Random set of the day: Time Tunnelator
Posted by Huwbot,
Today's random set is 6495 Time Tunnelator, released in 1997. It's one of 4 Time Cruisers sets produced that year. It contains 81 pieces and 1 minifig, and its retail price was US$10.
It's owned by 1260 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you might find it for sale at BrickLink or eBay.
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33 comments on this article
Had LEGO yet created the concept of set designers by 1997, or were all of these odd sets designed by committee?
Proof that Denmark had a thriving drug scene in the late 90's?
Time Cruisers, man. It’s... something.
What the heck is even going on here?! That’s the most mismatched pile of parts I’ve seen in a
long time. Mini figure is really weird too.
Horrible design, lovely functionality.
I’d say someone came up with the wheels/wings/propeller concept, and that chewed up the budget for the rest of the set.
I received this set as a gift, many years ago. I never knew quite what to do with it. I liked the badguy figure -- Lego had plenty of heroic characters, by this point in its own canon, but few outrightly villainous ones -- so I added the figure to my Lego rogue's gallery (for my various heroes to fight), but the plane was just a source of spare parts. I'm not even sure where it ended up. I know the core frame of the model is still floating around somewhere, but after 20 years, or so, I ended up using the pieces for lots of other projects.
After graduating college and moving out on my own in 1995, my Dark Age ended. I collected A TON of sets from the end of 1995 through 1996 and scoured local toy shops for discontinued sets. As a Space fan, I managed to find Space Police II, Ice Planet 2002, Spyrius, Unitron, Exploriens, UFO, and Roboforce throughout that time. Picked up a lot of other sets from other themes too...but Time Cruisers? That was terrible. I avoided it completely...and it's one of the major reasons I lost interest. I slowed down my collecting when those came out in 1997. I got a few Insectoid sets since I sort of felt obligated to keep going. I also picked up a couple Star Wars sets when Episode I came out, but that was it. By 1999, I was done and collected not more than a couple token sets until the debut of the modular buildings. Those really got me interested again.
TL;DR: Time Cruisers was TERRIBLE!
Hey look it’s uncle Vernon riding a... spider batwing?
Time TWISTERS (Time Cruisers were the good guys) hit me like a bat out of hell on Christmas 1996 when my grand-dad gifted me the Twisted Time Train. Even back in the 1990s, sets for the next year were being put on shelves weeks earlier than release date on Wal-Mart shelves. I actually really liked the Time Cruisers theme, so a "sequel" in the form of villainous "Time Twisters" was a real treat. Obviously, of the detractors, none were children at the height of their LEGO fandom in 1996-1997!
That said, as wonderful as the Twisted Time Train was, it left something to be desired with the other two main releases, including this Time Tunnelator. First of all, LEGO dun goofed by having all the main characters in one set (Professor Millennium Twister, Tony Twister, and sidekicks). Therefore, there was little character incentive to get two more, smaller sets that had only one of the characters. And Time Tunnelator was the smallest. In the USA, it was bundled with a weird plastic decorative frame a la what was done with the Crystal Crawler a year earlier. But I doubt that monstrosity of a freebie encouraged additional sales. It sure didn't interest me.
In retrospect, I will concede that Time Twisters was too much of a good thing. LEGO hit quirky bronze with Time Cruisers in 1996, but it wasn't a multi-year sustainable theme like Aquazone had become after its 1995 debut. I almost wonder if the original plan was to release all Time Travel sets in 1996, with the Cruisers as the winter wave and the Twisters as the summer wave. That might explain why the Twisters only got three sets and the Cruisers got the largest ones overall.
For all it’s ahem mismatched parts I think we can all agree time cruisers was creative...
Yeah who am I kidding the theme was plain awful.
I always assumed Time Cruisers was LEGO clearing out the surplus parts from different sets over the years. This set is actually pretty bland compared to the crazypants bigger ones.
@Lego_Lord_Mayorca:
Yeah, I don’t think you’re going to win anyone over on this one. And that’s coming from a guy who ran a Bionicle site for three years.
I'm a proud non-owner of a single set from this theme.
I'll be honest, I actually kinda like the over the top wacky designs from this theme... I can't say they are objectively good, but they have a very weird sort of charm to them.
I keep forgetting that the Time Cruisers theme had bad guys. No idea what they want but they sure do exist
C H R O M E
I was about to enter my dark ages around that time. Themes and sets like this didn't help.
