Being one of the first police sets with minifigs is an awesome addition to any Lego city or town needing a police force to watch over it. The unique parts of the transparent doors and brick-built bike are really cool to see. The classic loge windows, shutters, and doors always stand out from these old town sets that I can't get over. The police minifigs are just adorable to place around on the baseplate or within your city. I would recommend picking up this set to just get a classic feel of Lego in your town, which can help bring off the historic downtown vibe. The baseplate will be difficult to fit with the modulars, but it would be possible if you made a slow transition from new to old.

I try to stay objective, but I can say that this is my second favorite classic police station I have. I do not agree the name of the set, it seems to me more like a highway patrol division. We have a police interceptor car, a super-fast motorcycle and a patrol helicopter. I think the building was designed accordingly. There is no interrogation room or C.S.I. laboratory. There are only 2 garages, 2 offices and one jail cell here. Unfortunately there is no computer or typewriter in the office just 2 red phones. The "chairs" are pretty funny, just 1 yellow 2x2 brick. I understand that there was no minifigure chair yet, but you can also build a good chair from bricks. The cops have a water tap, but no toilette, not even in the prison cell. The outside emergency call box cannot be opened. Yet even then there was a 1x2 hinge brick. The phone logo could also have been printed on it.

This set was even built entirely of bricks, even the street lamp and one of the antennas. Great! :)

Minifigs

The special feature of these minifigures is that the printed torso first appeared this year.

Police car

It was weird at first that it was a convertible, but I found 2 plausible explanations for it. The first reason is that the chassis is not deep enough as in later versions where the bottom of the body is 2 plates deep. So you can’t put a roof on it with a 4x4 or 4x6 plate either, because the cap of the minifigure doesn’t fit. And there was no hinged roof element at that time.

The second reason is that, at that time they really used a convertible police car for the highway patrol At least in Northern Europe for sure, especially in the Netherlands. I saw few of old Porsche 911 targas used by "RijksPolitie". I even saw a convertible. Yet there are cold weather quite a few times. The point is, they don't think it's cold. :)

Otherwise, the headlights are missing. They have a place for the headlights, but instead of a transparent 1x1 plate, they put a white 1x1 plate in it. But why??? :(

Helicopter

The same helicopter is included in the 645 set. It’s like an MD 500 type, only missing is the engine detail. Nonetheless, I really like it, mainly because of the use of the car door.

Motorcycle

The only disappointment in the set. 1 thing I like about it is the side storage boxes. Its length is too short anyway. And it lacks details. I know there were few parts available even then, but I can build better than that, even from the parts available in 1979.

Overall opinion

This set has character, right from the helicopter using the car door, the convertible police car, the green shutters, the callbox, and the motorcycle built from the plates. I give an extra point so that the building can be built on a regular road base plate.

My Mod

For me, I lacked a few details that could have been built from the parts available in 1979 as well. First, I turned the base plate so that the pedestrian crossing was on the street, not in the garage.

The blue transparent 1x6 brick with Police inscription is from the 970 set. You can also see the green transparent brick labeled Taxi in the 6000 Idea Book. The callbox wasn't my favorite either, modified it too.

What I was missing was a searchlight from the roof, so I pushed a 1x1 transparent plate into a technic connector, it comes from 316 set. And of course need a turntable plate.

I put a toilet in the jailcell. And next to the door, I put a red transparent plate that I pressed into a white technic brick that represents the lock.

There was no computer in the top office so I put an Apple 2 (or Commodore PET) there, which was quite common at the time. I put stickers on the slope bricks, a pattern of which was in the classic space sets published in 1979. I replaced the yellow brick with a swivel chair. The detective can now write the reports.

The lower level remained a reception with a counter and a small bench for those waiting.

The white antenna on the roof was pretty boring, I put a red stripe in it. The facade above the upstairs window is pretty incomplete, so I put a simple decoration there.

The Vehicles

Luckily, I didn’t have to change much on the police car, I just replaced the white 1x1 plates with transparent ones to have headlights. I replaced the white plate between the headlights with a black plate. The racktop was big in the back, I changed it smaller and put a brake light in the back.

A motorcycle is a different story. I really liked Kawasaki KZ 1000C from that era, I wanted something similar. It had to be taken 1 stud longer because its length was too short. This made room for the gas tank in the middle and the brake light in the back. I put an exhaust from the 605 set on it, which provides excellent support for the motorbike if you want to tip over. I used a gray cylinder brick as an engine detail.

I remodeled the back of the helicopter a bit because the engine detail was missing. I pressed a gray cylinder into a black technic brick. I replaced the black plates with 1x4 black arch brick. So it’s already a bit like a Hughes 500 helicopter.

I remember the first time I saw this set in a shop in 1982. My dad said I could choose a set and I immediately picked this up and looked at him with imploring eyes but to no avail...he meant a small set. I finally settled for 6650: Fire and Rescue Van. But eventually I did get this set and it for me is arguably the best Police Station that Lego ever came out with - with the exception of 6386. Let me go over why this set is so special:

Its the very first Lego police station with the modern mini figure. Lego was still experimenting with the Legoland theme and many vehicles were disproportionate to the figures. Here you had one of the earliest motorcycle, car and chopper designed to seat a modern mini figure - all in one set!

The set itself is brilliant in its functional layout providing a drive way that doubles up as a garage too. A 2 tiered office space for the police mini figures with desks etc. No prisoners in the cell as the helipad is right above and is probably too noisy for anyone to be kept there ;)

Many of the elements like the little water tap in the drive way, the telephone, the antenna, the translucent cylinders - they were all so new to me. There were so many elements to use with my other Legos and re-imagined in so many different ways and were used to create more marvelous things for days, weeks, months, years of fun.

