$58.25?? What’s that look like inflation adjusted?

That was the first set that I found with a faulty deformed part. Was bought in Australia for me so had to contact LEGO Australia for a replacement part.

Always wanted this as a kid...

This set was one that was not in stores anymore by the time I was a serious Lego maniac, but annoyingly was in all the catalogs still. A truly great set, one of the first I picked up when I left the dark ages. It just has so much play value built in and the colors are perfect.

Always wanted this set! It looked such a great set and so much fun in the advertisements!

$58.25 in 1988 is the same as $121.11 USD in 2018. Which at 620 pieces works out to be 19.5 cents/piece.

^^$123.37, though restlically, would be an $80-90 set today.

Christmas '89. I was 5 when I got this. :)

what a lovely set it was - great concept and execution.
still no Octan parking lot ;)

Omg, I love this set!! Bring it back :)

Got this set 10 days before article came. All minifigs and base plates and many of bricks . Only it came in lot of 12kg , space,castle and city from 1980 ;) so will need to order bricks to get it to full glory ;)

I really want a copy of this set. It's very difficult to find a complete used copy that has all the parts and stickers intact, and I'm not willing to shell out for a sealed copy (yet...). Will be a great addition to my future Town layout for certain.

@AustinPowers: I don't really feel like getting more size out of fewer bricks is any kind of advantage when you're still paying way more for that number of bricks than you would be today. Like, what advantage is there to paying $120 for less than 700 bricks than $120 for 900–1200 bricks? With many of today's sets you get not only more detail, but also sturdier structures, more play features, more time spent building, more resources for MOCs. And of course, it never hurts to have sets that don't take up as much shelf or floor space… how many kids do you think there are who had to cut down on their LEGO hobby because their parents got fed up with the resulting clutter?

Oh yes! This was the crown jewel of my younger self’s Town collection. Well, along with the airport. It was regularly attacked by unidenified paramilitary forces, causing the local population to modify their police and rescue helicopters for defensive purposes. LOVED this set. I’d buy a successor in a heartbeat.

My favourite CITY set!! Hours and hours of play!! Fantastic set!! I had to obtain really good marks at school to be granted with it (more than 5 excellents of 8 subjects), but when I got it...I was really happy!!

4 cars and a moto, fulling the deposit, washing cars...!!

I still have it built!!

I love little city scenes like this, they really help collections feel complete.

Had this set as a kid. Absolutely loved it. Sold it and then found it again for 30 bucks online. Now I just need the newer garage.

@peterlmorris: There was a sort of successor to this set six years back, 4207. Good set! Main differences were no street-level parking, a winch-driven rather than gear-driven elevator, and a smaller gas station and security station rather than a bigger gas station and shop. Also four cars instead of three and a motorcycle. As a bonus, it looks like it's still going on BrickLink for less than it cost at retail, if you have any interest in picking it up. And it even uses traditional baseplates, for those who care about that.

@TeaWeevil: A neater display, depending on how much actual shelf/table space you have. But just looking at this set, despite having two 32x32 baseplates, the footprints of the garage and service station themselves only take up around half that. The rest I guess you can jam with cars you get in sets that don't have baseplates, but needless to say it's much easier to make room for a set like 4207 mentioned above that condenses a greater amount of bricks, whether by weight or by piece count, into a 75 square inch space (give or take a few for the gas pumps) than a 200 square inch space.

I suppose this is one of the reasons that I don't get as nostalgic about baseplates as many people do. Rarely is the part of the set you actually build that much bigger or more substantial on a baseplate than it would be on standard plates, it just gobbles up more of the unused space around it, and if it's a set with multiple structures or bits of scenery, makes it harder to rearrange them to suit your play or display needs.

I also agree that inflation alone doesn't tell us how affordable a set is to the consumer, but I still feel like it's a necessary step in understanding that money today isn't worth what it was back then. If you want to wax nostalgic for a time when wages were higher, I'll be right there with you in wanting to go back to those good old days (even if I wasn't alive for some of them). But that's an entirely different thing than waxing nostalgic for the numbers on the price stickers being lower.

Perhaps more than any other set, 6394 epitomizes the Classic Town aesthetic of 4-wide vehicles, simplistic, open structures, and baseplates. There's really no other set that features a parking garage like this: the exposed studs are rather limiting to the free movement of vehicles and builders hadn't developed SNOT yet.

@Aanchir: Fair point; the amount of space certainly does make or break the neatness of a display/play area. The space where my daughter keeps her sets and creations is small and pretty cluttered, and lacks baseplates--however, I'm not sure that baseplates would help clear up the clutter, since we get things down and play with them on the floor, anyway. Additionally, there are other options that can make an area feel more complete and put together, including play mats with designs on them. These may not have the same "system" appeal as baseplates, but they certainly can fix some of the cluttered look that can come from a lack of those plates (I've found that, without some system, it's easy for a layout to look like a bunch of sets all pushed together), and can increase playability.

I tend to generally agree with you about baseplates; I don't miss them in most themes. But in town/city, I do miss them. When I was a kid, I felt like a baseplate gave me more "play" area. It reminds me of how the interior of buildings in Friends sets (one of my all-time favorite themes) tend to have larger footprints than those in City sets. City buildings may have similar amounts of detail crammed into smaller areas, but there's something to be said for space to play. For me, baseplates (especially road plates) helped towns feel more spacious.

PS: Thanks for the discussion. Your posts are always insightful. I agree with you in many areas--and I've found that, in places where I disagree with you, I still get the opportunity to see things from a different point of view.

@Aanchir: I remember that set, and I almost bought it, but it’s like 1/3 of the old set. Part of the charm of the older one was the open negative space in front of the actual deck, plus having the gas station off to the side.

Maybe I should say I’d buy a modular set update in a heartbeat, though I have no idea how you make something as utilitarian as a gas station and a parking garage as architecturally interesting as the modulars.

While I really like the look of this, it seems you can't park no more than 4 cars if you want each to be able to drive out without moving another (well I guess you may park another 2 on the ground level). And is there enough space to turn the cars once you get out of the lift? Well it certainly can't be for the then standard 10 studs long cars - even though the Shell car has somehow managed to on the box photo - but possibly for the shorter ones (7 studs long) included in the set.