Random set of the day: Red Team Bus
Posted by Huwbot,
Today's random set is 3407 Red Team Bus, released in 2000. It's one of 16 Sports sets produced that year. It contains 133 pieces and 6 minifigs, and its retail price was US$20.
It's owned by 513 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you might find it for sale at BrickLink or eBay.
Help me come to life! If you like the set I've chosen for you today, please pledge your support for me on LEGO Ideas so I have a chance of becoming an official LEGO set!
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36 comments on this article
Uh oh, the red team has Johnny Thunder, it's an absolute unfair advantage.
Wait a minute, he's on every team! Is there some sacred soccer artifact and he's working undercover? Has he been cloned? There's too much power, I don't think the world can take it!
So that's two of the buses, cycled through the Random Set system. Black and White, and White and Blue, still to go.
We can talk about the really unusual promotional artwork or the fact that Lego in 2000 wasn't even sure what it was meant to be ... but honestly, I really loved these buses. I thought they were brillaint, and looked great in my city streets.
It seems both Johnny Thunder and Timmy decided to participate in football championships after retiring.
That is a tall windscreen
Red shirts, white shorts.... it's England in 66 ! Football came home !!
I loved these buses! They were so fun, as were all the other soccer sets. These buses used to be a mainstay around my town.
Man, I wanted so much one of these football buses when I was a kid. I never found them in the stores. I remember how much I liked the design of the bus, especially due to the huge windscreen.
Also a funny thing from these sets: bus driver goalkeepers.
The set only takes up 1/12 of the whole box/instructions art XD
@MCLegoboy:
I'm pretty sure Timmy more than balances out Johnny Thunder...
Wait, where’s the set? It’s that tiny thing? In the corner?
Touchdown!
oops, wrong football
Okay to the tune of Bad Moon rising:
"Brasil, decime que se siente
Tener en casa de tu papa
Te juro que aunque pasen los anos
Nunca nos vamos a olivdar"
"Que el Diego los gambeteó
Que el Cani los vacunó
Que están llorando
De Italia hasta hoy
A Messi lo vas a ver
La Copa nos va a traer
Maradona es más grande que Pelé"
I wanted two of these buses, the black one and this red one. Don't remember if I never found them like @lynels or they were around and I just never got to buy them.
My cousin had whole bunch of football sets including this and the black bus. Lucky me, he gave them all to me when he outgrew Lego. I used the parts of this bus but keep the rest built and ready to play.
These buses were great, and at the time the only real City style buses there were. I even liked the fact you could pull all the seats out from the back.
Red-team?
R.E.D. Team ?
.... Retired Extremely Dangerous!!!!
Then we finally got minifigs with Bruce Willis and John Malkovich!
And the confused football player in blue threads returns.
@Mr__Thrawn said:
"That is a tall windscreen"
Not unrealistic though. Many touring buses are nearly all glass on the front
@MCLegoboy said:
"Uh oh, the red team has Johnny Thunder, it's an absolute unfair advantage.
Wait a minute, he's on every team! Is there some sacred soccer artifact and he's working undercover? Has he been cloned? There's too much power, I don't think the world can take it!"
Perhaps these are Johnny's various children or descendants? He was a globe-trotting adventurer after all so maybe while was getting around he, ah, really got around
@cooldude69420 said:
"wow look at how little of the set is on the boxart"
A bit misconception around people here is that the image shown here on Brickset was the boxart. That is not true, those images with the big footbal player and the small set in the corner were just the images used on the instructions.
You can view how the actual box looked on Bricklink.
@MCLegoboy said:
"Uh oh, the red team has Johnny Thunder, it's an absolute unfair advantage.
Wait a minute, he's on every team! Is there some sacred soccer artifact and he's working undercover? Has he been cloned? There's too much power, I don't think the world can take it!"
He plays both sides so that he always wins.
While I don't like Sports, that's one nice bus.
Is this a 'team bus' that is 'red', or a 'bus' for the 'red team', or both?
@LegoSonicBoy said:
"I wanted two of these buses, the black one and this red one. Don't remember if I never found them like @lynels or they were around and I just never got to buy them."
The red bus was available in Switzerland, but not in Germany and Austria.
The black bus was not available in Switzerland, but in Germany and Austria.
For all those considering cloning/descendent conspiracy theories, I suggest you take a look at Vladek's pawns in 851499.
The 6th mini-figure has been chopped off the image, maybe he turned up late for training and the coach is in a bad mood! It's a tight squeeze in the bus for all 6 of them, but they do all just fit, I hope they are not traveling to far for the away game.
I got this one, since it could represent Belgium's Red Devils, which were rather rubbish back then… (due to rubbish trainers like Leekens and that evil Advocaat)…
My god, I'm so glad I had my dark ages during this time-period...
Why do the ‘red team’ bus instructions have a ‘blue team’ player on the cover?
And what was Zidane thinking?
Sets like this make me think that LEGO probably deserved to go bankrupt and disappear.
@jkb said:
" @LegoSonicBoy said:
"I wanted two of these buses, the black one and this red one. Don't remember if I never found them like @lynels or they were around and I just never got to buy them."
The red bus was available in Switzerland, but not in Germany and Austria.
The black bus was not available in Switzerland, but in Germany and Austria."
Wow, I thought only the Americas one was, given that it was the only one with a geographical name. That's weird to think about. Maybe these were just never available in Asia Pacific.
This tiny bus seats the same amount of passengers as the huge 60262 Passenger Airplane from last year.
@CCC said:
" @gunther_schnitzel said:
"And what was Zidane thinking?"
He was probably thinking money, money, money and why not. Money for them to just use an existing photo of him on a toy range that wouldn't have overlapped with his other endorsements at the time."
I bet the thought process was: "Okay we have a marketing contract with FIFA of [amount X]. Now we must find out, of which players our Allstars team should consist." - "How about of ONE Zidane?" - "Okay, that went quickly. That means earlier into the weekend, lads!"
@Mr__Thrawn:
Especially on snub nose busses where you’re sitting above the engine, the driver’s seat is probably about as high off the ground as your head. Having a low bottom edge on the windshield means they can see pedestrians in the crosswalk, or passengers who are loading/unloading the bike rack.
@icey:
Wait...which ones are supposed to be Helen and Morgan?
@MrClassic:
That’s why my Routemaster MOC is 8-wide. It has 18-1/2 minifigs (there’s not enough space for the driver to have legs, so he’s kind of a “bus-taur”). Oh, and a horse. If I amputated a few arms I could probably fit another half-dozen minifigs in seats, but seated minifigs need to have their arms fit inside the hollow space on the windows, so if they end up sitting right next to the window frames, there isn’t room.
20 years later and we still don't have a Team Instinct bus! Why do Mystic and Valor always get the spotlight?
These buses are classics IMO. Each one has stickers for 4 or 5 countries. I ended up with the American, Adidas and German ones--the buses and teams all look great. My nephews and nieces nowadays love the idea of picking their own team and then putting them on the field to play. The buses work well as city buses too
Johnny Thunder is also in 10176 as a guard. His distant ancestor?
I had this one. Cool thing. It was literaly the first time I ever got those 6 wide windshields, before that I only had 4 wide. Oh the opportunities this had opened for new designs.