Random set of the day: Extreme Team Challenge
Posted by Huwbot,
Today's random set is 6584 Extreme Team Challenge, released in 1998. It's one of 61 Town sets produced that year. It contains 350 pieces and 4 minifigs, and its retail price was US$50.
It's owned by 941 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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34 comments on this article
This came out the same year as RES-Q. Of the two sub-themes, I definitely preferred RES-Q, but I still bought a few of the X-treme sets. It was just nice that, during the time when Town was little more than juniorised junk, these sub-themes were at least trying.
Pretty sure that dude in the raft is about to die...
Excellent! [furious air guitar riff]
Thank god its not a Star Wars set...
X-Treme team was a great subtheme without too much of that Town Jr juniorisation effect. Love that suspension bridge!
Looks like LEGO made a Fast & Furious set in 1998
Awesome! Or I should say Extreme! Raised baseplate, the rock formation’s construction, the use of BURP and LURP, that piece w springs for wheels, the chassis for the off road vehicle, the cloth tent, those printed planks for the bridge, and more. It has lots of playability. Love it.
I loved Xtreme Team when I was a kid. Always wanted this set. My mom found one on eBay for Christmas for me one year when I was younger, but unfortunately it wasn't a complete set and a lot was missing - including most of the main structure, the baseplate, and the yellow 3-wheeler.
Wow! I’m dizzy just looking at that box art.
Man that set brings back memories, this line needs a revival.
Unique: 3
6636 1x4 tile with wood grain print in yellow x10
61880 8x8 camping tent with Extreme Team logos in yellow x1
6024 32x32 raised baseplate, mountain terrain with river print in light grey x1
Rare: 2
4466 11L exhaust piping left side in chrome silver x1
4467 11L exhaust piping right side in chrome silver x1
This was one of those "super cool at the time" sets for me that over time lost its appeal. For May 1998, it was my second year to make the school Honor Roll (basically having all A scores in every subject) and earn what my father dubbed the "Honor Roll Gift". He made a deal with me the year before that if I made all A's and made the Honor Roll for the entire school year, he would get me a gift of up to $50 in value. It could be anything, but normally, it was LEGO. 1998 presented me with a tough choice for this gift. Either get this set, or the 6180 Hydro Search Sub. Now, I had been a die-hard Aquazone fan since the theme began in 1995, but the Extreme Team set just had too much good stuff going for it. At the store, I made my choice and my dad bought this set for me.
At home, I got to work building. A big part of the appeal of this set for me was the raised baseplate, which ended up being the third one I ever got new in a set (the other two from the Neptune Discovery Lab). Additionally, it had the BURP and LURP, which I had precious few of, and the CHROME exhaust pieces that I loved so much from the Hot Rod Club in 1994. Throw in some neat play features (the rickety bridge, the log-activated trapdoor in the tent, and the avalanche trigger along the shoreline) and some fun vehicles, and I was set for an amazing amount of imaginative adventures. I definitely played with this set a lot, zipping the minifigures down the zipline or knocking the four-wheeler into the river from the bridge.
As the years went on, though, and as I got more aggressive in my collecting, I noticed distinctly how less frequently I would play with this set. EXTREME action seemed tame to me in a world of Star Wars battles and BIONICLE myths sprung to life. Eventually, I was spending more time dusting the set than actually playing with it. For this reason, it was one of the first sets I disassembled and packed up for my family's move in 2003. I haven't rebuilt it since, partially out of shame for how badly the white parts have yellowed, but mainly because out sets I have from 1998, I have a better one to show off.
If you guessed, "Hydro Search Sub", you'd be correct! A few years ago, I told my inner, May 1998 self, "por que no los dos?" and snagged it from eBay. But you never know; one day, Max, Rex, Alexis, and Dex (I think that was the fourth minifigure's name) may once again take to the wild slopes of Mt. Legovest.
350 pieces for 50$? Man, the value here is a bit rough. However, despite the low piece count, the volume of stuff in the set does indeed create the illusion of being worth the price.
I really wish LEGO would still focus on giving us substantial builds on a low piece count instead of unsatisfyingly small builds with a high piece count, like a lot of their sets today.
@Zordboy said:
"This came out the same year as RES-Q. Of the two sub-themes, I definitely preferred RES-Q, but I still bought a few of the X-treme sets. It was just nice that, during the time when Town was little more than juniorised junk, these sub-themes were at least trying. "
Yeah, it’s a shame, after 22-23 years, city is a juniorized junk again but this year (and last year too) without normal sub-themes.
Driving on a 4-wide rope bridge on a 5-wide ATV while monitoring a raft through binoculars? That _is_ an extreme challenge! After all, we subconsciously steer in the direction our eyes are tracking, so this guy is almost certain to end up following that raft over the waterfall. Meanwhile, one of the other guys is about to lose his fingers by trying to basically support the entire weight of the zip-liner, which will most likely end up with that guy also losing his one-handed grip and leaving Fingerless Joe to try to save three drowning victims all by himself. Definitely extreme.
I'm not quite sure how that big foot made across that flimsy rope bridge, but all things put together it's a cool set.
