MrZ

The Czech RBTs just look like police vans. Here in Australia it's much more than that - they use huge buses, trucks or sometimes RVs (motorhomes), set up on the side of the road or highway. See this pic to see what I mean: http://www.nachohat.org/albums/police_booze_bus/police_booze_bus_01.jpg This is why the mobile police unit is such a perfect set. And Lightning, yes I did get the idea from RBT on Nine :D

I agree that the SUV looks out of place in the structure, but there are actually parking structures in real life (at least here in Australia), in which a large SUV would struggle to fit. Many cramped garages (in residential apartment buildings in inner suburbs, for example), have height restrictions of 2.0m, some even 1.9m. This means a huge SUV like a LandCruiser would likely struggle to fit. Also remember that vehicles in real life have gotten larger and wider in the past 25 years (a typical Japanese sedan in the mid 80s might have been 1650mm wide, whereas today 1850mm is not uncommon), so Lego is simply mirroring reality.

I just thought of the perfect use for the mobile police unit - as a booze bus! I don't know if they have them in Europe or not? (I know they definitely don't in the US), but they are random breath tests and very prevalent here. They look something like this in real life: http://www.nachohat.org/albums/police_booze_bus/police_booze_bus_01.jpg I've actually bought two of them, the current 7288 set, as well as the superceded set (which I like because it comes with a small building). I can't wait to build them and set them up beside the road and stop everyone for an RBT! :D I know it's not the intended use for the set (they are meant to be mobile surveillance units), but using them as RBTs is so much more fun, and it's almost as if they imagined them to be used for this purpose but couldn't because of their kid-oriented target. Think about it - we get computers inside (which could be the RBT analyser machines), a road barrier, to block off traffic, and even a small motorcycle to chase those who try to get away from the RBT, plus a civilian car to pull over!! Could a set be more perfect? But one problem, what piece do I use for the RBT machine itself, that the citizens have to blow into? Maybe the speaker thingy that the police use?

Funnily enough I actually don't have a problem with the various vehicle sizes of 2005. What's wrong with the XXL mobile crane being 12 wide? Have you seen those things - they're enormous and take up 2 lanes on the road in real life. That set, and the XXL crane, I think are both very realistic. Yet Lego also decided to put huge bulging wheel arches and wheels on it's cars, which gave them a very cartoony look. Sadly this still continues today. It works well for the 6-stud wide trucks, but 4-stud wide cars should have smaller wheels without the bulging arches.

Fair point, but I wasn't intending to make it a poll of whether or not it was a bad year or not. I think most people would agree it was bad, but that's beside the point. I was really wanting to know the reason behind it being such a bad year, not IF, but WHY. Where did Lego go wrong and what could they have done different, kind of thing.

Hi all, I'm from Melbourne, Australia, age 30 and for 17 years (from 1994 until this year) I hadn't touched a single Lego set. This year I've started collecting and building City sets again and it's brought back great memories for me. I probably first started playing with Lego in the mid 80s (around '86) but only got heavily into it around '88-'89. Lego was very expensive in Australia at the time, so if I got 2 new sets a year, I was lucky :( We visited family in the US at the end of each year on school holidays (around Christmas time), so my parents would always make me wait throughout the whole year until we went over there, because they were so much cheaper. In 1991 we moved to the US permanently, and it was then that my collection really started to grow. I was collecting town, pirates, space, and castle. However, by the time I turned 13, in 1994, I had a computer, and PC games, as well as other things, were drawing me away from Lego. The sets were also becoming much of the same and I lost interest completely. I remember seeing the 1995 catalog for the first time and just groaning. Anyway, so far this year, I've bought dozens of sets. Most of the current themes I can't really relate to, so I've stuck primarily with City sets. I've easily spent perhaps a grand and a half in the past couple of months (some of the discontinued sets from '05-'07 are really pricey), but it's been well worth it. Anyway, it's great to be back and I hope to enjoy Lego for a long time to come. ;)

Interesting perspective, Brickviller, thanks. It wasn't just the sets though - even the new road plates from 2005 were bad. Not nearly as good as the 1980s ones, mainly because they don't have footpaths.

Yes it was MISB, but you're missing my point. Why was the set so cheap to start with? It had 347 pieces, so it should have been alot more than $24.99. Makes no sense. Another set released that year with a ridiculously low price was the ambulance, which had 118 pieces and cost only $7.99! That's less than 7c a piece. Why can't we get those kinds of prices today?? The repair truck released in 2009 also had 118 pieces but was $12.99. Both sets contained only 1 minifig, so that's an increase of 63% in just 3 years. Today you would probably be paying $14.99 or more for a similar sized set.

I recently had to fork out over $180 for this set brand-new. Being a relatively large set I thought it was worth the spend, but then I discovered that when new in 2006, it cost only US$24.99?! This seems ridiculously low - that's a price of 7c per piece (for most sets, the cost is usually 10c-15c a piece). Why would Lego sell such a good set for so little? Looking at it, without knowing the price, I thought it must have cost about $70 when new. For a set to increase in value over 7 fold in a period of 5 years is truly amazing.

Those sets were OK, but the street sweeper was basically an updated set from the 1990s.

I don't understand why, when Lego decided to revamp City in 2005, the initial sets were so bad. Firstly, the colour schemes of the police and fire station were terrible - black and white and red and black?? Then there were the raised baseplates on the police station and hospital - which I absolutely hate - with silly ramps leading up to the garages. Raised plates in town setting = bad idea. The fire station was too small and didn't even include a fire engine. Oh, and then there was that huge <insert that tiresome argument> dump truck. In summary, it was a very forgettable year for Lego town/city. Why and how did they get it so wrong? The current sets are infinitely better, and even the sets from the early to mid 1990s were superior IMO.

Well we all know $49 is an absurd over-inflated price. $36 here: http://www.treasuresforlittlepeople.com.au/lego-city-3221-truck-p-1164.html Oh, and Big W has the 7498 Police station for sale for $80 with free shipping from their website. Their normal price is $117, so this is $37 off (or over 30%). This is the cheapest I've ever seen it at (a few months ago they had it on sale for $88).

Their selection is appalling and overpriced. $169.95 for Public Transport?? $69.95 for the Toys R Us truck?! Rofl. Sure, it's exclusive, but you can get the generic yellow "Lego" one for $36!! A different colour scheme and a little shop doesn't make it worth twice the price.

That's a very high price for the Mill Village Raid. Shopforme.com.au has it for $87.95 plus postage.