Wow that’s a lot of open area.

Definitely not one of LEGO's better sets. There have been multiple police cars that had almost as many pieces alone. 146 pieces, in my mind, are just enough to build a decent mid-sized vehicle. Not four cars, a police station, and some other stuff.

One strong point is that it is built on a road plate. We don't see those anymore in sets!

But am I the only one here who is a fan of the classic trike?

It's like, I can appreciate where they were going, with this set, but the end result is still kinda ... bad, really.

Wow, I don't remember this set at all. 1998 wasn't exactly a great year for sets.

The bad guy was a regional exclusive therefore no one got him except the people who paid a thousand bucks... ;)

Is that lady proposing to the guy with the mug?!

Can’t really tell who’s the police and who got chased. Only police i see is that lady that gives flowers to a criminal she chased?

That stop sign is facing an odd way.

Fairly hideous “set” but man I miss baseplates.

I quite like the barrier that only blocks off half the road, and even if it did, you could just drive around it

If you can get past the cars, this set has great accessories, and the base plates of course.

I actually quite like this. It's simple, yes, but doesn't feel overly juniorized with bulky, single-use molds and weird jack stone figures. The parts and things are all still usable and traditional Lego, and much it would fit in with the era's regular town sets.

I only just realized that the police checkpoint (?) is on a separate 8x16 baseplate from the road plates. And it doesn't even overlap them making it very easy to position it anywhere with other arrangements of the road plates (or others you might have). Neat.

Ummm... who’s chasing who in this set?
It looks like they’re all nicely parked (angle parking only) in the middle of the road, waiting around for someone to chase.

I say it's time they bring back Castle Police!

@cody6268 said:
"But am I the only one here who is a fan of the classic trike? "

It's funny, to me it's still the new trike

I never saw this in the UK where Lego football was dominating city sets. Seems to be a German promotional set. I like the way they are all off road for such a flat road, very 1990's. The main reason for purchasing was for the baseplates and street signs, but then why not just buy these separately as probably have loads of vehicles anyway.

The cars look like boats on wheels...

@ALFIE22:
That's not unheard of. Railroad barrier gates only block off incoming traffic because the last thing you'd want to do is trap outgoing traffic right on the tracks when a train is coming at full speed.

@MCLegoboy said:
"SEVEN instruction booklets! Yeah, they're all tiny, but SEVEN? Six of them are all on single sheets that are folded up a few times anyway, like, what is going on here? What in the world was going on at LEGO in the 90s?"

END of the 90's, please! Marketing decided to go BASIC with town and thus decrease sale figures even faster. Town jr. is ancestor to Jack Stone, Junior and 4+. It never really went away =(

I'm baffled by the fact that, in the middle of a chase, the policewoman apparently stopped to pick flowers? I mean? That seems like a bit of a distraction from what she's meant to be doing?

That said, one thing that I like about 'Town Jr' is that it at least DID have lady minifigures as police officers, which I think was a pretty rare thing in Lego at the time? Even 2005 City featured an all-male police force for a while, so the Town Jr police sets stand out in that regard, if nothing else ^^

The cars, though? Yeeeeeah... they do leave something to be desired xD

@natro220 "There was a TON of good themes and sets that came out of the 90’s...kind of harsh to bash the entire decade that brought us Adventurers, Ninja, Ice Planet 2002, Aquazone, Western, 9V trains, and the start of Star Wars. Specifically 1997-2000 juniorized Town, yes there is the problem."
@TeriXeri "Also don't compare the entire 90s to some bad sets in 1997-2000 , Town still had great sets in those years, but some were Town Junior which, just like Juniors or 4+ now are just simpler."
@jkb "END of the 90's, please! Marketing decided to go BASIC with town and thus decrease sale figures even faster. Town jr. is ancestor to Jack Stone, Junior and 4+. It never really went away =("
Excuse me, WHO said that I was bashing the whole decade of LEGO? I'm questioning the thought process behind instructions, not the set or the decade as a whole. For the record, I actually quite like the set despite not owning it, there's a ton of play value here even if there is not a ton of building going on since the vehicles' instructions are able to be on single sheets of paper. Whenever I have commented on the juniorized sets in the past, I've never been so dismissive as many others because I grew up with them, they're just as much a part of LEGO to me as the Prequels are to the story of Star Wars because they just always have been to my brain.
I think @phi13 indirectly answered my question because it appears that this is a combination of multiple sets with only a few color changes that needed to be done in some areas. "What in the world was going on at LEGO in the 90s?" in the context of my comment is "What was going on at LEGO in the 90s that made them think having 7 sets of instructions were a good idea?" Well for the most part, it appears to be some form of weird economics because all they needed to do was change some numbers on the printers and some colors whenever needed, but in my opinion, at that point, just start combining things despite them having been proven to fit on single sheets. I have a few City sets from that time and they were also separated, but it only ever got as far as 3 (and it was honestly quite ridiculous because they split a vehicle in half to do so).
I'd actually love to see the packaging for the set because it actually makes sense if the bags were all separated. Your whole family and then some could be involved in building the set together with separate bags and instructions to match, but still, it seems odd that things weren't combined just into 1 or 2 instruction booklets just for the sake of tidiness. Like have all the vehicles in one booklet and the building and baseplates in another. It's a lot harder to lose a proper, stapled booklet than a bunch of small folded sheets of paper in my opinion, but absolutely none of that reflects my opinions on the set itself or the decade as a whole. I have a number of sets from that era with multiple components that are all in one booklet, that's why 7 sets of instructions is so baffling.

