So did Octan buy up Shell in the world of LEGO gas companies and become a true monopoly?
Or was Shell responsible for some shady ecological mistreatment and they fell to the wayside in the eyes of the minifigures and Octan resumed its position as a monopoly?
My point is, the people do need some diversity in their choices for fuel because they're probably getting swindled. Unless perhaps the LEGO world is a communist one and therefore choice is purposefully limited. The LEGO logo is red afterall...

That's a better interior than most of the current City and Friends buildings.

Octan, City Pizza, Cargo logistics - Lego City is a dystopian world dominated by monopolies and the oligarchs who run them. That is why there are so many criminals - they are rebelling against the over- policed dystopian nightmare they find themselves in.

Also, very cool set.

LOVE THIS!! This was my first Minifig set with moving arms (the earlier police etc bodies were molded) and I still have it in the original box downstairs. The only issue with these early minifig sets was that the cars often were not sized to hold them inside. The other issue was that the Stickers went across multiple bricks, so you couldn't separate the SHELL sign or the logo on the post.

For some reason I thought there was also a version of 377 released as Esso brand too that I came across a few years ago, but I can't seem to find it today.

Thanks for the flashback Huwbot!

Octan came into town in 1992 and forced out the competition. No more Shell. No more Exxon. No more Esso. Octan is the only brand in town thanks to President Business!

That’s one shell of a set!

...sorry. I was trying to think of a good pun. But I’m a shell of my former self.

This was my first set with a baseplate, I loved it and spent many happy hours playing with it. I still have it and have only had to replace the long red plate as I managed to snap it :(

Nice and simple, but I prefer the ones in later years, where you can seat the minifigs in the cars.

@MCLegoboy said:
"So did Octan buy up Shell in the world of LEGO gas companies and become a true monopoly?
Or was Shell responsible for some shady ecological mistreatment and they fell to the wayside in the eyes of the minifigures and Octan resumed its position as a monopoly?
My point is, the people do need some diversity in their choices for fuel because they're probably getting swindled. Unless perhaps the LEGO world is a communist one and therefore choice is purposefully limited. The LEGO logo is red afterall..."

And let's not forget that the lyrics of the Octan-produced pop hit "Everything is Awesome" describe a communist and/or socialist utopia..
"Everything is cool when you're part of a team ... Everything is better when we work together ... We're the same, I'm like you, you're like me, working in harmony..."

Nice and simple old sets. And *with* baseplates!

Baseplate, baseplate, BASEPLATE!!!

And yes, as the whole catalogue was much slimmer back in those days and new stuff much rarer, sets tended to stay in shops for much longer. I also got sets new as a kid that had been introduced four or five years prior.

@Arnoldos said:
"Also, it's amazing that the minifigure as we know it is over 40 years old and experienced no major changes."
The definition of a classic.

@AustinPowers said:
"And yes, as the whole catalogue was much slimmer back in those days and new stuff much rarer, sets tended to stay in shops for much longer. I also got sets new as a kid that had been introduced four or five years prior. "
When I got into LEGO as an AFOL in 1993, there were sets in the local department store that had been released 2-3 years before. As the store generally, and the toy department in particular, seemed to be thriving, I can’t imagine that sets were lying around unsold for years. It must have been that production runs lasted longer. I vaguely recall being aware of that at the time and not feeling I had to rush to get new releases before they were discontinued.

@chrisaw said:
"Those minifigs inside the car must be tiny!"

There are no minifigs inside so it must be a self-driving car. There were traditionally driveable cars at that time too, spacemen had them, most firemen and some other minifigs too. The (car)doors coincided with LEGO space age as is appropriate with new groundbreaking technology.

That roller skate seems a bit large for a minifig.

For those asking about the product lifecycle, they used to pretty much just do their own thing back in those days. It wasn’t until the years when they posted annual losses that they started asking retailers what they wanted. Retailers responded by telling them it was their job to figure that out (at least in terms of product selection), but one significant change was that they did push for shorter product lifecycles. Previously they found that sales would spike for Christmas, and then grind to a halt because everyone had whatever they received as gifts and needed to wait months for new sets to trickle out. That’s really where we started seeing these massive January rollouts, and new product coming out at least once per month instead of maybe 1-2 times per year.