and stripes. There's some interesting features used, such as smaller front wheels to give the car a powerful slanted look, the spoiler being put a little towards the front and like a few other cars I've reviewed, red cups as engine parts. The big exhausts really make this set stand out. They look very nice coming out of the engine and really give this car it's charm. All in all, this is a fun themed car which you should really get. I've already stated some prices, but sets in the box go around $60 at the moment.
That was my contribution for this series of articles. I really hope you enjoyed reading and now are considering yourself to get one of the mentioned sets, because they're awesome!
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Thanks Wouter. Would you like to contribute to this series of articles? If so, get in touch!
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23 comments on this article
Awww... I used to have them all. I think I still have them somewhere in pieces and in bins marked classic bricks.
I will look at them with nostalgia but I won't buy them even if they are still in production today. I have moved on. Now I collect all sorts of brick colours and parts. And I love details, details and more details. The classic sets are too simple for my taste, which is the reason why I stopped collecting Legos in the early 90s and only resumed in 2007 when Cafe Corner came out.
What I always liked about Screaming Patriot was the 1x6 arches for the rear fenders. And yeah, those red goblets were sweet.
6530 is such a great set! The cockpit-window-piece combined with the standard windshield - just perfect.
Your point about the last article and the fact that more of these are racers than normal cars really does show how few normal cars Lego do. A Lego city road must look really odd with nothing but service vehicles on it, kinda like the Lego city itself with nothing but police and fire stations!
Nice article by the way, thanks for putting it together. :)
old lego it's cool
You know, I've never seen 1665 before in my life. That looks like a sweet set.
I loved the old style of vehicles. Maybe it's from growing up with 80s and 90s Lego Town cars, but the current 6-wide vehicles just don't do it for me.
Very good and enjoyable article!
I`ve never seen 1665 either. Otherwise, I got all the rest on my shelf. Thanks for mentioning the Police set 6625 in relation to 6530! I`ve never managed to get this police set to have both 6530 and 6625. After you mentioned it again, I will try to get it.
I remember 6646 being also called "California Fun Car" and I spent hours of racing with it against 6648.
Once again - nice reading.
Seems a tad ironic that a TFOL is using the tired (and now debunked) cliche of older LEGO sets being "simpler" and with pieces being less specialised. I thought we were above that sort of thing...
^Agreed. It seems like more of an excuse to whinge about the nostalgia of 'their' generation and how they miss the so called 'simple' times.
6646 was one of the first sets that I was given as a kid and holds a special place in my heart. I really do enjoy that set!
Hah, I remember a time when the people in my town couldn't even get into their cars. Which were much, much simpler than the ones in this article. ;)
Honestly, none of these sets do anything for me. They are from just after my first Lego-period, so there are no romantic memories. And I never really liked race-cars somehow. So that only leaves 6530, which just doesn't look right to me.
To me, the modern 4-wide cars really are an improvement on everything that came before.
Well it was simpler times :P Back then: "Mommy I want that LEGO set" and you got it.
Now: "Ahh I have no money!"
I agree, that's a nice article about modern Lego cars, hey @jf ;-)
At least 1665 explains where a couple of random parts in a recent fleeBay purchase came from :-)
The 6646 screaming patriot! Two weeks ago I finally acquired it! As with Wouter, these sets are before my time. I grew up in the late nineties, when we got ResQ and the like. When I saw 6646 I new it was something special. It's just such a beautiful and unique model. After a year or two I finally found one for cheap. I was on a countrywide train travel when I had to wait for a train in Ede. There was a market going on, so I decided to take a look. And there, at the first stall, I finally found one. Great stuff.
Was 3177 infamous? I used to own it and it was a nice car, albeit small.
Thanks for the great article. You made me want to get a 6648, which looks very promising. Keep it up!
6530 always reminds me of the Surma Brothers' work:
http://surmalegobros.blogspot.com/2013/02/6530.html
6648 - Mag Racer is a small masterpiece and mine is still put together from the day I first bought it new when it was released.
It's fun, it looks cool, it's got working suspension, and holy crap, the minifig really IS a Blacktron dude with a red helmet! I had totally forgotten about that!
Whow, thanks for all the comments! Glad everyone liked the article and the sets.
@Zordboy @ChicoCheco
How i found these sets was just by browsing around Brickset until i found something that appealed to me, bought it, and wrote about it. I wouldn't really know either about 1665, but according to Brickset's data it was a limited release, thus sold at fewer places which is probably why not many people have it.
@UtarEmpire @LegoAdventures
I'm definitely not one of those people that consider themselves a 90's kid because they were born in the 90's and probably didn't even live any of the 90's. I just prefer older Lego over newer Lego for the reasons i wrote about. It sounds like a cliche, but really, i feel like newer Lego is different and less simple than older Lego. When i look at these five sets displayed on my desk, i mostly see white, yellow, black, and a bit of green and blue. For example, the colour palette that Lego has nowadays has been expanded a LOT with newer Lego.
Where a car like the Road Rebel had striked the appearance of a sportscar with only a few ridged bricks and a yellow stripe, nowadays with the average car set you'd need a specialized SNOT bumper piece or two, lots of sloped and curved bricks and at least four of those 4x4-ish bricks with those curved trims, you know?
With the more limited amount of pieces and colours available in the late 80's - early and mid 90's, sets would need strong design to impose, and i feel like most sets from that era (the five cars i reviewed in particular) had it. The newer sets just don't feel as creative and strong as older sets to me. It's really why i prefer the older sets - they're simple but they are designed very well and really just strike.
@Binnekamp
Well, 3177 is a small impulse set and a LOT of people have bought it. Over 9000 people have owned it on Brickset alone! I wouldn't know what else it is than infamous.
@Wouterstopmotion
Infamous is the negative version of renowned or popular. In dutch it would be 'berucht' instead of 'beroemd' (famous). I wondered if you meant that a lot of people think it is a bad set. If that was the case, I would be quite surprised.
I do agree that the simplicity of the sets from the eighties and nineties have a certain charm to them. That doesn't mean I don't like the new sets. I just see them as a different style. Each is great in their own way!
these look nice. i wish i had one
Nice article! Cool to see something about classic Lego by a TFOL
I'm still waiting for the article on Lego Adventurers, considering how vast it is. If you'd like, Huw, I wouldn't mind doing an article like this on the Adventurers Egypt, Amazon, Dino Island, Studios, and or Orient Expedition (except that may be too modern). Let me know what you think.
@sooperlegodude
Well, going on secondhand websites like Ebay (i don't use Ebay myself as we have sites like Marktplaats in the Netherlands so i don't know how it works) and searching up some set numbers can easily get you one!
@chrismajor2124
http://brickset.com/article/11466/classic-lego-sets-adventurers
Hasn't this article been mentioned twice now? By the way, thanks!
@WoutStopmotion - haha yes! It does exist! Well, I guess I need to pay more attention to my Brickset news feed. :)
I really like 6530. Git it as a birthday present, and it looked so different than all earlier 4w cars.