And actually, I have an example of a set that could have had multiple booklets and it would have made sense. 7171 Mos Espa Podrace has three podracers all separate from each other to the point that in the big box they came in, there were three smaller boxes that separated each pods parts, and with Anakin's pod, with the exception of the additional figures of Qui-Gon Jinn, R2-D2, and Jar Jar Binks, it is wholly the same as 7131 , the release of his podracer alone. Gasgano and Sebulba have their own boxes to separate all their parts, and yet, all three pods are put into one big instruction booklet.
I'm certain there are plenty of examples of Adventurer and Ice Planet sets with multiple components, too, that are only one booklet, and as TeriXeri pointed out, City has tons of booklets to this day, so it must be a Town/City thing and the demographic that LEGO aims for, which is primarily 5-8 year olds. Go down to your local LEGO Store and ask what range of sets City is aimed for, they'll give you those ages. Perhaps it's for attention spans, or parents assisting their kids while building, or making it easier to find stopping points while building larger sets or something. The point is, LEGO's choices for instructions are weird, and that's all I was questioning.

What’s that girl with the flowers doing during a police chase?

yay! the old baseplates
uh what? for those vehicles
miss those dark trans-green pieces

@natro220 said:
" @MCLegoboy There was a TON of good themes and sets that came out of the 90’s...kind of harsh to bash the entire decade that brought us Adventurers, Ninja, Ice Planet 2002, Aquazone, Western, 9V trains, and the start of Star Wars. Specifically 1997-2000 juniorized Town, yes there is the problem."

Someone didn't follow MCLegoboy on MOCpages... RIP.

Those cars look like boats.

@MCLegoboy said:
" Your whole family and then some could be involved in building the set together with separate bags and instructions to match, but still, it seems odd that things weren't combined just into 1 or 2 instruction booklets just for the sake of tidiness. Like have all the vehicles in one booklet and the building and baseplates in another. It's a lot harder to lose a proper, stapled booklet than a bunch of small folded sheets of paper in my opinion, but absolutely none of that reflects my opinions on the set itself or the decade as a whole. I have a number of sets from that era with multiple components that are all in one booklet, that's why 7 sets of instructions is so baffling."

Splitting a vehicle into 2 booklets still happens in 2020, see the Ice Cream Truck , really weird, in that case the "build with family" doesn't even apply as it finishes the vehicle in the second part.

Also I can imagine it being really annoying for buying instructions (like second hand) when they are split in so many seperate booklets.

I recently built a year 2020 3-in-1 set which had 3 tiny booklets, which on one hand makes sense as only 1 can be built from a set.

But on the other hand, at least most of the medium to larger 3-in-1 sets moved more and more to 1 single booklet in recent years since about 2017 from my experience.

Not sure how this managed to come out in 1998... its simplicity might have been passable 10 years prior, but come on! I very much miss base plates, though. As an AFOL, I prefer some scenery/environment for my characters to live in. It also helps reinforce the vignette concept, like the set is a little slice of another world. (Or maybe I'm just old. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.)

The Police Station from LEGO Racers 2 anyone...?

@Bagelwolf said:
"Not sure how this managed to come out in 1998... its simplicity might have been passable 10 years prior, but come on! I very much miss base plates, though. "

Don't insult 1988, the sets released then were much better than those of the late '90s Lego Malaise Era. 6394 and 6395 wipe the floor with this dreck and are just as good as today's City sets.

Compared to modern Star Wars sets, which cost on the order of $100 for one single vehicle, the late-90s town sets did have at least two things in their favor: (1) play value and (2) the ability to get a sizable city with lots of vehicles and buildings that could be rearranged endlessly.

@MCLegoboy:
It could very well be an early form of numbered builds.

@biffuz:
They're amphibicars. And amphibitrucks. And one of those 3-wheelers that was prone to rolling on corners and crushing the rider, but which could, given enough speed, drive over water. They just forgot the water.

Wonder what was the price of it back then. 146 pieces with 4 vehicles, 5 minifigs, 1 building, and 2 baseplates. What a rare occurrence.

I miss baseplates so much! Please bring them back!