Bustin' The Bad Guys Lego Style!
Written: Dec 22 '02
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Pros: Nice little patrol car, female officer, easy to assemble.
Cons: Hard to find, not much fun as a solo set.
The Bottom Line: The Lego Town Patrol Car is a great accessory for any Town, City or Police series. Inexpensive, fun to build and great for beginners.
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| Freak369's Full Review: Lego Town Patrol Car - 1247 |
When building a Lego play scene you have a lot of options available in regards to size, scale, buildings, figures and an overall theme. My boys love to build and create massive play scenes from their own designs and when they started to build a mega city I started to look for smaller sets that would help to enhance their creation. This small mini series from Lego started out as a promotional series of six vehicles that were sold at Shell gas stations that later started to surface at local toy merchants. One half of the series features rescue type vehicles and the other half catered to the racecar line. All of the sets work well with other Lego themes and can easily be mixed without worrying about the scale [size] being off.
These sets retailed for $1.99 with a purchase however when the promotion ended these sets were sold, in bulk, to various toy stores. Lucky for me I have several brick brokers and vendors that keep me in mind when they come across a good deal. I received the complete set of six to check out [free of charge] to see if I would be interested in making a subsequent bulk purchase from them. That’s kind of like asking a chocolate addict if they want a year’s supply of free chocolate. Overall the sets are great, easy to build and really add a lot of background detail to a play scene. If you have a Lego lover in your life – this small but impressive mini-series would surely have them grinning from ear to ear.
Patrol Car
Don’t think that because this is a small set that the patrol car will be lacking detail. The blue transparent windshield covers the front portion of the vehicle and gives the female officer a little bit of protection. The four small wheels have a nice rubber tread on them so it can easily climb over curbs, other vehicles or mountains of bricks. I would have liked to have seen the wheel assembly axle come as one solid piece but the Lego designers thought otherwise. Since this is a small vehicle it doesn’t really require an all-inclusive piece, but the single piece assemblies offer a bit more strength to the vehicles.
The yellow transparent headlights are built right into the front of the vehicle and this gives it a very nice look. The back red brake lights are also transparent and are built into the back sections so you won’t have to worry about them falling off or getting lost. The seat area is large enough to accommodate one Lego figure and there is additional space behind the drivers area for an additional person or one of the accessories from the other sets. There are two small blue alert lights that rest on top of the blue windshield; these can be changed to another color if you wish. My suggestion would be red or clear since any other colors seem to clash with the shade of the windshield.
Patrol Officer
The female officer that is included with this set features a highly detailed torso with the Lego Town police design. The faux zipper on the right hand side is balanced with the gray, white and black police badge on the left side. The stenciled detail on the face is minimal but completely feminine. The ruby red lipstick is a nice touch and her eye are accented with eyelashes – something you just don’t see on the male figures. Her only clothing accessory is a white baseball cap that has no stenciling on it. If you have other Lego Town sets you can swap out the plain white hat for one that features the Lego Police design on it. This is the same female figure that was featured in the Alpha Team series so if you find yourself wanting to add a few more female characters to your scene, picking up these sets is always an option.
Instructions
Since this is a small set, there isn’t a tremendous amount of information included with the instructions. The single sheet shows you how to assemble the female police officer as well as the patrol car. The officer is comprised of four pieces [hat, head, torso, legs] and is easily assembled. The patrol car is built in eight steps that are clearly illustrated. The additional panel on the back section of the instruction sheet shows an enlarged photo of the other five sets in the series. You can also checkout the backs of the boxes for more photos of the other sets in the series. Overall the instructions are easy to follow, nicely illustrated and large enough for smaller kids to understand.
The Bottom Line
This makes a great addition to the Lego Town series and can be used with almost any of the City sets as well. These make great gifts for Lego collectors and fanatics as well as those just getting into constructing Lego sets. As with all Lego sets, caution should be used with smaller children since there is always a choking risk associated with the smaller building components. The other sets in this min-series include: Helicopter [1246], Fire Boat [1248], Tri-Motorbike [1249], Dragster [1250] and the Go Cart [1251]. If you are going to try and hunt these down please make sure you are familiar with what is included in the set and what the fair market value is for them. While a vast majority of online sellers are legitimate and don’t rake you over the coals – there are a few that seem to ruin it for everyone.
The Stats
Set Name: Patrol Car
Family Set: Lego Town
Lego Set: 1247
Number of Pieces: 31
Age Recommendation: 5 - 12
Ease Of Assembly: Easy
Time Of Assembly: 5 minutes
Cost: Current Retail: $ 1.99
Original UPC Code: 5 702012 005022
Revised UPC Code: 42884 01247 2
[The above information about UPC codes is provided for collectors wishing to validate the authenticity of a set within this series. Once these sets were removed from the Shell stations the UPC codes were changed. The small bar code sticker that was applied directly over the original box printed UPC code enabled the set to be sold at retail stores rather than just the Shell family of gas and convenience stations.]
As always, thanks for the read!
^V^ Freak ^V^
© 2002 Freak369
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): See Review
Type of Toy: Blocks
Age Range of Child: Whole Family
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