Over the past year I have rebuilt this by getting a couple of incomplete sets cheap from eBay and the thrill of building this set had not diminished one bit after so long. This time around there were some minor changes though - one of the zipper cops is now female and they all have holsters with Glock 17s, hand cuffs, flash lights and there is pizza on one of desks as well as a computer ;)

This was one of the earliest Police station sets and is still among the best.

The building is fantastc. It has two offices detailed with desks and phones, a two stall garage with a water faucet, and a cell with a bench/bed. The roof features a helipad for the helicopter. The yellow, green, and black detailing are unique to this police set as are the garage doors.

The vehicles are great as well. The motorcycle is constructed with actual Lego bricks rather than the premolded motorcycles of today. The helicopter is one of the best of its era. The car is a bit odd, not bad, but is a little lacking.

Added details like a tree, phone booth, and street light make this a near perfect set.

I had two Lego sets in childhood; Set 483 from the Space series, Alpha-1 Rocket Base, was one, and this one, Set 588, Police Headquarters, was the other. Both sets provided me years of pleasant memories, until I had to give them away at age 12. Needless to say, when I started collecting Lego sets again at age 35, as much as I liked the newer sets such as Winter Village and Modular Buildings, I needed to tap into my childhood sets as well. Shortly after my 36th birthday, I was finally able to get my hands on the Police Headquarters set one more time; the eBay seller also threw in Set 540, Police Units, for free.

Box/Instructions

The instruction sheet is not bound, but is of a folding design. It is a bit unwieldy when I am on my table trying to assemble this set.

Additionally, it does not have instructions for some of the steps, such as the railings on the roof leading to the heliport. As far as the instruction sheet goes, it is one of the more disappointing ones I've seen in any Lego sets of any era.

On the other hand, there are ideas for alternative builds, such as a bus station and a bus, that can inspire new builds and MOCs from the components of this set.

Parts

This is a police station. Needless to say a lot of white, and almost as much black, is to be expected, and that's what I get. In particular, there are lots of white bricks to make up the walls of the police station, and managing them can be quite challenging. While this set is rated for ages 6+, many children will definitely need some help. In fact, in my childhood, even my father made mistakes as he helped me build.

Some of the white bricks have embossed markings, such as the POLICE label. Those markings are very durable, unlike the printed markings on Space sets or decals on many modern sets. However, unless these embossed bricks are kept separately during build, there is potential for misusing them. (My father's mistake back in the day: putting the "POLICE" sign facing the inside of the jail cell.)

There are a few custom parts, such as the helicopter rotor hub and the chassis for the police truck. Also, the red telephones, which are made up of sloped bricks with dials printed in white, with a 1x2 studless tile for the handset, are quite awesome. Speaking of telephones, there is also a white public telephone booth outside. These telephones were typical and state-of-the-art in the 1970s, even though they look hopelessly dated now in the 21st Century.

Using yellow fences/windows and green window blinds is a very unique touch as well. This is probably the only Lego police station where blue is not the prevailing color scheme.

Last, but not the least, a standard straight street baseplate is used for this set, as the police driveway. The baseplate makes the set easy to move around, and adds play possibilities.

Minifigures

There are four, all with the classic smiley.

• Police chief: He wears a black uniform with printed jacket and badge patterns, as well as a white police cap. Sporting a walkie-talkie, he is always ready to respond to any crime scene. The police truck would be his vehicle.
• Two police officers: They have the same uniform as the chief, but they wear helmets instead. One of them also carries a walkie-talkie. One will ride the motorcycle, while the other will fly the helicopter.
• Helipad crewman: He wears a blue suit and has brown hair. He usually holds a pair of transparent 1x1 cylinder - one red, one blue - to guide the helicopter to a safe landing.

The build

The three vehicles are built first: the open truck, the motorcycle, and the helicopter. All three are excellent builds, and I really love the helicopter in particular. When this set was available, the helicopter alone was also available as a separate set, 645.

The police station itself is a nice build, though the initial foundation bricks need to be laid at the correct points. To help with playability, there is no rear wall, so some of the walls/columns will be wobbly until the appropriate roof piece is installed. The jail cell DOES have a rear wall, and does come with a door.

The difficult part of the build is the placement for the driveway column, and making sure that the four transparent garage doors are properly lined up. Again, this is where despite the Age 6+ rating, some adult help will come in very handy.

There are two offices, one on each floor, and they get a bit repetitive, since they use the same yellow parts for the desk and the chair and the same red rotary telephone.

As the build wraps up, there are several elements that can be placed to my liking: the three antennas on top of the second floor office, the streetlight, the telephone booth, and a tree. And with the age of this set, and with some of the studs having significant play wear, it is good to be able to find different places to stage these elements without destroying the integrity of this set.

The completed model

Not as spectacular as the newer police stations, but this set more than holds its own, with its unique color scheme, its four minifigures, and its three vehicles.

For me, since Set 540, Police Units, was thrown in for free by the eBay seller, I ended up with yet one more motorcycle cop, plus a second motorcycle and a police van. That gives me five police minifigures and five police vehicles. I don't have any other Lego Town sets of any vintage currently, but if I did, the criminals of my Lego Town would be in very big trouble very fast. Sadly, this set does not come with its own criminal minifigures, unlike the current Lego police stations.

I do think I will eventually need to get other Lego Town sets of similar vintage, including fire stations, clinics, gas stations, and residences, for this set to truly shine. At least I do like the blocky vehicles of this set far more than the pre-molded vehicles of modern Lego City sets.

Summary

It is always nice to rediscover my childhood and a toy that had helped define it. I never had a great attachment to Classic Town, but Set 588, Police Headquarters, was an excellent set, and it still has many charms that other Lego police stations have yet to deliver. Now that I have this set again, I have no intention of giving it away this time!