Random set of the day: Truck & Stunt Trikes
Posted by Huwbot,
Today's random set is 6739 Truck & Stunt Trikes, released in 2002. It's one of 10 Island Xtreme Stunts sets produced that year. It contains 199 pieces and 3 minifigs, and its retail price was US$30/£24.99.
It's owned by 800 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you might find it for sale at BrickLink or eBay.
Help me come to life! If you like the set I've chosen for you today, please pledge your support for me on LEGO Ideas so I have a chance of becoming an official LEGO set!
41 likes
25 comments on this article
I loved Extreme Island. It was one of those rare bright spots in the early 00s. The sets were so fun and interesting. I bought most of the smaller ones, but I never did get the truck or the tower. But still, even without the storyline that was going on here, these added some really interesting sets to my Lego City, and I was glad for them.
The legend himself, Pepper Roni
Ugly as sin, but solid play value. Plus you gotta love the chrome.
Look at that Chrome rail gate! Oh My my!
Eeeeewwww
Pretty cool theme, despite some juniorisation, and I like that they took inspiration from the videogame.
I recently picked up some of the smaller sets sealed on eBay and look forward to cracking them open once again.
Nice truck, for the early 2000s.
Cool truck, even comes with tools on the back.
Looks good imo, considering early 2000s had some weird stuff going on with jack stone and such.
Of course this still uses a rather simple huge piece for the trailer, but the rest of the pieces are mostly just bricks and plates and clips.
For a lack of a Town or City theme during this time (World City came 2 years later), I think this fills some of the gap, much better then Jack Stone of the same year.
Interestingly enough the 2002 road plates are advertised with both those themes in the same picture.
Also, the X from this theme is still used on sets to this date , like the 2020 60254: Race Boat Transporter
I gonna be the old guy here again and say: After so many spectacular truck designs in 90's, how did we end up with this?
@Lego_lord said:
"I gonna be the old guy here again and say: After so many spectacular truck designs in 90's, how did we end up with this?"
No, you're not alone, and I'm not an "old guy". This truck is just a slightly-enhanced Jack Stone set with minifigures replacing the Jack Stone figs. Themes like LEGO Island 2 and Galidor were the ugly flipside to a year that brought us a second, more amazing year of BIONICLE and a quantum leap forward for Star Wars sets.
As happens with most sets of this era, I have quite a few thoughts here.
1. Having just looked at the instructions, I see that this photo of the cab is taken from the most flattering angle. It looks pretty bad from the side.
2. This theme, though kinda lame when I look at the sets now, was a major factor in seven-year-old me becoming a Lego nerd. (Around this time, my brother and I found the original Lego Island game on discount at Best Buy.) I never got this set, but of course I wanted it, because I was too young to realize it was okay to not want every single set.
3. 2002 was an weird year for Lego design-wise. It was the first year of curved slopes, and they were used extensively. There were also a number of Jack Stone parts that made their way into normal sets, which can be seen here with the steps on each side of the cab as well as the single-piece trailer.
4. Is this the first 6-wide semi cab made for normal minifigures?
@Lego_lord said:
"I gonna be the old guy here again and say: After so many spectacular truck designs in 90's, how did we end up with this?"
The early 2000’s was a transitional period for LEGO. They experimeted with new parts and builds in order to find something more fitting for the new Millenium. Those experiments were a bit hit or miss, but they did get better over time, until the transition was fully complete in 2005.
Island Xtreme Stunts, juniorized? What are y'all smoking? It's probably only as juniorized as late 2010s City.
I wasn't interested in this particular set (I do agree that the truck looks... off), but 6740 Xtreme Tower remains one of my white whales and I've been tempted at least once to order a separate Infomaniac minifig off BrickLink... but I decided to put it off until I somehow come across a chance to get hold of the set itself.
For now, happy that I have Pepper, Sky, Snap, the Brickster and one henchman in 6738 Skateboard Challenge and 6735 Air Chase.
Speaking of the former, I wonder what the 2021 City skate park will be like?
