Q&A: Do you think vehicle packs are a good idea for Lego City?

[Driver Brandon Grumman]

I think it would be a great idea. For those of you out there who may be confused, vehicle packs would basically be like people packs. Only with vehicles. We know that certain sets help keep City relevant not necessarily because of the buildings themselves, but because of the vehicles that complement the building. Even though some people may think the idea is stupid and pointless, I think it would be fun and interesting. It's fun to take things that child Legonfans love and exploit it to it's full advantage. 

So without further ado. Do you think vehicle packs are good for Lego City? Sound off in the comments. 

[Driver Brandon Grumman]

@Lyichir @Digger of Bricks @Lego David @MAB @TeriXeri @danth @Collector245

Edited September 21, 2019 by pooda

[icm]

City sets with two or three vehicles are already pretty common.  Are you proposing that Lego sell larger sets with, say, six to ten vehicles of different kinds at a price point of $100-150?  They could certainly do that, but I'd prefer it if those vehicles were split up into individual sets and sold separately, ie as Great Vehicles, or the way Speed Champions cars are sold. They're more affordable that way and you can still collect them all if you want.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that no, it doesn't seem like a good idea as described above.  Maybe you could say what you mean in more detail?  The City Garage set from 2011 or 2012 had four or five little cars and a parking garage, and that was a pretty cool set.  Is that the kind of thing you're trying to describe?

[Driver Brandon Grumman]

3 hours ago, icm said:

City sets with two or three vehicles are already pretty common.  Are you proposing that Lego sell larger sets with, say, six to ten vehicles of different kinds at a price point of $100-150?  They could certainly do that, but I'd prefer it if those vehicles were split up into individual sets and sold separately, ie as Great Vehicles, or the way Speed Champions cars are sold. They're more affordable that way and you can still collect them all if you want.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that no, it doesn't seem like a good idea as described above.  Maybe you could say what you mean in more detail?  The City Garage set from 2011 or 2012 had four or five little cars and a parking garage, and that was a pretty cool set.  Is that the kind of thing you're trying to describe?

Yeah. But sets with more than two vehicles are mostly seen in either buildings or mega sets and those aren't even that big. 

I mean vehicle packs with 4 or 5 four or six stud wide vehicles. Unless we're speaking of something like a motorcycle or ATV gang Pack. 

Great vehicles are good and all, but they don't really interest me like they used to. Every year, it seems like only one or two are interesting. The other ones, are pretty much the same thing every year such as an aircraft, a boat, a buggy, some type of industrial vehicle or some type of hauler. You pretty much expect those every year to where it becomes boring after a while. I love it when City surprises me. Like that pizza van from 2017 or that heavy duty tow truck from 2014. That grand prix truck from 2013 was awesome as I never thought City would revert back to race cars. 

To me, it seems like a great idea. That garage set from 2012 had a building. I'm talking about just vehicles, a sign or something. No buildings. More than three at a time. 

A formula 1 race car vehicle pack for example. The cars could be in different colors. Like the ones from the early 90s. 

 

Edited September 21, 2019 by pooda

[TeriXeri]

5 hours ago, pooda said:

So without further ado. Do you think vehicle packs are good for Lego City? Sound off in the comments. 

Selling vehicles and buildings mostly seperate gets my priority (instead of the recent

Police in the 90s had a nice vehicle pack with a motorcycle, suv, boat trailer, helicopter. (at 4-wide scale)

Also the Racing theme of Town were sold in multiples at times, or a truck with multiple race cars.

Some more recent examples , all from 2017, I'd love to see more of this at 4-5 wide scale, and overall more race or regular cars at smaller scale (and not just in Polybags)

Then there's also the larger mega sets like Capital City or Donut Shop, which are big and expensive, and hard to always like 100% of since they contain so many seperate builds that could be their own sets.

I also prefer single-sold Speed Champions over the 2-packs which don't always have 2 good cars (opinion).

I don't Bricklink/Ebay seperate parts of sets as I like buying and opening a full new set.

Edited September 22, 2019 by TeriXeri

[Vindicare]

6 minutes ago, TeriXeri said:

Selling vehicles and buildings mostly seperate gets my priority.

Police in the 90s has a nice vehicle pack with a motorcycle, suv, boat trailer, helicopter.

Also racing during Town were sold in multiples at times.

However times have changed and parts count of vehicles have increased so price has as well.

