Piranha Posted January 15, 2010 (edited) INDEXED Name: City Corner 7641 Theme: City Year: 2009 Piece Count: 461 Minifigs: 5 Price: $59.99 Resources: Brickset Brickshelf Bricklink Peeron City Corner. My personal favorite set of 2009. It sells itself I like to do the history of set models, some have a rich history like the Camper or Street Sweeper. Plain and simple there has been nothing like this set in the past. Sure some elements have been produced separately but not in an amazing bundle like this! Section 1: Instructions The first book is the bus and bus stand. I think this could make an excellent stand alone set. This set come with two instruction books! This must truly be a big set to have two books! The pizza restaurant and bike store. Section 2: Minifigures This set has five minifigs, a great selection. We have from left to right, the cycle shop handyman, sporting his green overalls and tool. Next is the lovely pizza chef. And it's a female! Ratio is 4:1 And finally the bus driver. How many bus drivers do you know who wear suits? In some themes, Minifigures have had back printing (Pirates, etc.) However the back torsos of these have no prints. The two lone civilian figs. We have the intrepid businessman (I think) and a sports enthusiast. Same with the civilian figures, no back printing. Section 3: Bus Stop The bus stop is neat little side model. It has plenty of details making it feel quite cityish. The problem here is the bench is only 1x1, I think 2x2 would have been better. A look at the stickers. On top of the bus stop is the LEGO City Transit logo, for trains and buses. Another cool sticker is the bus sign. Some of those details I was talking about earlier. We have a trash can to be environmentally friendly. Fire hydrant because there are hundreds of firemen in LEGO City. A flower planter to add greenery, a cypress tree would have been better and the light pole. Here we have the businessman leisurely waits for the bus, he would be using his smartphone or laptop but there are none currently in production yet nor an electronics store to get them at. Section 4: Bus One of the huge attractions and popular features of this set is the bus. It is simply amazing and is very well built and designed. Here is the other side where the doors are. LEGO could have skimped out and only given us one door but they added a second one for good measure. It looks very close to real life buses. I love the side advertisement decals. Front and rear views of the bus. The bus has the sticker 244. I don't know why, where are the other 243 buses in the city? I don't like the rear of the bus. The doors open to load passengers. This bus seats five! Plus the driver!!! Unheard of for LEGO vehicles! Access to the inside of the bus is done by removing three plates easily. Also each person gets a single seat, quite luxurious when compared to real life buses. After waiting the businessman gets on the bus. Some cab details are a dashboard with no dials, steering wheel, and place to drop coins or swipe your bus pass in. Here is the bus at the bus stop. Both doors swing open anticipating the massive rush of rush hour in LEGO city. Careful or you might get squeezed between the bus or trampled! Section 5: Extreme Sports Shop Another great aspect of the set is the cycle shop. I simply love the stickers for the store. Reminds me of classic repair sets from the 80s to early 90s. The shop has an obvious security camera. It also has the #1 on the shop. Not sure the point of this sticker? Here is the rear of the shop. This is an open air building. Inside we have the repair bay with a bike and tools. Next to the repair area is where the merchandise is located; a skateboard, helmet and hat. A major error is no cash register or cash. The side view. This nicely displays the overhanging bike sign (sticker). The shop also has another street light that matches the bus stop one. Our little kid eagerly window shops knowing that he lacks the money for a new skateboard and the store lacks the technology to sell it to him. The handyman says he is open for trades. Section 6: Restaurante De Pizza The largest building and main feature of this set is the pizza restaurant. It is three levels high and a modular building that can be adjusted to two levels. The design is simply amazing. Fences turned upside down is a clever technique. The roof is well built and has a window. Also an open air building for easy inside access. Two levels are used while the third is an empty loft space. Level one contains the oven and ordering counter, with.......is that cash register??? This set includes two pizzas. The last pizza set I remember, Pizza to go, had five. I would have liked more, plus a pizza delivery van. But this is a swanky pizza restaurant where you dine. The second level is where customers enjoy the pizza with a lovely view of the city. There are also the finest glass drinking cups. The pizza oven is quite high tech. It uses TECHNIC parts to push down on the lever and push the glass open. Our female chef at work in her five star pizza restaurant. Here is our businessman earlier in the day. Why did he take the 12 hour bus ride? Because he wanted to enjoy the only place to eat in LEGO City. Section 7: Altogether and Wrap up Here the models come together to form the set. It really is quite awesome Uh oh, some trash talk between two professional rivals. A recent BBQ stand has moved in outside and is taking business away. This chef specializes in turkey. Remember her? Yes the camper wife! Well she purchased her bike at the bike shop here! Too bad it broke down and she had to carry it all the way from the park, where her camper is parked. The handyman inspects it, checking to see if the damage is owner inflicted. With those off road trails in the park who knows?? Who is this? Well it's a tourist He has taken planes, trains and buses to come to the City Corner. Here he is grinning as he gets off the bus knowing he is finally here. Here we have him and our businessman discussing things. Our tourist is asking where is a good place to eat and what sort of stuff is there to do here. Our Tourist makes his way over to the Cycle shop where our little kid is trying on the latest helmet fad! He insists on him posing and taking a picture, as a souvenir he buys one too. Review Wrap Up Playability: 9/10 (Loads of stuff to do here: ride the bus, cook pizza, buy stuff) Design: 9/10 (The bus is awesome, the pizza shop is great, the bus stop is nice, the skate shop is good but needs a cashier) Price: 8/10 (average price, $50 would have been spot on, but no