pacc

Very realistic, Lego's creations are more of a relative scale, they had the dozer and minidigger recently. I were glad enough to just put a brickier engine and some bendable parts for a cabin, once you go 6-wide for this little fellow you need to accept the drumroller and harvester aswell (ok ok 6 vs 4 studs again)

Thank god, red cars are almost impossible to come by and with 20 something classic space sets it's hard to build even 10 of these rockets. I'll keep collecting the 2007 sets. At a closer look all 'special' bricks are generic and you don't seem to need much to change the color for any other uses.

Review: I like this truck better than the original mainly because I never see any other type here in europe. Since it uses almost all parts It's a good value, perhaps the 3221 has a better colormatched trailer. I wish all Lego sets had alternative sets planned, this seems like the lucky exception. Though all that is needed is some clever exchange of hidden parts and/or breakup of larger parts for other models. A 10x6 plate, two 12 long bricks and some sort of telephone booth (no phone) is left over together with the large sloped roof. The total length is 41.5 studs compared to the original 49. I'd say less ridiculous, kids will cry. My son soon overcame that the truck he built was gone and started to deliver goods to the toy store. The trailer mechanism worked pretty good except in narrow turns, but was easy to hinge on and off. It only broke down once, which is normal for a 3 year old. The main container was secured by replacing some parts and I had to remove the motor grills from the roof to please the kid. To compare, the original truck did not have a proper hinge mechanism either and had to be rebuilt once and again. The front bumper also fell easily so the durability did not suffer for the alternative model. An extra handle found use to hold the box loader, a function missing in the original. Internally it naturally loses the bed but the driver has coffee and a computer with delivery schedules easily available. The roof became rigid enough to pull off easily, but it's secured with too many studs for a small kid. Despite being one big part the original design was too stiff to hinge and frequently fell off instead. Improvements? Lego should have included a 2x2 turning plate for the trailer (both original and alternative) I would also wish for some blank plates under the roof and smaller interlocking parts in the cab. Even though I prefer this variant to the original I will rate them equal, because the alternative model increases it's value. Try it out and decide yourself.

I finally bought the 7848 and had a chance to try this out in real, since it's late night there won't be any pictures but I had to change the lxf to include structural updates for much better stability and to fit the minifig inside.. Playtest tomorrow will show if it's good enough and cool enough. Final lxf file Iveco and Mercedes are most close on the road, now I wish mine was yellow like our postal distributors: (Two 2x1 plates left outside the model since the lxf and actual roof slopes did not match, they need to be switched to yellow ones (sacrifice the fusilage) exchanged to the 1x4 under the door and put in the roof for stability. I just picked one up in the scrap heap...)

I played a bit with LDD using only DesignByMe parts and uploaded it to the Lego Gallery (user paccpacc) The price given was ridiculus, I'd be interested to compare the structure/internals to the real thing to see if I choose the correct bricks and if the thing is stable and playable. Sorry that I had to choose the red parts, easy enough to repaint in LDD/Universe mode. Link to LXF file

It was hard to find a design to fit around the wheels, tough there are lots of trucks that have the cab suspended 'on top' of the chassis and the recess can show this look. Most real trucks looks kind of boring if you don't exaggerate the grills so I went with more yellow and more grills. For a more realistic look I think the middle one looks quite like a renault, maybe even more so with a yellow brick instead of the gray one on top of the bumper.

The design came mainly from the lack of available bricks.. Since the cab and the cassis seems to be separate the best match will probably be some kind of renault. It may look better with the grill wedged upwards or something like this.

Got a brickshelf account instead for images and lxf files: pacc at brickshelf Somehow I misplaced some bricks and got a slightly better result with the Lego truck and it's probably possible to fix the Toy's r us version aswell. (lxf files slightly modified) From the lack of comments I guess most people like the semi truck and are a bit bored with the old 7733 style...

Hi, Here is my attempt at building an european style truck from the LEGO or Toys'r us trucks. I have a review of it modified and built with real bricks further down this thread. Even the standard city truck was hard with the bricks available and the result used more rounded slopes. Suicide doors! The trailer is dragged by one of the plentiful handles, good enough since the 6 large walls are due to be used in some simple houses. If you like it I guess there are a few more parts to pimp it up with. Only four blue 2x1 grills used from Toys'r us shop, you need to find yellow stud plates and exchange some hidden parts if you are using the lego truck. I'm sure you already have some spare parts anyway but that would not be a true MODification. MOCB_7848_Toys_r_us_truck.zip Oh, and the younger kids will need to put the flat bricks under the roofplates for playability. Post pictures if you build it ;) / Patrik