Ohhhhh, that takes me back.

I never had this set myself, but I had similar ones, and could probably have recreated this with the parts from my childhood inventory.

I'd love to see a minifig scale remake of this set, with a 1950s/1960s station wagon and small aircraft of that same era being towed.

They did make a glider set similar to this although as usual it was exclusive to certain stores and was never released in Australia to my knowledge.

This set reminds me a lot of matchbox toys, roughly the same size and with a similar stretched realism (the plane looks slightly out of scale to the car). I like the trailer piece, although that square tail for the aeroplane annoys me LOL.

@MCLegoboy said:
"Are station wagons good for hauling airplanes?"

If it has a V8, no problem, speed and power! (I still wouldnt recommend hauling an airplane down the highway with attached wings, whether youve got a powerful station wagon or not.)

@Brickchap said:
"I'd love to see a minifig scale remake of this set, with a 1950s/1960s station wagon and small aircraft of that same era being towed.

They did make a glider set similar to this although as usual it was exclusive to certain stores and was never released in Australia to my knowledge.

This set reminds me a lot of matchbox toys, roughly the same size and with a similar stretched realism (the plane looks slightly out of scale to the car). I like the trailer piece, although that square tail for the aeroplane annoys me LOL.

"

Almost looks like 60289 was inspired by this.

I still have this set from my childhood! Had completely forgotten about it until I did a full inventory of all my parts a couple of years ago and rediscovered it, then triggering the memories of playing with the little yellow plane came flooding back.

I remember inheriting one of those trailers when I was a kid in the early 80s. They are so POOPie they put the late 90s to shame.

I welcome VSotW, but does it have to replace RSotD for the day?

@MCLegoboy said:
"Are station wagons good for hauling airplanes?"

Well, we're currently on our second station wagon and we have to replace it within the next 5 months and we've never hauled airplanes with any of them. So I can confidently say that not hauling airplanes isn't necessarily better for a station wagon.

Wow, I was really not expecting to see that trailer piece! I’m surprised the two vintage sets so far have both contained a single specialised brick. It’s interesting to see that models weren’t quite as ‘basic’ as I presumed pre-minifigures.

I have 3 or 4 of those blue trailers from when I was a kid - and every one of them has the ramp at the end snapped off. And I can't for the life of me remember doing it.........

I forgot today would be vintage day!

Lots of interesting stuff in the LEGOLAND line to look forward to. Thanks again Huwbot!

@OneIsLit said:
""Lego was so much better when I was a kid. They didn't rely on all those specialized pieces." :-D"

And by coincidence, part of the day is literally the right half of a cockpit for a direct contrast

I also had the trailer part when I was a kid, larger specialist part I had, good for transporting cars as there was a block to prevent the wheels rolling back. I never tried an aeroplane and looks like the propeller would hit the back of the station wagon on straight roads?

If you want to look at 'vintage' 'specialized' parts, have a look at set 378 tractor. It has parts 870, 871, 872, 873, 874 which has been used in only 3 sets (4 but two of them are the same). Even more specialised is part bb0085 which has solely been used in this set - it would also be a serious challenge to use this part in another setting - I know some creators are good at this and really would like to see what they come up with!

There are lots of specialised part in such a small set (35 parts). Even the large digger bucket arm has only been used in 4 different sets. Same for the tipper end slopped in only 10 different sets.

Edit: the blue trailer is actually quite rare being in only 3 different sets - (but I believe 492/692 was quite common at some point).

@OneIsLit:
Ah, the good ol’ days, when everything looked like it was speed-carved out of a block of wood by a one-eyed pirate with a chainsaw.

@gorf43:
Engine size alone won’t do it. There’s a reason you don’t see people towing big trailers with sports cars. You need torque, and a transmission that won’t get cooked. For a lightweight trailer load, you still might need to get a transmission cooling system installed. Towing a full plane, even if you didn’t have to worry about clearing obstacles with those wings, you’d potentially have a fight on your hands if the wings interact with airflow from driving forward, or from crosswinds. I’ve ridden shotgun in a compact car during gusty crosswinds, and the only thing keeping us on the road was the fact that there was no other traffic, and the driver could safely drive in the opposing lane, giving him time to react and steer us away from a deep ditch when the wind picked up. I can’t imagine trying to do that with three rigid sails mounted to a trailer.

@peterlmorris:
Typically, fixed-wing aircraft are flown to mechanics, or mechanics are flown to them. You’d basically need to have a mechanic clown out to remove the wings before you could trailer it and tow it to a mechanic to repair what’s wrong and reattach the wings. Boats go on trailers because you can get boats that are smaller than cars, you can’t easily transfer them from one body of water to another without going overland, waterfront “parking” is expensive, and you can’t leave them in the water during winter unless you run a bubbler. Planes can get nearly anywhere on their own, just need open space to land and park, have less issues with winter weather, tend to be very wide, and can be stored by either putting them in a barebones hanger or tied down to the ground. I’ve even heard of neighborhoods where the road doubles as a runway for people who want to be able to park their plane in their own garage.