@LegoSonicBoy said:
"Island Xtreme Stunts, juniorized? What are y'all smoking? It's probably only as juniorized as late 2010s City.
I wasn't interested in this particular set (I do agree that the truck looks... off), but 6740 Xtreme Tower remains one of my white whales and I've been tempted at least once to order a separate Infomaniac minifig off BrickLink... but I decided to put it off until I somehow come across a chance to get hold of the set itself.
For now, happy that I have Pepper, Sky, Snap, the Brickster and one henchman in 6738 Skateboard Challenge and 6735 Air Chase.
Speaking of the former, I wonder what the 2021 City skate park will be like?"
I have the Air Chase too, though it's in a pretty bad shape. It was one of my favorite sets and I played with it a lot.
I have fond memories of playing Lego Island 2 and looking through the late '90s/early '00s catalogs thinking what I could do if I had more of these sets.
Can one do much in the way of stunts with a chunky three-wheeler bike ?
Okay, I get the pun with Pepper Roni. I get the pun with Brickster. But am I missing the pun with Sky Lane or is there just not one there to see?
Ah the early 2000's ... the time where everyone was like... "What the brick, LEGO?!"
Yep, that’s a chrome exhaust pipe on a trike
Its interesting that Lego is starting to return to this juniorised style which clearly failed... People of the 2000s and 2010s really seem to ignore history's lessons....
@Mr__Thrawn said:
"The legend himself, Pepper Roni"
I always liked the other of the two main protagonists: Snap, who wore a Lego speedo in every single set he was in.
It’s the orange car doors parts pack! That is literally the only reason I care about this set.
@bookmum:
If you didn’t let off the gas, the tires were usually big enough that you could drive them over calm water. Of course, if you stopped, you tended to sink like a rock, since you were more “buoyant-adjacent” than “capable of floating”.
@Brickalili said:
"Okay, I get the pun with Pepper Roni. I get the pun with Brickster. But am I missing the pun with Sky Lane or is there just not one there to see?"
Sky Lane was the only character that was created for Island Xtreme Stunts. All the other named characters had been in both of the first Lego Island games.
I liked this theme, mostly for *FINALLY* giving us Pepper Roni in a physical minifigure form. Regrettably, my other favourite Lego video game character, Rocket Racer, never got such treatment; I guarantee that if they had made one of him, even if he came in the ugliest set ever, I would have, regardless, bought it just for him.
...still would now, honestly!
I never had this set, although it certainly appealed to me at the time... three of the major characters, and a whole lot of my favourite colour, orange, all in one set! Of course, at the time I also didn't realise that the trailer was one giant piece, oof. But in any case, I got the minifigure characters from Skateboard Challenge and Brickster's Trike, and didn't really need any more trikes (I had three by that point), so this kind of fell off my interest list after that.
I'd still kinda like to see it in person. I realise that it doesn't look spectacular but, to me, there's still a degree of nostalgic charm there even so.
I had a lot of fun with this thing as a kid. It's surprisingly good looking IRL for being made out of a bunch of repurposed jack stone bricks Lego probably had too many laying around of. I always hated the trikes, though. Lego tried forcing them on every late 90's kid and they just never gelled with me.
@BionicleJedi:
It came out in 2002, so I _did_ see it in person, at NYTF. I apparently wasn't impressed with it, or I might remember something about that. Now, granted, in 2002, I had all of eight days warning to prepare for a trip to NYC, so I was ill-prepared for the experience compared to my subsequent trips in 2003 and 2004. Your appointment lasted just an hour, so for someone running solo it was a challenge to document the stuff you were there to see, much less pay full attention to everything else in the room. The next year, I asked if it was possible to stick around and keeping shooting photos. They said that was fine, but that my guide would have to move on to his next appointment when the hour was up, so for my other two trips I bought a used laptop that I could haul around the room with me, and basically spent most of the day shooting tons of photos of _everything_, periodically checking them on my laptop, downloading the good shots, deleting the bad ones, and retaking any shots I was missing. I think those two years, I probably had the most comprehensive coverage of the entire showroom out of any AFOL site that was around at the time.