Random set of the day: Retro Buggy
Posted by Huwbot,Today's random set is 1190 Retro Buggy, released in 1999. It's one of 63 Town sets produced that year. It contains 45 pieces and 1 minifig.
It's owned by 56 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!
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43 comments on this article
The Chitty Chitty Bang Bang set got approved by LEGO Ideas??
It's always amazing to be introduced to weird new sets that were released during my dark ages
From one perspective it looks like Super Mario Kart vehicle with Luigi or Mario, from the other perspective, given the colours, it looks like a pizza delivery buggy.
Classic moustache face!
Looks cool. A shame it was Japan exclusive.
Also I love that moustache head piece.
Apart from the rather clunky red 2x8 brick, this is quite a good set for 1999.
Clearly the name is a result of having no mechanical brakes, and relying on those megaphones flipping around and functioning as retro rockets to bring this death trap to a halt.
An interesting set, I do like it though. Reminds me of the stuff I used to build.
Xtreme Team branding? Race driver? Build that looks like Town Jr.? Colour scheme that looks like it belongs on a burger?
This is a mismash and the set is objectively not awesome, but it's a mid/late 90s System set, so I still like it on the balance. It helps that both Xtreme Team in general and Race were themes that got away--I liked them, but didn't get much. Probably bumps this to around a C+ grade, trying to be fair.
Ah, the good ol' days of flying cars. Wish we still had those.
As a promotional set doubt very few people have this, although pretty easy to recreate. There was also a 1188 fire formula which looks more interesting, as the above 2x8 brick chassis is a bit limiting for alternative builds.
Really bad idea.
@bananaworld said:
"
The Chitty Chitty Bang Bang set got approved by LEGO Ideas??"
My first thought when I saw the set was exactly this!
Not the highest point of Lego’s history, looks like it could belong in the timecruisers line
It's retro yet futuristic because it's a flying car. Awesome.
@bookmum said:
"It's retro yet futuristic because it's a flying car. Awesome."
It's a very practical flying car, you only need to completely disassemble the car and convert it into a plane ;)
Also, very ergonomic seating position. Being able to reach the steering wheel was considered optional, apparently.
Interesting to see a polybag have an alternate build. I'm guessing this was more common back in the day, but polybags weren't as prevalent as today either, right? I'm guessing that finding a polybag with alternate builds is very uncommon.
Polybags with B models, and it ain't Creator or Technic. Heck, some Technic sets don't even have them these days, and that includes large unlicensed ones as well.
Sweet ;-)
Truly this is a Random Set of the day.
@J0rgen:
Dude, flying cars are, like, so totally six years ago!
Whoa, I've never seen this set before in my life.
A stain on the X-treme Team theme which was pretty good in 1998, but an embarrassment in 1999.
@MCLegoboy said:
"Interesting to see a polybag have an alternate build. I'm guessing this was more common back in the day, but polybags weren't as prevalent as today either, right? I'm guessing that finding a polybag with alternate builds is very uncommon."
I can't speak for all polybags from the era, but in my experience they sometimes did include alternate builds on the back of the bag. In this era most polybags were either basically the same as boxed sets or straight up rereleased boxed sets. If the boxed set had an alternate build there was a chance that was included. From what I can find this was inconsistent however as at the time polybags were used for wildly different things. It depends on the polybag.
https://www.toysperiod.com/lego-1462-galactic-scout-vintage-92-blacktron-space-set-new-p-1411.html
https://brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=6075405
https://brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=3813907
These are some examples. There were also many cases where there was nothing on the back too.
I do love the colors tho
This set is simultaneously awesome and terrifying. The only way it could be better/worse would be to put a Fabuland figure as the driver/pilot.
It gets two grades. It's both an 'A' and a 'D' at the same time.
Kinda reminds me of when robin recolors the batmobile in Lego Batman II
This is a superb example of the fall of LEGO, starting the late '90s
If flying lawn-mower racing were an Olympic sport, this might be Team Cameroon’s entry.
