#ThrowbackThursday – Classic large town sets

Last weeks article was very popular and I’ve decided to focus on something similar this week. I’ve gone back in time and picked 5 classic LEGO Town sets that still put recent City sets to shame. I still think the town theme was ace and the current City theme is weak in comparison. Maybe it’s the parent in me or the nostaglic side of me but I found Town sets had more play value and more realism compared to City.

So this week here are 5 of my all time fav large Town sets, there are more but I happened to own all 5 and all hold a special memory. We will start with the oldest and work our way forward:

1592: Town Square – Castle Scene (1980)
Not seen anything this cool since and that was 36 years ago, I had the British version (this was a Weetabix Cereal Promotion) but there were other version such as Dutch and Germany. The UK one came with a classic English building that acted as a book shop, a fish and chip stand and a castle advertising LEGOLAND, We also got a brick built horse, complete with a Union Jack. We got 471 parts with a whopping 11 minifigures, both town and castle ones! Also two road plates 🙂 Average price for a used one is £69.18 and a MISB would set you back £983.01!

6393: Big Rig Truck Stop (1987)
Moving now to 1987 and while my first set was 2nd hand when I got it this was brand new back in ’87. I was a big Smokey and the bandit fan film and loved big rigs so this set was just so cool. We got 3 Rigs, 6221 parts, 5 minifigres and yes 2 road plates. Can you see i’m making a point about baseplates. These days a used set will set you back around £60 and if you want a MISB expect to pay £2104!

6395: Victory Lap Raceway (1988)
I loath the Speed racers theme, I find them really rubbish but stick 1001 stickers on them and a car brands and people think they are ace! Now compare them to this beauty and tell me which are better. Ok we got Shell branding but we had a start/finish straight on two baseplates with a pit stop, gantry, cameras, 4 race cars and so much more. The play features in this was mind blowing for me and the fact you could buy more baseplates meant I used to simulate different F1 race tracks. How many sets would you get this much with 606 parts and 13 yes count them 13 minifigures. Give me this set over every Speed Racer any day of the week! Thing is you can pick up a MISB version for around £250 now which I think is a worthy investment.

6399: Airport Shuttle (1990)
Oh you know I could not leave out a Monorail set, I picked the only one I owned and it was such an iconic set, AFOLS hold the monorail in a very special place. 9 Minifigures, 767 parts just not even begin to cover the stuff in this set. 4 Baseplates on varying sizes a track that has ups and downs and can be reconfigured. Add this to Airport sets and you are lost for days on end with the play features. Expect to spend on average over £300 on a used set and over £2k on a MISB, these are in such high demand and LEGO still won’t bring it back but I fear they would make a hash of it if they did!

6597: Century Skyway (1994)
Flash forward 4 years and this was my last Town set as a child and it was also my first Airport set, I added it to my town scene and straight away forgot I was in senior school. We got 6 baseplates, for the runway and taxi way. Two helicopters, a passenger plane, control tower and airport with departure lounge. Again LEGO packed it with 12 minifigures and over 800 parts. Every Airport set has not even come close to how good this was. If I want an airport set this is the one I would get. Price wise a used one on average is just under £100 and a MISB is a bargain at £267 pound!

So do you agree these 5 are iconic sets and shows LEGO at it’s best. I fear we will never again see sets on this scale done to this standard again.