Woah, woah, came here for warmth and nostalgia, now leaving crying...
C’mon, let’s give some love to Twisters and Cruisers, they’re the B2F pop mix along with LEGO mania mentality. If you look at the theme closely, you’ll see how it is sort of LEGO Movie sets predecessor: connecting pieces that are usually not compatible or expected: boat haul and a train cabin, western brown brick wall on top of train wheels, BURPs alongside a rocket house... I actually built 6493, Flying Time Vessel, a year a go, and must say I was blown away with its presence; I still keep it on display, it’s larger than any Aquazone vehicle, and maybe even more appealing, and this comes from a huge Aquazone fan.
Alas, give some love to this underrated, misunderstood theme!
Table scraps to the rescue!
I've never come across this theme before, so although it appears a bit wacky and weird, it is something different, refreshing and creative outside the usual which I like. Reminds me of when you give a bucket of broken sets from different themes to 5-7 year old kids this is what they create. Although I doubt anyone would want to buy their creations and guessing the theme was dropped as didn't do well. Nowadays, there would by an animated series and youtube bloggers explaining everything so may do better and stand out in a crowded theme arena , which strangely fits within the Tongal concept.
I never had a time cruisers set. But I did my own things. Like Pirate and space ship combos. I liked the concept.
The Train-set with all the moving parts are cool, I like Mountain Lab as well but 6496 is easily the weirdest set Lego ever made.
I'm kinda a defender of Time Cruisers, too; at least, of the Mystic Mountain Time Lab, which was the first 'big' set I ever owned and that I still regard very fondly, even for all its wackiness. That said; at the time, I didn't even realise it was part of a theme, since I only found it in the local toy shop some years after its release, and assumed it was just a one-off stand-alone thing. Didn't discover the rest of them for several years.
Sets like this one *do* kinda make clear that Lego was trying to clear out a lot of their leftover parts after their various other themes ended, though. This one mostly seems to be made up of blue plates and surplus Fright Knights pieces, with a little bit of Western slapped on top as well. I like to think maybe that look is intentional; like, the character scraped this together out nothing but of junk and pure spite against the Time Cruisers. Presumably, he ditched this vehicle completely when the other guy with the train came along and they joined forces.
Have all the Time Twisters sets features as RSotD by now? I feel like they have.
y'know, 2020 has been so gonzo already, hey i might as well start collecting this theme now! add a touch of madness to my town. off to BrickLink . . . .
Well, it's about time.
Bought at a Target post-Christmas clearance sale, this set was the purchase that brought me out of my Dark Ages.
I disliked time cruisers at the time because it felt like Lego were telling me how to be creative.
Still don’t like them now. Not much changes in 25 or so years it seems
We had the Ice Tunnelator a few months back, now we’ve got the Time Tunnelator, now with absolutely nothing to do with tunnelling!
@Monopoly said:
"We had the Ice Tunnelator a few months back, now we’ve got the Time Tunnelator, now with absolutely nothing to do with tunnelling!"
Cf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Tunnel
Oh...
Once upon a time in my childhood, I nearly bought this beautiful thing...
So weird and wacky...
True 90' style!
For the second time in three days, we have a late-90s set that was released both with and without a promotional item. The other version of this set, 6499-1, came with a plastic "time machine":
https://img.bricklink.com/ItemImage/ON/0/6499-1.png
https://img.bricklink.com/ItemImage/GN/0/4110153.png
@BionicleJedi:
Hard to say. There's no permanent flag attached to set listings that have been featured, so you can't just skim down a theme to see what has and has not appeared. There's no search function within the RSotD listings that allow you to search by theme. And RSotD is not one of the available search parameters in the main search engine. Within RSotD, there is a way to search by year, but that's the year the article was published and has nothing to do with the year the set was released. So, short of actually digging through three years worth of backlog and running a manual tally, you'd have to get pretty creative to come up with an answer.
@captainpie:
I disliked it because it felt like they were telling me to just give up and throw stuff together randomly.
@phi13 said:
"For the second time in three days, we have a late-90s set that was released both with and without a promotional item. The other version of this set, 6499-1, came with a plastic "time machine":
https://img.bricklink.com/ItemImage/ON/0/6499-1.png
https://img.bricklink.com/ItemImage/GN/0/4110153.png"
I have the 6499 version with the promotional plastic "Time Machine". I'm hard-pressed to say which is more impressive, the LEGO model or the non-system plastic piece...