@HOBBES:
Digger bucket arm 828 on Bricklink, shows four different Universal Building Sets, the tractor set you cited, a road construction set with NA/EU variants, and four service packs that each consist of the digger arm and bucket with the 1x2 brick to mount them. Sloped tipper end 3436 on Bricklink shows 12 sets, with two being the exact same NA/EU road construction set (so basically 11). None of the parts you listed ranged 870-874, or bb0085 use the same part numbers on Bricklink, and the only 8xx numbers are 800, 827, and 828.

I’ve mentioned this before, but this is one of the quirky differences between Brickset and Bricklink. Brickset automatically downloads set inventories from the LEGO servers, and can’t be edited. Older inventories especially tend to have a lot of inaccuracies, and revisions wipe out earlier inventories for the same set, but the flip side is that it allows access to official part numbers that haven’t historically been molded into the parts, and official color data that differs from observational sources. Bricklink uses manually created set inventories that can be edited at any point, can track inventory revisions for any given set, but errors do slip in, and people adding parts sometimes have to make up part numbers and guess at colors. From what so understand, Rebrickable uses a blend of the two systems, with manual adjustments to official inventory data.

What a great looking little set, I love it!

@PurpleDave said:

@gorf43:
Engine size alone won’t do it. There’s a reason you don’t see people towing big trailers with sports cars. You need torque, and a transmission that won’t get cooked. For a lightweight trailer load, you still might need to get a transmission cooling system installed. Towing a full plane, even if you didn’t have to worry about clearing obstacles with those wings, you’d potentially have a fight on your hands if the wings interact with airflow from driving forward, or from crosswinds. I’ve ridden shotgun in a compact car during gusty crosswinds, and the only thing keeping us on the road was the fact that there was no other traffic, and the driver could safely drive in the opposing lane, giving him time to react and steer us away from a deep ditch when the wind picked up. I can’t imagine trying to do that with three rigid sails mounted to a trailer.

True theres a lot more than just speed and power, its all really about the gearing with basically any size of engine. But an airplane like this shouldnt be too heavy excluding air resistance should it? And yes, now that you mention it, the wings offer a much bigger issue than bonking into things. Your wagon might hold the road ok, but your trailer and plane would definitely cause trouble at high speeds.

@gorf43:
From the standpoint of your towing vehicle, any trailer is going to put more load on the transmission, and cause it to heat up. For vehicles designed to two heavy loads, the transmission would have been selected to make sure it can handle those loads. You might have an engine that’s got power to spare, but if towing the trailer causes your transmission temp to creep upward, eventually the transmission fluid will break down and you’ve got a very expensive repair bill to look forward to. If you rent a U-Haul trailer, in addition to trailer hitches for vehicles that rent already equipped, they offer an aftermarket transmission cooling booster that will increase the rate a which heat is being drawn away from the transmission fluid and (hopefully) keep it from breaking down and wrecking your transmission.

From the load standpoint, the plane is designed to cut through the air. It shouldn’t create much direct resistance to airflow. But if you don’t trim it correctly, it may try to fly, and lift your trailer off the ground. This will cause serious control issues. Conversely, if you trim it badly in the other direction, it may create too much downforce. This would put a heavy load on the tongue, compress your rear suspension on the towing vehicle, put more stress on the trailer tires (risking a blowout). Even if you trim it correctly, the large surface area of the wings and tail will tend to catch crosswinds and rock the trailer side to side, or even risk rolling it onto the leeward wing.

Could it be done? I wouldn’t want to just tow it on a daily basis like a small fishing boat. You’d really need to detach the wings, which is a lot more complicated than it first appears , since there’s a lot of internal control mechanisms that also need to be detached at the same time. I’d also want to be 100% certain of clear, calm weather the entire trip. Loading it into an enclosed trailer might be the best option, over a flatbed. And even with the wings down, you’d still need to watch height clearance. There’s a railroad overpass near where I work that has had an impact bar installed to bear the brunt of inattentive truckers thinking they’re fine, only to sardine-can their trailer as they it it at full speed. It would be less traumatic to this vehicle, but the tail structure of the plane could be destroyed if it strikes something.

@PurpleDave said:
" @HOBBES:
Digger bucket arm 828 on Bricklink, shows four different Universal Building Sets, the tractor set you cited, a road construction set with NA/EU variants, and four service packs that each consist of the digger arm and bucket with the 1x2 brick to mount them. Sloped tipper end 3436 on Bricklink shows 12 sets, with two being the exact same NA/EU road construction set (so basically 11). None of the parts you listed ranged 870-874, or bb0085 use the same part numbers on Bricklink, and the only 8xx numbers are 800, 827, and 828.