Current City mega-sets are hard to justify if only parts of it are really cool and others are not (sets like Capital City or Donut Shop have some cool stuff but also not-so cool stuff and sit at a high price tag)

And before someone goes into the whole "buy the seperate vehicles/buildings via bricklink/ebay" etc, not everyone is into that after-market LEGO, I rather get a smaller box for some vehicles/buildings.

I also don't buy 2-packs of Speed Champions if 1 car is just not my taste (like the recent Porsche set, they fortunately re-released as single-car set this year)

I’m with you on both accounts. I found Capital City at 40% off, so I was happy to buy it then. There’s just too much in it I didn’t like to pay full price. The only thing in the Donut Shop I don’t like is the crane parts. As to Speed Champions, I’m bummed that great little Mini comes with all that other junk. 

To the topic, it could be neat. If they did theme packs, like the racing car idea. Or a city maintenance pack with stuff we haven’t seen in years or some brand new stuff would be fun. 

[TeriXeri]

Just now, Vindicare said:

I’m with you on both accounts. I found Capital City at 40% off, so I was happy to buy it then. There’s just too much in it I didn’t like to pay full price. The only thing in the Donut Shop I don’t like is the crane parts. As to Speed Champions, I’m bummed that great little Mini comes with all that other junk. 

Was in the process of editing my post , but I still agree.

[Driver Brandon Grumman]

9 minutes ago, Vindicare said:

To the topic, it could be neat. If they did theme packs, like the racing car idea. Or a city maintenance pack with stuff we haven’t seen in years or some brand new stuff would be fun. 

One I would've wanted to see was a civilian vehicle pack. No rescue vehicles, public service vehicles are big equipment. Just plain civilian automobiles. That's one I'd definitely buy. Make'em four studs wide because I don't really care for the six stud wide cars. 

[TeriXeri]

11 minutes ago, pooda said:

One I would've wanted to see was a civilian vehicle pack. No rescue vehicles, public service vehicles are big equipment. Just plain civilian automobiles. That's one I'd definitely buy. Make'em four studs wide because I don't really care for the six stud wide cars. 

I'd love more regular cars as well, they had many great cars 4 and 6 wide, but many of them tend to be Police Villain cars (red or darkred), or in Friends, or larger other sets (like the 2016 Ferry or Service Station)

Polybags  had some smaller 4-wide civilian cars as well but those aren't always easy to find.

The 2019 Kayak Set was great however, as an example.

2014 had this , 2 actual normal cars.

If they'd use the newer wheels and update the designs a bit that'd work.

Edited September 22, 2019 by TeriXeri

[Driver Brandon Grumman]

Just now, TeriXeri said:

I'd love more regular cars as well, they had many great cars 4 and 6 wide, but many of them tend to be Police Villain cars (red or darkred), or in Friends.

Polybags  had some smaller 4-wide civilian cars as well but those aren't always easy to find.

The 2019 Kayak Set was great however, as an example.

A 2-3 pack of regular cars modeled like the car in the Sky Police Airbase set or Donut shop Taxi (but don't use the "old" wheels like the taxi) would be nice.

 

I wanna see 4 stud wide civilian automobiles in all colors of the rainbow. That would really appeal to me. Blue. Green. Yellow. Orange. Red. Purple. 

I also have some other ideas for vehicle packs including a power crew vehicle pack and a hazard squad vehicle pack. The latter of which I'm still questioning on why the recent fire wave lacked such a set. 

[Lego David]

I think this is actually a pretty good idea. As long as they are a more small vehicles at an affordable price, I don't see why not.

But technically LEGO City has done that in the past with a few sets:

 

 

But yeah, sets that include vehicles only and no other side builds are something that I would actually really like to see implemented at some point in LEGO city.

[Driver Brandon Grumman]

5 hours ago, Lego David said:

 

That was a vehicle pack. Ptine example. I wanna see more of those. 

I'd also like to see another bus 3 pack someday soon with a transit bus, school bus and a two story bus. I'd definitely pick that one up. 

[Collector245]

I like the idea of vehicle packs. As soon as you mentioned them that is the exact set I thought of.

[Digger of Bricks]

Heh, I myself would like to see a subtheme of automobile packs from the City theme inspired after various decades of the Twentieth Century, with each set including three minifig-scaled automobile builds each accompanied by a driver in period-appropriate attire. Automobiles of the 1910's, Automobiles of the 1920's, Automobiles of the 1930's, Automobiles of the 1940's, Automobiles of the 1950's... 