Or Bolivia’s, or one of about a dozen other countries who don’t send many athletes to the games, but where flying lawn-mower racing is very, very big.
@BelgianBricker said:
"This is a superb example of the fall of LEGO, starting the late '90s"
Not really. It’s made almost entirely out of well-designed parts, many of which are still in use today. The only single-use mold I can see is maybe the wheel base. Whether or not the model is aesthetically pleasing is entirely subjective, but it is certainly a LEGO set in the traditional sense.
@Mr__Thrawn said:
" @BelgianBricker said:
"This is a superb example of the fall of LEGO, starting the late '90s"
Not really. It’s made almost entirely out of well-designed parts, many of which are still in use today. The only single-use mold I can see is maybe the wheel base. Whether or not the model is aesthetically pleasing is entirely subjective, but it is certainly a LEGO set in the traditional sense."
Strange rebuttal, since I didn't say anything about the parts.
It IS a perfect example because it is simply a wierd/bad design with a bad color scheme. You can claim this is entirely subjective, but sience has prooved you wrong: there exists among societies a universal concept of what is regarded as aesthetically pleasing and what is not...
@BelgianBricker said:
" @Mr__Thrawn said:
" @BelgianBricker said:
"This is a superb example of the fall of LEGO, starting the late '90s"
Not really. It’s made almost entirely out of well-designed parts, many of which are still in use today. The only single-use mold I can see is maybe the wheel base. Whether or not the model is aesthetically pleasing is entirely subjective, but it is certainly a LEGO set in the traditional sense."
Strange rebuttal, since I didn't say anything about the parts.
It IS a perfect example because it is simply a wierd/bad design with a bad color scheme. You can claim this is entirely subjective, but sience has prooved you wrong: there exists among societies a universal concept of what is regarded as aesthetically pleasing and what is not..."
I disagree. I was specifically referring to the parts because that is, financially and in terms of LEGO’s dedication to their core system, what lead to their downfall, as you put it. As for objectivity in aesthetics, that’s a very complicated philosophical issue, but the very fact that there are a range of opinions on the design of the model, as demonstrated by various comments above, demonstrates subjectivity. Societies may, as you say, have some standard of aesthetics, but it’s also true that there is a range of acceptance and interpretation of these standards, otherwise different design styles wouldn’t exist at all. Any type of art or design is subjective- the designer or artist may intend something totally different than the consumer’s interpretation. I personally have no major problems with this model’s style and design. The colors are, I think, well-balanced and work fairly well together, and the shape is perfectly adequate. I’d even go so far as to argue that this is actually the exact opposite of a symbol of the company’s downfall- it seems to me more like a dying breath of the classical LEGO style, composed largely of simple bricks, and with a focus on versatility for the sake of alternate builds and integration into the larger system.
@BelgianBricker said:
" @Mr__Thrawn said:
" @BelgianBricker said:
"This is a superb example of the fall of LEGO, starting the late '90s"
Not really. It’s made almost entirely out of well-designed parts, many of which are still in use today. The only single-use mold I can see is maybe the wheel base. Whether or not the model is aesthetically pleasing is entirely subjective, but it is certainly a LEGO set in the traditional sense."
Strange rebuttal, since I didn't say anything about the parts.
It IS a perfect example because it is simply a wierd/bad design with a bad color scheme. You can claim this is entirely subjective, but sience has prooved you wrong: there exists among societies a universal concept of what is regarded as aesthetically pleasing and what is not..."
Bad colourschemes is one of the least problematic changes from the late 90s-mid 2000s era. This set has this funky colourscheme because it's a promotional set and does not have to be up to the standard of standard retail sets. A major problem from the era was large, nearly single-purpose parts, simplified building experiences by using larger parts and less detail and the overabundance of experimental attempts to branch into different non-building brick based markets.
If you look at the other three sets related to this one (1188, 1189 and 1191) you'll see that the effort and polish in these models is lacking.
@BelgianBricker said:
" (...) there exists among societies a universal concept of what is regarded as aesthetically pleasing and what is not..."
