Review: 60056 Tow Truck

[LukefromNJ]

This review is of the 60056 Tow Truck:

Set comes with 227 parts, separated into 2 bags (plus a small sticker sheet). Each bag has its own manual:

Bag 1 makes the chassis and minifig, while bag 2 makes the upper body plus wheels and tools that clip to the truck's side (a broom and a wrench in this case):

Bag 1 after assembly. The minifig is a typical construction/road worker, with blue and orange clothing that fits well with the truck's blue and orange color scheme (I wonder how many Mets fans will buy this set?).

The overall truck assembled. Given how many of Lego's truck designs feature the European flat-front design, I was very pleased to see a more American or Australian-style cab:

How the crane arm works:

These:

Go into these:

Like so:

They clip to the arm of the crane (pictured below on its own):

When the arm is raised and lowered, the above parts slide back and forth, like the pistons on the real thing:

One other detail that I LOVE is the entirely brick-built grille:

The tow truck in action:

Towing a car. In all honesty, having this huge truck towing a City-sized car seems like a bit of overkill compared to having this truck towing other trucks:

You can also tow with the hook, but unless I'm doing this wrong, it seems like you have to maintain constant tension to avoid the hook dropping down:

My overall thoughts: If I must criticize this set for anything, it's that it is a bit oversized for a tow truck, but as I said above, it looks fine towing other trucks. This is an outstanding set. It's a great-looking model with a lot of functions, an attractive color scheme, and a minimum of stickers. A perfect 10!

-PS I must admit I may be a bit biased, seeing that "The Castle" (made in 1997) is one of my favorite films and it featured a tow truck driver as the main character

[Toby Adams]

Nice Review! I love this truck mainly beacuse it takes me back to America where we where dwarfed by a giant tow truck! Its gotta be one of my favorite city sets of 2014.

[jfbat]

Even here in the Netherlands it is not uncommon to see trucks this size and confoguration, used mainly to tow broken down trucks. And that's how I see this towtruck: as one specially meant to tow other trucks, not for regular cars. Broken down regular cars these days mostly get the flatbed treatment and we had a great set for that last year (or was it the year before that?)

As I mentioned in the other review of this set against what I thought I have bought this set and I like it very much. Great value for money IMHO.

[SeanJFry]

This review is of the 60056 Tow Truck:

You can also tow with the hook, but unless I'm doing this wrong, it seems like you have to maintain constant tension to avoid the hook dropping down:

I put this together tonight, and I hooked the truck up to car differently to you. See pictures.

I put the hook under the car and then crank the winch. The larger arm then locks in over the bumper and raises the front of the car off the ground.

The tension is nice and tight.