6486 - Fire Engine

Rating:
Pros: Cool twin water cannons; great large wheels; excellent flexibility in the design of the two modules - you can play with each one independently
Cons: Design too simplistic; fireman looks silly driving without his helmet
Contents: 64 pieces including 1 mini-fig
Price: About $9.99 - Discontinued
Reviewed: 14-Jan-1998
Reviewed by: Matthew Chappell

Max Deveraux awoke with a jump. The phone was ringing. "What? It's three in the morning! How can a man get any sleep?" He stumbled over to the phone and picked it up.
"Max, there's a massive blaze over in the State Forest. Move your butt, boy!"
Within seconds, Max, Lego Town's only resident Forest Brigade Volunteer, was dressed and cruising down Highway 1 with his new state-of-the-art 4WD Fire Truck, complete with Water Cannon. This baby could handle the most spectacular of blazes with a single squirt of the powerful twin water cannons mounted onto a massive mobile water tank.
Spotting the blaze, Max turned off the highway and headed off into one of the bumpy and dilapidated trails. This was the sort of trail that stopped any ordinary two wheel drive (or for that matter any 4WD) into a cowering bunch of bolts, but not Max's truck. With gentle ease the new truck powered up the trail, grinding to a halt just a hair's breadth from the blaze. Max quickly jumped out, threw his oxygen tank and mask on, and fired up the huge twin water pumpers.
Within minutes the blaze was out, the animals and their home safe.

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I first saw this set on the Internet twelve months ago and was both elated and a little disappointed. The design seemed to be overly simple as though the Lego designers had wanted to escape back to their childhood of the late 1970s. However, I did love the twin water cannons on the trailer. That, I thought, was a nice touch. Only later did I realize that this new fire truck was part of the new Town line-up, appropriately dubbed by Lego Maniacs as "Town Jr". Such a decision was made by Lego to introduce a simpler style of construction and model, as it was thought by them that younger children were having trouble putting the previous Town sets together. Anyway, I bought this model twelve months later, finally giving into temptation. (I did always love a fire truck.) The set was indeed very easy to put together and the bricks came in two separate packets: one for the truck, one for the trailer, and a separate pair of instructions for each. Despite my initial dissaproval of the product, the thing grew on me. What helped enormously was an observation by a friend (a non-Lego Maniac) that it looked like a 4WD or ATV and thusly it looked pretty cool as a result. The simplification of the wheeled vehicles in the new Town Jr. range has transformed them into sturdy, go anywhere 4WD vehicles. Mind you, some models look much better than others. The new fire truck was one of the nicest and sports not only twin water cannons that swivel on their base, but special doors that open and shut, a hose and reel and an antenna. As for the single alternate model it's interesting to build but I've never seen anything like it in reality or fantasy. I got bored with it pretty quickly. New elements in this set include blue 1x2 sloping sirens, a red 2x4x1 sloping brick (which seems to be a space filler more than anything else), grey 4x3 vertical doors, and large black pre-made wheel axles that straddle the entire segments of the vehicle. I would recommend this model to anybody, especially die hard fire collectors. After initial misgivings, you'll grow to love the thing.