4 stud v 6 stud Vehicles

[Paul B Technic]

Now I am back building in the city theme it seems that all the old cars and trucks I have are 4 stud where as the new ones are 6 stud, do people generally combine these in displays or just stick to a single size?

[polarscribe]

I think there's opportunities to combine, particularly given that not all new City vehicles are 6-stud, only the trucks.

Mixing old 4-stud cars with current 4-stud cars shows some differences in design, certainly, but the scale is roughly the same.

What would look weird is 4-stud trucks next to their modern 6-stud counterparts

[LEGO Guy Bri]

I've always combined classic 4W's with modern 6W's. Heck I had numerous 6W MOCs I build as a kid. The only thing that throws me off a bit, are the small wheels on the classics. I agree with polarscribe, in that modern 4W's have the same wheels as their 6W counterparts, and make them look much larger, so the blend in much better. Now, I wouldn't display a 4W tractor trailer, garbage, tanker, etc, next to a 6W. The width and length are just too far off

Edited February 20, 2014 by LEGO Guy Bri

[antp]

The only thing that throws me off a bit, are the small wheels on the classics.

Hence why I replace wheels on the new ones:

I find these better looking with car wheels rather than truck wheels, even if the arches seem a little big for the wheels.

[Mosse1997]

Hence why I replace wheels on the new ones:

I find these better looking with car wheels rather than truck wheels, even if the arches seem a little big for the wheels.

Looks better. Why haven't Lego thought about that?

[lightningtiger]

For me, I use six wides only in my Aussie town and mixture of fours and sixes for my Lego City style layout.....but I totally agree on the wheels issue 'antp'...your modified cars do look better with the different rims and tyres.

[antp]

Looks better. Why haven't Lego thought about that?

They used it for two of the cars of http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?S=4207-1

That's where I got the idea.

I think that the usual truck tire is cheaper for them to produce (due to the quantity they make, maybe) hence why they use it so often.

Earlier prototypes of http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?S=60060-1 had smaller wheels too if I remember well, only the final set gave to the cars the same wheels as the truck :/

[LAKAbricks]

With the cars, I don't think it's a big problem. Of course there are differences in designs - but so there are in real life. Compare the standard 1980s car to the standard 2010s car. Now it's bigger and more soft/organic in design.

It gets a little more difficult with the trucks. Of course there are medium sized trucks. But putting a 4 wide truck next to a 6 wide truck - that's even half a time longer than the old truck - makes it odd looking. I still haven't made my mind up what to do. If I go for the 6 wide, I will need several new trucks But it can be a way to go. Double up of all trucks, one 4 wide and one 6 wide. Then you can always change the trucks if you want to shift between the decades.

[ReplicaProfile]

Hence why I replace wheels on the new ones:

*snip*

I find these better looking with car wheels rather than truck wheels, even if the arches seem a little big for the wheels.

I thought I was the only person who did that.

[LEGO Guy Bri]

Hence why I replace wheels on the new ones:

[snip]

I like those new small wheels, they work. Though I wish TLG made fenders that fit around them a bit closer. I meant these smaller ones I find a bit off when on a classic car vs. a modern one:

Edited February 21, 2014 by LEGO Guy Bri

[antp]

For these the classic mudguard http://www.bricklink...Item.asp?P=3788 / http://www.bricklink...tem.asp?P=60212 works fine.

The 80s-style cars look a little smaller than the recent cars, but that's like in real life (at least with European cars), when you compare a 80s car with a recent one of the same segment.

And I still make 80s-style cars with newer parts & colors, e.g. : http://mocpages.com/...992/1343581163m

as the mudguard I mentioned above is available in several newer colors (and for the colors in which doors don't exist, there is still the possibility to use panels, like the medium-blue car seen in my link)

edit: by the way I discover a big mistake I made; I didn't buy the set 6910 two years ago, the only one having the mudguard part in green, as I was waiting for that part since some time... how could I miss that !? The part seems quite rare on European Bricklink shops...

Edited February 21, 2014 by antp

[Modulex Guy]

Why not just go right in the middle and build in 5 wide!

The 5 wides. by ChrisR18t, on Flickr

[rriggs]

Why not just go right in the middle and build in 5 wide!

Because that's odd... (pun intended!)

Cheers

Rog

Edited February 21, 2014 by rriggs

[matt_in_ottawa]

I thought I was the only person who did that.