[Driver Brandon Grumman]

3 hours ago, Collector245 said:

I like the idea of vehicle packs. As soon as you mentioned them that is the exact set I thought of.

Yeah! Then we'll have the chance of seeing vehicles that we've never seen before. 

 

Just now, Digger of Bricks said:

Heh, I myself would like to see a subtheme of automobile packs from the City theme inspired after various decades of the Twentieth Century, with each set including three minifig-scaled automobile builds each accompanied by a driver in period-appropriate attire. Automobiles of the 1910's, Automobiles of the 1920's, Automobiles of the 1930's, Automobiles of the 1940's, Automobiles of the 1950's... 

I don't think they're likely to do that for City. 

[Digger of Bricks]

Just now, pooda said:

I don't think they're likely to do that for City. 

Of course, but since you asked... 

[Collector245]

20 minutes ago, Digger of Bricks said:

Heh, I myself would like to see a subtheme of automobile packs from the City theme inspired after various decades of the Twentieth Century, with each set including three minifig-scaled automobile builds each accompanied by a driver in period-appropriate attire. Automobiles of the 1910's, Automobiles of the 1920's, Automobiles of the 1930's, Automobiles of the 1940's, Automobiles of the 1950's... 

They might do that for creator expert, just not in minifig-scale.

[Driver Brandon Grumman]

18 minutes ago, Collector245 said:

They might do that for creator expert, just not in minifig-scale.

Yeah! That's more likely. 

[Digger of Bricks]

40 minutes ago, Collector245 said:

They might do that for creator expert, just not in minifig-scale.

As a part of Creator's Three-In-One line though, they could easily be within a minifig-scaled context! 

[Collector245]

21 minutes ago, Digger of Bricks said:

As a part of Creator's Three-In-One line though, they could easily be within a minifig-scaled context! 

Very true.

[Driver Brandon Grumman]

1 hour ago, Digger of Bricks said:

As a part of Creator's Three-In-One line though, they could easily be within a minifig-scaled context! 

I can agree there. 

[MAB]

Personally, I don't see the point. I think I would rather have smaller sets containing 1 or 2 vehicles, along with a couple of minifigures and a tiny bit of scenery. So things like these (from 2018):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think those sort of sets are fine as they are. They give a coupe of vehicles that go together, some minifigures to play with and a little context / setting, at an affordable price.

 

If they went instead for larger vehicle packs, then they would:

1) be expensive - even though the price per vehicle might be the same or cheaper,

2) have things you don't like: if you like a couple of the smaller packs but not the third then you buy the ones you like whereas if they stick six vehicles in one superpack and you don't like two, then do you still buy the set?

 

The interesting thing is that even though my kids have very few car based sets, they have loads of LEGO cars. I guess as wheels and windscreens are not exactly rare and they make their own.

[Driver Brandon Grumman]

Of course he doesn't see the point. It was Pooda that recommended it after all. ???

I'm too lazy to do mocs though. That's why I beg City to do them for me. 

Why do you accept the current state of City though? I'm just curious. 

[gotoAndLego]

I think it would be fairly easy for Lego to do vehicle packs. It would be easy for Lego to ask all their designers to make small cars and other vehicles, and would provide a nice creative break for non-City designers.

Edited September 25, 2019 by gotoAndLego

[MAB]

2 hours ago, pooda said:

Why do you accept the current state of City though? I'm just curious. 

I think current City is OK. It could be better for AFOLs with more variation in themes, less emergency vehicles and more houses. But I also realise it is mainly targeted at kids and so sets need to appeal to kids. AFOLs have modulars.

 

As to the idea of larger packs - I don't object to the content, just how it is packaged. I have no problems with big sets either, if they are justified. I do have problems with big sets made out of lots of smaller components that could (and should) have been sold as individual sets and there is no real reason for them to be combined. Especially for kid targeted sets. I'd prefer to see one vehicle, or two similar vehicles with some sort of play connection, per (cheaper) set rather than a larger number of vehicles at a higher price. They will sell better, and if your kid wants them for a birthday present, then they make good presents. Wheres the combination pack is probably too expensive for many of the gift givers. That said, I wouldn't care too much if there are larger combination packs, so long as there are similar vehicles in smaller sets also available.

 

The alternative ius to sell the individual packs and also combine them. LEGO has partially done something similar in the past, with their "super packs".

Such as:

which just contained four perfectly good standalone sets combined together.