I’ve mentioned this before, but this is one of the quirky differences between Brickset and Bricklink. Brickset automatically downloads set inventories from the LEGO servers, and can’t be edited. Older inventories especially tend to have a lot of inaccuracies, and revisions wipe out earlier inventories for the same set, but the flip side is that it allows access to official part numbers that haven’t historically been molded into the parts, and official color data that differs from observational sources. Bricklink uses manually created set inventories that can be edited at any point, can track inventory revisions for any given set, but errors do slip in, and people adding parts sometimes have to make up part numbers and guess at colors. From what so understand, Rebrickable uses a blend of the two systems, with manual adjustments to official inventory data."

Not that it matters much or at all, and this is a case of how to look at things, but I do not count service pack as a 'set'. Also, set 911 of 1976 is exactly the same as set 402 of 1977. Similarly, set 912 of 1976 is the same as set 404 of 1977. So the part is available in (1)378, (2)387/780, (3)911/402 and (4)912/404. Same idea for the slopped part: 912 same as 404 and 387 same as 780: moves from 12 to 10. Not that important really in the grand scheme of things, but a small sets with many 'rare-ish' and specialised parts.

I see what you are saying about part numbers differing depending on the platform. On Brickset, the main 'tractor' part is only known as part 827. On Bricklink, part 827 refers to the same part but it is then said that this part is made up of 5 parts: {870:874}. I suppose this is not a problem that will ever disappear; heck, different platforms cannot even agree on the colours of Lego bricks! (mind you, I prefer Bricklink colours than the official Lego colour names).

@HOBBES said:
"I suppose this is not a problem that will ever disappear; heck, different platforms cannot even agree on the colours of Lego bricks! (mind you, I prefer Bricklink colours than the official Lego colour names)."
Now THAT is an issue that I've been hoping would be resolved with Lego's acquisition of Bricklink. Having the same colors named differently makes it more challenging to try and match colors when buying across both sites. Yes, I'm sure many of you have both sets of color names memorized and know which is which...but it's a challenge for those of us who don't go part shopping often.

I had it and I still like it.
Btw, if you think, oh, a pretty common 4*10 plate in red - last time it was in a set was 2000...

I got this set as a child when it first came out. I was visiting my grandparents in Denmark and got this one and several other small sets that wold fit in my suitcase. It becomes part of my town setup that I built in the basement of my home along with two early trains, hospital, fire station, villa, a white single store house, and other vehicles that I played with it for hours and hours when I was a young kid. I still have it and the instructions. Thank you for featuring these older sets and bringing back all those memories!

@marengho said:
"I had it and I still like it.
Btw, if you think, oh, a pretty common 4*10 plate in red - last time it was in a set was 2000..."
And now in somewhat shorter supply due to a certain 'Tipper Truck Army'!

Very basic set. Still much better than 60343...

And I remember even as a kid I thought that one piece trailer was out of place with Lego.

That style of car was all I made when I was about 6 - I used to use a longer plate to allow a longer bonnet (hood) with the front wheels set back (the later type on a plate rather than a brick) and mounted on a 2x2 turntable plate for steering...

@WizardOfOss said:
"Very basic set. Still much better than 60343..."

"Better" is a matter of opinion, but it's definitely a quicker build!

@OneIsLit said:
""Lego was so much better when I was a kid. They didn't rely on all those specialized pieces." :-D"

No they were not...

You do not have to buy sets that need more advanced designs, in fact you have a million more choices now and can build with Classic set if you want.

I think I found that old blue trailer with ramp in a LEGO lot I bought at some point, really neat.

@HOBBES:
Yeah, I know Service Packs aren’t really treated the same as full sets, and it doesn’t help that these four are identical except packaging. I scanned the piece counts for the Universal Sets, and missed that two had the same count, but Bricklink shows an 8pc difference between 911 and 402. I don’t know if any of these are legitimate, or if there all data entry errors, but here’s what I was able to find that was different between 911/402:

1/2: 3024 Blue Plate 1x1
1/2: 3032 Blue Plate 4x6
1/2: 3049b Red Slope 45 2x1 Double Inverted
1/2: 3044a Red Slope 45 2x1 Double
2/4: 3040a Red Slope 45 2x1
1/4: 3043 Red Slope 45 2x2 Double
1/0: 3032 Yellow Plate 4x6

So, a color swap for one 4x6 plate, and doubling the quantity of several red slopes and a blue 1x1 plate.

@PDelahanty:
Most AFOLs prefer the color names favored by Bricklink, or one of several other AFOL sites over some of the truly bizarre official color names, and the customer service phones would likely catch on fire if TLG imposed name changes across the board.

The 3D view of this is terrible, they replaced the trailer with regular parts because they don't have the 3D model for it. It kinda misses the point. Why don't they just use the LDraw library?

Lots of comments here about transporting a small plane by road. And then we get today's random set of the day 6346 transporting a significantly larger space shuttle by road. I guess Lego really likes transporting aircraft and space craft on cars or trucks.