complaining for what we get) Parts: 9/10 (Good selection of parts, including those bus windows!) Minifigures: 9/10 ( Five minifigures, all of them are great) Overall: 9/10 ( Very close to a perfect set.) LEGO has done an outstanding job on City Corner in my opinion . I remember seeing the preliminarily photo here on EB. I knew this was the must-buy for City of the entire year. For years City fans have wanted a more civilian oriented City set. This set was a great way to add it. We got a bus which is brilliant and has diversified transit in LEGO City accompanied by the bus stop. The cycle shop is a nice touch. What really hurt it was the lack of a cash register and maybe it could have used a interior and door. The pizza restaurant is great and a solid building. What is really attractive about this set is that fact that it is building oriented. LEGO mostly makes vehicles for City. I wonder why though, since the most practical theme to have buildings in would be a City. The inclusion of the bus was also clever. However, each model would have made a cool set on its own. Wrapping them altogether in a bundle was a good decision . Buy this, you will not regret it. Edited January 17, 2010 by Macoco Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Legoliner Pilot Posted January 15, 2010 (edited) Very nice review Macoco. Edited January 15, 2010 by Legoliner Pilot Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jmupton2000 Posted January 15, 2010 Nice review there I have to admit I have bought two of these sets mainly just for the bus plus a couple more which were purchased split from the set via Ebay. I have modified all of mine to be UK style right hand drive and left hand door and agree with you that the back end is ugly and so have modified it. Two very good reasons for doing this mod is that one, it improves the look of the back end no end and secondly it provides a source of spare windscreens (seemingly not available seperately anywhere else) to build more buses using the same pattern although you can also cannibalise the bus stop as that has one as well. I will try and get some pics of my modified yellow ones later but for now here are a couple of quick shots of my MOC white version based on the same instructions with the windscreen which came from the back of one of the others. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Xenophilius Studz Posted January 15, 2010 Awesome review of an awesome set! I too believer this is one of the best sets of 2009, and I'm very happy to own it. Its perfect set to add two new buildings and an outstanding bus to any city layout. I also very much liked you wrap up of the set! 5 stars! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jmupton2000 Posted January 15, 2010 Just posted some details of my MOC's based on the City Corner bus in a separate thread: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=37562 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Big Cam Posted January 15, 2010 Great looking review, definetaly earned that silver badge!! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Notorious Guf Posted January 15, 2010 Our little kid eagerly window shops knowing that he lacks the money for a new skateboard and the store lacks the technology to sell it to him Best line in the review, cracked me up... Thanks... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
sens1992 Posted January 15, 2010 Nice review Macoco! This is a set I could not wait to buy! As you said, it is a good mix of elements, which could pretty much be seperate sets. It would be great if LEGO could make a second bus, which this time could be an articulated or double decker so it could be in line with that first one. We could really say then that our LEGO cities have a fleet, or a real transit system. oh, we then would need a light rail system too! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zorbas Posted January 15, 2010 Great review Macoco! I was really happy when I finished building it because there was a variety of elements, structures and pieces. Exactly how it should have been. One of my favorite 2009 sets for sure! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
prateek Posted January 15, 2010 Great review. I like the pizza place the best. The bus could be a bit better. BTW, where is the poll? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dr_spock Posted January 16, 2010 Great review. My son gave me this set for Christmas. It's a fun build and has good playability. I turned the bus into 4 wide to fit into my old skool town theme. I had some food safety issues with my pizza joint. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Piranha Posted January 17, 2010 (edited) Thanks everyone! Nice review there I have to admit I have bought two of these sets mainly just for the bus plus a couple more which were purchased split from the set via Ebay. I have modified all of mine to be UK style right hand drive and left hand door and agree with you that the back end is ugly and so have modified it. Two very good reasons for doing this mod is that one, it improves the look of the back end no end and secondly it provides a source of spare windscreens (seemingly not available seperately anywhere else) to build more buses using the same pattern although you can also cannibalise the bus stop as that has one as well. I will try and get some pics of my modified yellow ones later but for now here are a couple of quick shots of my MOC white version based on the same instructions with the windscreen which came from the back of one of the others. Very cool MOC there! I had a similar idea to modify or make a new bus, same design but base on a local bus company called "The Bus" However I decided not to as I didn't like their color scheme of white with rainbow striping around Just posted some details of my MOC's based on the City Corner bus in a separate thread: Nice, I will have to go and check it out BTW, where is the poll? I have no idea what you are talking about Great review. My son gave me this set for Christmas. It's a fun build and has good playability. I turned the bus into 4 wide to fit into my old skool town theme.I had some food safety issues with my pizza joint. That is very awesome there! I had the idea to update some old sets in new fashion but you did the opposite, great job oh and Edited January 17, 2010 by Macoco Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
curtisrlee Posted January 18, 2010 Wow, great review! Too bad when I got this set the chef's head was misprinted Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