[citation needed]
@BelgianBricker:
@Mr__Thrawn:
The main problem that led to their two big losses (and probably also the one really tiny one that slipped by completely unnoticed) was the mistaken perception that kids wanted to play with their sets so much more than they wanted to build them that they should turbo-charge the build process to get it over with as fast as inhumanly possible, with as few pieces involved as they could get away with. All the production side mistakes in the world wouldn’t drive the company into bankruptcy as long as the product sold well enough to turn a profit.
The next problem was their bloated mold inventory, where they had 3-4 patio umbrella _systems_. That is, an umbrella and umbrella stand that were exclusive to one theme, and largely incompatible (without the liberal use of kraggle) with every other similar system. So someone else has a part that could work, but it’s not _precisely_ what you envisioned, so rather than settling for “almost right”, or even expanding the existing system, no, you go and design a completely fresh approach to pretty much the same thing the other guy did, and make it so the parts aren’t even remotely interchangeable.
The third strike was to do pretty much the exact same thing with colors of plastic. Keeping in mind that they still exclusively used pre-colored pellets, adding even a single color to the palette means having to pay for, and store, several hoppers of that new color that’s tying up even more of your financial resources. From the consumer side, it just means an ever increasingly fragmented element pool, with yet another color that can’t be used to build anything because they only used it for three elements.
So, this set is not exemplary of any of those three problems. It’s all basic parts in basic colors, and it’s got a more complex design than your average Jack Stone building. But the other thing it’s not exemplary of is any of the handful of things they were actually doing _right_, which enabled the company to hold on long enough to turn things around. This doesn’t look like an official set. It looks like what someone built using nothing but the pieces in a single official set.
I wish the Random Set of the Day posts had a poll to see if people would give these old sets a Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down. It'd be really interesting to see how sets of questionable design from decades ago would fare when presented to today's audience.
I'd give this one a Thumbs Down, absolutely. Yesterday's 6941 Battrax would get Thumbs Up all day long.
@PDelahanty said:
"I wish the Random Set of the Day posts had a poll to see if people would give these old sets a Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down. It'd be really interesting to see how sets of questionable design from decades ago would fare when presented to today's audience.
I'd give this one a Thumbs Down, absolutely. Yesterday's 6941 Battrax would get Thumbs Up all day long."
Part of me would enjoy this, but I think it's probably better on the whole that we don't have such a system: I suspect the comments would not benefit from a strict up/down and, honestly, the best discussions are the tug-of-wars between the ups and the downs in the non-universal cases.
And while I don't think every set is awesome and many could be a lot better, my default thought is that there's very few sets out there I call failures. Even a D- can be a passing grade: simply by being LEGO and having parts, most sets meet the bare minimum of "this is still an example of the thing I'm a fan of" rather than something I want to vote down. It may not always be a GREAT incarnation of LEGO, but as long as it is LEGO, I'm generally onboard at least that far. And that's a nuance I think would be lost in an up/down reduction.
@Legomann37 said:
"Random question what can you do with vip points"
Go to LEGO.com, sign in. Hit the amount of points you have up in the corner, and it'll show you some stuff you can get with them, the main thing being discounts at stores or on the site. Don't blow it all at once so you can spend your discounts later, they expire after a few days. Just save your points til' you want a discount
I think it's awesome that this bizarre little set will spend an entire day at the top of Brickset.
That's more attention than this set has ever gotten for the entirety of its 20+ year existence.
@PDelahanty:
It kind of does, if you compare the number of comments against the number of Thumbs Up it received. Huw noted at the end of 2020 (and perhaps 2019) that some of the highest comment counts tended to skew towards RSotD entries that got very few Thumbs Up tags, and also tended to skew fairly negative. Crowds don’t gather to chat about how amazingly the train arrived right on schedule and came to a perfect stop.
*sighs* not again…
Has RSotD moved to a permanent new time?
@TheWackyWookiee said:
"Has RSotD moved to a permanent new time?"
I hope it's not permanent. I liked waking up to a new RSotD every day.
“Here we go again…..”