Extreme Team has always been the theme that got away for me. I was fascinated by it when I was little, but by the time it caught my notice it was at the point of being retired.
Huwbot keeps on giving us some goody-goodies.
I'm so happy that I still have this ! What a great theme this was
@MCLegoboy said:
"Pretty sure that dude in the raft is about to die...
Excellent! [furious air guitar riff] "
And he's gone...
Bogus!
Not specifically about this set: when I was a kid (middle '00s) there were lots of chinese counterfeits of older LEGO sets. When LEGO retired the themes like Res-Q or this Xtreme Team, nearly a decade later all these sets made with fake bricks were sold in Poland (and I guess not just Poland).
They were obviously of terrible quality, but to a kid like me, it was the only way to enjoy the sets that came before my time. And somehow, even then I found them more appealing than the newer sets.
So now whenever I can spare the budget I try to collect the real deal on these sets which as you know is not an easy or cheap task.
My largest set I've actually owned back in the day. Good times. My baseplate is still in decent condition.
Um... @PurpleDave ...Minifigures are 'fingerless' (hence: Rock, Paper, Claw...doesn't explain 'Mechs' w/thumbs, but then again: figure out Lego-Mechs w/knees and elbows...:D)...but the rest of your observations are correct: we tend to 'move' in direction we're 'looking' (took me a loooong time to develop...'countermeasures' shall we say. When I use to play road hockey, I could 'look' like I was going to pass, but then shoot while still looking at my teammate...fooled a few goalies that way...). And a 5-wide on a 4-bridge is a recipe for disaster, even a the best of times (basically, you're driving on 'the rims').
The bridge is 6 wide not 4.
@brick_r:
Minifigs have four fingers...two on each hand.
@AndyB1:
Yeah, I was going by the “unique parts” list that @Galaxy12_Import posted, even though I didn’t think 1x4 woodgrain tiles were available back then. Still, 5-wide driving on a 6-wide rope bridge with no guardrails doesn’t leave a ton of room for error.
The zip wire drew me to this set, although disappointed that it is just the tow rope from the jeep, meaning it would be difficult to recreate the creative box art without having any fixed attachment points to keep the tension in the rope. Also unsure how the middle front wheel of the tricycle is going to go up the ramp with no plate in the middle?
@ ambr: The tricycle is going to do a Wheelie, it's called X-treme for something.
For being from the Town Juniors era, this is surprisingly good.
Of course there are some big pieces , but springs on the quad, a boat, a raised baseplate , big rock pieces , and ropes with studs, chromed exhaust pipes, zipline , trike, and some cool figures with flame printed helmets.
I only recently discovered this set. I love raised baseplates, and was looking through the list on bricklink and discovered this set. I bought a nice copy for around the original price. For the set itself, I think the mountain is neat, and the printed yellow board pieces are really cool (I'm a sucker for printed pieces).
But the real reason I got it is I've gathered the additional parts to build most of 6079 Dark Forest Fortress with it since the baseplate mold is the same. No way I could ever pay the used market price for that set, so I'll have a rocky river version of it instead.
I would have done anything for this set when I was a kid.
In the UK, or at least in the UK Lego Adventures magazine, these guys were called Jimmy Brave (the blue one), Daredevil Tom (red) and Fearless McCoy (green); and the guy in white never featured at all, so I don't know if he even had a matching name. They were basically professional stuntmen who put on big daredevil stunt shows with their oversized vehicles... hence the somewhat ridiculous names, which were probably meant to be stage names, and not what they called each other when they weren't performing!
I don't know if that means that most of the danger depicted here is just staged, or if they really were JUST THAT EXTREME. Probably meant to be the latter, tbh, given that this was the 90s!
Also, like. A full half of the comics they featured in were about Jailbreak Joe making off with one of their vehicles mid-show (respectively, 6580 and 6585), and the team having to abandon the show and chase him down to take it back.
I don't really have a specific opinion on Extreme Team, generally. It's mildly nostalgic to me due to featuring in those magazines, which were what really cemented my Lego interest in 1999 for years to come; but in general just doesn't appeal to me on the same level that several of its contemporary themes do. Still cool to see it turn up here, though ^^
Is that white hatted dude on the left ghost riding the whip?
Is that the right slang? Am I down with the kids properly?
This was definitely a set I drooled over as a kid. X-treme team was cool, and this set was a montain! with a raised baseplate!
A few years ago I acquired about half this set in a used lot. I only know it was this set because of the 1x6 printed tiles. It was missing the baseplate, but as luck would have it, i got that baseplate from bricklink when a seller incorrectly sent this one instead of the one used in a couple pirate sets, like Enchanted Island.
Some X-treme Team sets make good Blacktron started packs. Not this one. very little black and white. And trans Neon green is quite lacking. Dex isn't half bad, though.
Karl had a love of X-Treme sports, and especially white water rafting. We all remember his immortal last words "hey, watch this!"
@TeriXeri:
From the comments, it sounds like (Brickset/Bricklink catalogs notwithstanding) Town got Stoned, and other like-Town-but-not-Town themes were created to fill the void. And they were clearly trying to jump on the pre-prequels SW bandwagon with heavy emphasis on individual letters like “Q” and “X”.