Lego City old vs. new: the pros and cons

[Unerit34]

You can discuss the differences between the old and new lego city sets here! Maybe you want to highlight what improved over time, or what became worse! 

[Driver Brandon Grumman]

My thing is the vehicles. Personally I prefer the vehicles that were made pre-2024. The 2024 vehicles are too close to Speed Champions and don't really feel unique anymore. That is likely because the guy who did Speed Champions is now with City. I also liked how during the early 2020s, 6 stud wide vehicles were the thing, but at the same time, 4 stud wide wasn't dead as shown with the car wash, 2022 cargo train and many others. The cons of City now is that they seem to be borderlining 8 stud wide territory, which I'm not happy about. City needs to go back to their unique design of vehicle. Starting with the splasher pieces. 

[SpacePolice89]

The earlier City sets had better colors and more realism. Many of the new ones are too gimmicky and have weird bright colors. With this being said some of the new sets are still very good like the new cargo ship.

Edited July 23, 2024 by SpacePolice89

[Feuer Zug]

Vehicles are a big thing in my layout. I like the old 4-wide and a mix of the 6-wide City and Speed Champions cars. I tend more towards the modulars now for adding to the layout.

[Driver Brandon Grumman]

12 hours ago, SpacePolice89 said:

The earlier City sets had better colors and more realism. Many of the new ones are too gimmicky and have weird bright colors. With this being said some of the new sets are still very good like the new cargo ship.

I have to agree with you there. 

[P6tu]

All golden words. In my mind, 4-stud wide cars or 5-stud wide cars are Lego City and 6-stud wide trucks are also Lego City scale. Occasional 6-stud wide cars like the earlier Speed Champion things - I can accept that, but the nowadays 6+ studs wide cars and 8+ studs wide Speed champion things are way off already and do not fit in a Lego City scaled things - even the streets are too narrow for those to look proper.

Colours - I don't get the neonish colours also. The classic black-blue-white for police vehicles and white-red for ambulance vehicles is proper. Nowadays colours look soo unrealistic or over played. I mean, for example the set 60418 - this looks like a full-size campervan with a paintjob. And not because of the build, but just because of the colours. That is not a police truck.

These are my thoughts and opinions on the matter =).

[jus1973]

I don’t mind the 5/6 wide cars, as this sits better with the modulars and the MOCs I tend to build.  This does mean that trucks should be 7/8 wide, which they currently aren’t and also would make them very snug on the 16x16 current road plates.  At least you can extend the width of them quite easily, 1 stud at a time. We forget sometimes, that the City range is for 4+ kids, so bright colours and play gimmicks are what they want.  

The trains do need to be bigger though.  6 wide is not enough. I get why they are not, as its a range mostly aimed at kids, and would cost a lot more, but I remember thinking this as a child, and trying to make my train bigger (and failing) so it looked like what I saw around me.  I was so hopeful when some of the adult builder trains came out wider, but i don’t see them making city ones wider any time soon.

 

[Feuer Zug]

On 9/26/2024 at 6:32 PM, P6tu said:

Colours - I don't get the neonish colours also. The classic black-blue-white for police vehicles and white-red for ambulance vehicles is proper. Nowadays colours look soo unrealistic or over played. I mean, for example the set 60418 - this looks like a full-size campervan with a paintjob. And not because of the build, but just because of the colours. That is not a police truck.

Modern emergency services vehicles are often now modified commercial options or bolt on boxes to van or truck frames. As for the neon colors, high visibility is all the rage. Colors and enough lights to illuminate a scene from a mile away.

On 9/28/2024 at 6:04 AM, jus1973 said:

I don’t mind the 5/6 wide cars, as this sits better with the modulars and the MOCs I tend to build.  This does mean that trucks should be 7/8 wide, which they currently aren’t and also would make them very snug on the 16x16 current road plates.  At least you can extend the width of them quite easily, 1 stud at a time. We forget sometimes, that the City range is for 4+ kids, so bright colours and play gimmicks are what they want.  

The trains do need to be bigger though.  6 wide is not enough. I get why they are not, as its a range mostly aimed at kids, and would cost a lot more, but I remember thinking this as a child, and trying to make my train bigger (and failing) so it looked like what I saw around me.  I was so hopeful when some of the adult builder trains came out wider, but i don’t see them making city ones wider any time soon.

