Roger_Smith

Wow, that was quick :) Thanks a lot for the insight! And note to myself: Not all bricks on pics with old Lego necessarily are old Lego :D

Hey Gary, first off, I (again) want to thank you for your wonderful and insightful posts dipping into Lego's past on here. I really like reading stuff like that, and I'll surely pick up your DVD someday soon (propably after Christmas :D) Now, I have had a question for a long time that I feel you may be able to answer (and if you can't then propably nobody can), and this pic just made it pop into my mind again: In it, we see (apart from the precious VW-bus) two bricks with curved slopes on top of the building. When I was a kid (roughly 20-25 years ago), pretty much all the lego I had was square or in geometrical shapes with flat surfaces (like 45° degree slopes, the various old space panels and castle walls etc.). The only exception at the time were the 2x2 round bricks and plates, the 2x2 and 4x4 cones and - obviously - the various variations of dishes. But I can't remember ever seeing a brick with a curved slope, or a curved brick, or a large plate with a curved corner in any of the then current sets. Some curved bricks started appearing towards the end of my childhood Lego years towards 94/95, but before that, all the current lego I knew had flat surfaces. So my question is, was I just really, really unlucky in the choice of sets I got, or did the curved pieces really fall into disuse up until the mid-nineties? And if they did, was there any specific reason for it (maybe moulding difficulties or something like that)? It just seems odd to me that in a lot of these pics of really old Lego there is an abundance of curved bricks and plates with curved corners, but in my (pretty large) collection of bricks stemming mostly from the 70ies and 80ies (I was lucky to get a large box of hand-me-down Lego), the only curved examples I had were some red and white maccaroni bricks and an old plate with waffle bottom, all of which looked ancient even in the early 90ies when I got them. Looking forward to your reply :)

Awesome build. Hot Rod Club and that other Hot Rod set were pretty much the last sets I got as a kid, and they actually survived my Dark Ages fully built up until today, so this brings back a lot of memories.

Wow, now I want this set even more. The amount of details is breathtaking. Having the 1x1s beneath the outside seating area spell out "CHEZ", for example, that's something no one will ever notice in the finished set, yet it's such a great detail that shows just how much thought they put into this. Also, I only just now noticed that they used a gate as a shade over the outside seating area. Me want now! :D

That looks like you got an entire bag extra. My FB only had a couple of 1x1 pieces and other small items as extras.

Very nice build, the recessed facade at the corner on the upper floors is quite an unusual design.

Thanks for doing that. Your sig-pic now clearly shows that the restaurant's roof isn't significantly lower than the roofs of the two pet shop buildings. What's that, maybe a brick and a half, approximately? Nothing to get agitated about, in my opinion. It of course is the lowest building so far, but the height difference is not as big as some make it out to be, or as the direct comparison next to the monstrous proportions of Town Hall made it seem. I'm so looking forward to this set, it will be a real joy to build!

This is stunning.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/james_r90/9628464901/sizes/o/in/set-72157635304917098/ Wow. Am I the only one who thinks that these alternate builds (except for the mech, never cared for those) look a lot cooler than the actual set? I got the Deep Freeze Defender with a huge lot I scored on Ebay earlier this year, and decided to MOC it: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=79637&hl=

He has a link to it right in his signature. Just click on the middle picture :)

Nice to read your report. I only have Fire Brigade and Grand Emporium as of now, with plans to get Pet Shop next. I have to say, I clearly preferred building Fire Brigade aswell, so your comments make me look forward to Pet Shop even more. Grand Emporium was extremely repetitive and boring once you got past the ground floor. Plus I don't dig its general design too much anyway. I basically only got it because it's propably gonna be reitred soon. :)

Great, impressive building. Wish the Grand Emporium had used an exterior design like that (design, not size ;)). Would have looked much better :)

Kinda heartbreaking to see all those sad minifigures in their grey world, but great MOC nonetheless! :)

This might be really cool.

This sounds great :) Still have to get the rest of the older ones, though

Fire Brigade and Grand Emporium. Still the only new Lego I have, though I'm planning to bricklink a bunch of bricks so I can mod the Grand Emprium into something I actually like :D

The hood is complete train-wreck (or rather a car-wreck). Don't really get why they made the front section with the headlights 7-wide, when the overall car is still 8-wide as the original idea. The big flat slope piece was a near-perfect fit for the hood, so why create this ugly tiled monstrosity of a hood instead of just using it? The windshield and door area also looks worse than in the Cuusoo idea. That one wasn't angled enough, the Lego one is angled too much. That may also be the reason why there may be no minifigures included - it doesn't look as if you'd be able to fit two minifigs inside the car...

Great review :) If I had a lot more money to spend, I'd propably get this ;)

That's an amazing set. Way too expensive for my taste (not a Star Wars fan, though I like the original movies), but damn, that looks like a great and entertaining build. While I never liked the Ewoks (not even as a kid when I first saw the movies), I always liked their treehouse village, so this has got me drooling.

Absolutely stunning and beautiful, even though the store is Apple-themed ;) Totally love the exterior, and the interior is done exquisitely aswell (including the store). If I had to find anything that could be criticized, it's that it's missing a bed- and a bathroom. I could just see both in the attic, with the bed facing the big window and balcony, looking out over a big park on the other side of the street... But then there wouldn't be room for the nice attic, of course ;)

I'd think that the numbers are just the mold numbers. Most Lego bricks have one or several numbers printed on the underside, on regular bricks it just isn't as obvious. The mold numbers are there to identify the different molds that are used, so for example they can tell from a defective brick which of the individual molds is the defective one and fix / replace it.

If it's based on a Citroen, wouldn't it be a 1940's French Car? Anyway, the front looks great. The rear could use some more work, though, as you have already noted yourself.

I'm only just starting on the modulars, I only have the two oldest that are currently available, and am looking to buy Pet Shop next. Judging from the pictures, Green Grocer and Cafe Corner are among the best modulars to date, but I'll propably never get them because I don't see myself sinking 300-500€ into one single set. But still, I wouldn't support the idea of rereleasing any of the modulars. I'd rather have new ones pop up every year or 6 months. Sure, it'd be great to get my hands on those two old ones (I don't care for Market street, though I might get it for completist reasons if I ever should get all the others), but as soon as they'd get on to rereleasing Fire Brigade, it would annoy me. I already have that one (twice actually, one built, the other misb), so having them rerelease it in my mind would keep me from getting a new modular. And I'd rather have them relaese new modulars, instead of rehashing stuff they already did. So, nay to this notion ;-)

Great work again, it's a real joy reading and looking at these. Keep going! :)

Stunning MOC true to one of the best Space themes ever. Awesome.