I do this too. I discovered that style in the Parking Garage set (4207) and immediately started changing all my cars. They look great and there is enough variety in the wheels to provide some different looks.

[ER0L]

From the beginning in 2011 I started with a 7w scheme. My idea was that cars in that scale should be built for the small persons they are supposed to be combined with and that the figs should be able to sit side by side. Placing them in a row never made sense to me. Nowadays that we even see 8w cars here which is too wide in my opinion (and even 10w DeLoreans in city layouts which is completely absurd ) I think the idea was right. Things are getting larger, and with a 7w platform many problems of the smaller schemes don't occur.

Today the schemes are a bit more sophisticated, there's a range between 6w and 7w+. All vehicles are supposed to be used in a town layout.

This is an overview over the cars being used on the LCS (the slot car system).

The red roadster is the smallest car (6w, but it fits 2 whole minifigs side by side anyway). Then there are the vintage cars (not to be seen here, only the vintage truck switching between 6 and 7) with a 6w+ scheme (due to the mudguards). The full size cars like the Impala, the Checker Cab or the Ecto-1 are built in a 7w scheme.

It may be surprising that buses (and future trucks) are also only 7 studs wide (I call it 7w+ due to the rear view mirrors), but 8w trucks don't look good in a town - even on the broad SNOT roads we are actually using. Plus it's difficult to get them around the corners. Probably there'll be heavy duty vehicles in an 8w scheme later, we'll see.

[trippybrowneyes]

I don't mix my vintage town and new town, precisely because the difference in scale bothers me. I prefer 4-wide cars, even though the scale on 6-wide is more realistic.

edit: by the way I discover a big mistake I made; I didn't buy the set 6910 two years ago, the only one having the mudguard part in green, as I was waiting for that part since some time... how could I miss that !? The part seems quite rare on European Bricklink shops...

I didn't see this post until today, but coincidentally I was looking for this part on bricklink yesterday, as I own a green Honda Del Sol in real life and thought that my sigfig should have one as well. I guess most cars aren't bright green...

Edited February 24, 2014 by trippybrowneyes

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

Hence why I replace wheels on the new ones:

I find these better looking with car wheels rather than truck wheels, even if the arches seem a little big for the wheels.

Amazing solution!

[Aanchir]

I love that LEGO City nowadays includes both four-stud and six-stud vehicles (or I guess five-stud and seven-stud if you count the mudguards). 3177 Small Car is really the set that proved the advantages of the varied sizes for me. Back in the 90s, this would have been a pretty normal-sized car, perhaps even a bit big compared to some convertibles and sports cars. Nowadays, though, it's the perfect size to serve as a compact car, while six-wide vehicles perform a separate function as muscle cars, trucks, buses, and SUVs.

Now, what I'd really love is if we could see six-wide vehicle designs (particularly SUVs) that include seating for four minifigures. Since both my mom's old Crown Victoria and my dad's Ford Excursion are fairly large vehicles, this has been a goal of mine as a MOCist for many years. This piece from the Adventurers theme, while somewhat specialized, did a great thing by proving the ability to have both a driver's seat and a passenger's seat in a six-stud-wide vehicle, provided you offset each seat by a half a stud. However, to date, few sets have bothered with trying to achieve this, which is a darn shame considering how many useful building elements there are nowadays. The car in the Simpsons House is one that DOES include separate driver's and passenger's seats, though it only really features one back seat.

I am also fond of some of the oversized vehicles in themes like LEGO Ninjago and LEGO Agents, usually due to the amount of detail and play features they can incorporate, but it should be obvious to anyone that road vehicles ten to twelve studs wide have no place among LEGO City vehicles. These sorts of vehicles really don't make much sense outside their respective theme, and I've never bothered trying to build any kind of layout with roads sized to accommodate them.

Edited February 25, 2014 by Aanchir

[ER0L]

Good point Aanchir!

Since both my mom's old Crown Victoria and my dad's Ford Excursion are fairly large vehicles, this has been a goal of mine as a MOCist for many years.

Just because a Crown Victoria is a large car it's my idea to not build it in a 6w but in a 7w scheme. I've taken the following pic last September to show that 6w and 7w vehicles might go quite well together. You can see a 6w Roadster, the 6w car from 10232 Palace Cinema and a 7w Ford Crown Victoria (which only fits 2 men in black, alas). Of course there's the perspective but the 7w Ford doesn't look completely out of scale in my opinion. My idea is that this widens the range of proper widths to be used in a town layout.