I feel the pain with the vehicle size and the new road plates. I love the plates, but I pushed out the streets by a stud on each side to make the vehicles fit better. The trains will never get bigger except for the rare sets that cost way more than the average kid can think about.

[FGMatt]

On 9/30/2024 at 3:41 PM, Feuer Zug said:

On 9/26/2024 at 11:32 PM, P6tu said:

Colours - I don't get the neonish colours also. The classic black-blue-white for police vehicles and white-red for ambulance vehicles is proper. Nowadays colours look soo unrealistic or over played. I mean, for example the set 60418 - this looks like a full-size campervan with a paintjob. And not because of the build, but just because of the colours. That is not a police truck.

Modern emergency services vehicles are often now modified commercial options or bolt on boxes to van or truck frames. As for the neon colors, high visibility is all the rage. Colors and enough lights to illuminate a scene from a mile away.

And the colours are standardised across most of Europe anyway; ambulances haven't been red and white for some time now.

[TeriXeri]

On 10/2/2024 at 1:49 PM, FGMatt said:

And the colours are standardised across most of Europe anyway; ambulances haven't been red and white for some time now.

This, and even in a large country or even just a city, it can be very different, just look at New York , white/blue police cars (recently changed to white/darkblue/green), and ambulances are white/red (and part of the New York FIRE Department).

Then Los Angeles , Police Cars are white/black , and ambulances full red .(also fire department)

Europe has quite a bit of variation but at least for northwestern europe. overall police cars have some form of white/blue with either neon yellow, or orange/red in the past decade. And Medical vehicles do indeed have quite a few neon yellow variants (with some country variations, but even there it can vary , Paris has full red ambulances with neon stripes used by the fire department)

It's impossible to list every single variation of course, but LEGO City has certainly been more European-ish in it's emergency vehicle colors since about 2019 (excluding specific subthemes like Sky Police (2019) or Elite Police (2020) .

2024 City Police uses darker blue and more white, but still could be somewhat comparible to what police use in countries like Denmark, Norway, while 2019-2023 was more Germany/UK/Sweden like. (especially UK for the recent medical vehicles)

Edited October 7, 2024 by TeriXeri

[P6tu]

On 10/2/2024 at 2:49 PM, FGMatt said:

And the colours are standardised across most of Europe anyway; ambulances haven't been red and white for some time now.

In Estonia, most of the ambulances (including new) are still red on white. Police cars are mostly blue/white. Fire trucks and fire department, yeah - those have a lot of variation from white to any kind of neonish or bright color. But the base color is always still red for fire dep. vehicles. But this is for Estonia...

[Lego Nostalgia]

I miss the 2005-2013 Lego City sets, they had a certian charm to them and I miss the 4 wide cars, maybe it's just nostalgia, the firetrucks back then actually had hoses and a ladder and not a stupid stud shooter thing or a squirt water cannon crap xD

[P6tu]

16 hours ago, Lego Nostalgia said:

I miss the 2005-2013 Lego City sets, they had a certian charm to them and I miss the 4 wide cars, maybe it's just nostalgia, the firetrucks back then actually had hoses and a ladder and not a stupid stud shooter thing or a squirt water cannon crap xD

Ouh, the squirt thing - it is a mess! Yeah, it was fun for a while. My son actually replaced it with a ladder afterwards (we have the set 60214 with the squirt thing).

Edited October 23, 2024 by P6tu
Misread a thing...

[Lego Nostalgia]

27 minutes ago, P6tu said:

Ouh, the squirt thing - it is a mess! Yeah, it was fun for a while. My son actually replaced it with a ladder afterwards (we have the set 60214 with the squirt thing).

He made the right choice

[Darth_Bane13]

On 10/23/2024 at 3:42 AM, Lego Nostalgia said:

I miss the 2005-2013 Lego City sets, they had a certian charm to them and I miss the 4 wide cars, maybe it's just nostalgia, the firetrucks back then actually had hoses and a ladder and not a stupid stud shooter thing or a squirt water cannon crap xD

I think LEGO in general was better in those years. Also the old LEGO city commercials are iconic, HEY!

[Lego Nostalgia]

21 minutes ago, Darth_Bane13 said:

I think LEGO in general was better in those years. Also the old LEGO city commercials are iconic, HEY!

Good times