Random set of the day: Rapid Rider
Posted by Huwbot,
Today's random set is 4920 Rapid Rider, released during 1999. It's one of 13 Rock Raiders sets produced that year. It contains 39 pieces and 1 minifig, and its retail price was US$4.
It's owned by 3,246 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you might find it for sale at BrickLink or eBay.
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31 comments on this article
Rapid Rider - Raiding Rocks since 1999!
I miss power miners, this theme was so cool :((((((
@R1_Drift said:
"I miss power miners, this theme was so cool :(((((("
This is Rock Raiders not Power Miners.
Look at all those prints! Not a sticker in sight. Just minifigs living in the moment.
I always thought this was a clever use of the helicopter landing gear piece. And I like the way they did the headlights.
I expect any lore to be delivered in the voice of the guy who used to do Micro Machines ads, before the FCC banned him for talking so fast he was in violation of regulations regarding subliminal messaging.
I like that Rock Raiders has advanced technology that allows them to hover, but then also this is implied to ride on the underwater rapids. The vehicles are so diverse.
Oh no look out! The rapids are moving too fast and you left half of the boat in the water! It's going to hit you get out of the way! He can't hear us he has Stud-Pods in!
Three months ago, we'd had zero Rock Raiders sets appear in RSoTD. We've now had five.
Why is he angrily attacking the crystal with binoculars!?
I was missing the drill-printed tile for 20 years until I recently managed to add one as part of a bricklink order. I remember taking it off the set so that the boulder would stick in the bucket
I love how the whole vehicle is grey, and then-BAM! Sand blue.
Turquoise I believe, dark turquoise to be exact. Yes, beautiful!
@sideswinger said:
"I love how the whole vehicle is grey, and then-BAM! Sand blue."
Nope! That's teal/bright bluish green/dark turquoise.
@gorf43 said:
"Why is he angrily attacking the crystal with binoculars!? "
... is that not how you're supposed to bash open rocks?
I still wish we'd had the Cargo Carrier and other water vehicles in a second wave of Rock Raiders. So much lost opportunity there. But water wasn't whole lot of fun in the PC game anyway (see what I did there?).
1999 was the "Year of the Star Wars" for me. My eyes didn't see any other theme that year. And it seems for good reason. I feel like Rock Raiders is missing the finesse that the design of Lego vehicles had in previous years.
Who hasn't drilled a rock with a buzzsaw before?
I thought the electrobinoculars were made for the Star Wars theme until seeing this, seeing as the first Snowspeeder came out in the same year they could’ve been made for that but reused here, than again we don’t know.
Very cool theme.
Rock Raider Rapid Rider, really? Radical!
@Trigger_ said:
"I thought the electrobinoculars were made for the Star Wars theme until seeing this, seeing as the first Snowspeeder came out in the same year they could’ve been made for that but reused here, than again we don’t know."
This set was released 01 Jun 1999 and the snow speeder on 22 Feb.
Only 1 star wars set got it while almost all rock raiders sets had electrobinoculars
One of the most unique and interesting themes Lego have ever made. I wish they didn't stop making their own themes.
A different style of vehicle which also works well as a Lego Space sand speeder. I miss the action packed box art, even if the river is a bit too narrow for the boat.
@PurpleDave: I didn't realize the FCC made Moschitta stop. Oh well, at least he could still voice Blurr.
@Brickalili: Right as rain.
@Arnoldos: Ninjago and Monkie Kid: "What are we, chopped liver?"
The Rapid Rider! One of my earlier childhood sets!
I remember standing in the Bart Smit toy store and having to choose between this and 6422 the juniorized Mini Tow Truck. I'm still so glad I chose this one!
It looks so nice and even has all the tools you need for a small RR set including a boulder with crystal! It's just a shame I wouldn't get another RR set until 14 years later with 4940 the Granite Grinder (which I then sold, and now bought again this March). For a long time the Rapid Rider was lonely in my collection with not much that goes with it.
Also, I didn't know it was a water vehicle from the narrow skis. I always thought it was more like a sleigh. Which wouldn't make it very fitting for the underground now, would it?
Rock Raiders was fun, for some reason I really like mining type LEGO sets.
Rock Raiders is always :hearteyes: for me.
This was the only other main Rock Raiders set I had as a child, after 4930; while I loved the theme more than perhaps any other one, 1999 was also the first year I was getting interested in Lego themes, and there was a lot else that had my attention too... and plus, I had all the characters from the aforementioned minifigure pack, so I didn't feel any need to get the bigger sets just to get duplicates of everyone (the only other RRs set I would get as a kid was 3347, the exclusive minifigure of Chief). So for the longest time, this was the only Rock Raiders vehicle I had.
The Rapid Rider never seemed to get any more than a single scene's focus in any Rock Raiders story media. It didn't appear in any of the Lego Adventures UK magazine comics; and in both the DK puzzle storybook and the High Adventure Deep Underground graphic novel, Bandit here just took it out for a scouting mission on the underground river near the beginning, ended up running into an ice monster, and the boat was never seen again after that scene. In the former book, the reader had to find the way through an ice maze for him to escape; in the latter, the ice monster froze him solid and he had to be rescued by Jet and Axel.
For a brief reminder of the overall Rock Raiders lore: On their way back to earth after some mission deep in space, the Rock Raiders' ship, the LMS Explorer, was caught in a meteor storm and sucked into a wormhole that spat it out above an uncharted planet in a different galaxy altogether. Without enough power to get home, the Rock Raiders discovered that this unknown planet (unofficially named Planet U in the fandom) was a plentiful source of energy crystals that they could use to power the ship. The five members of the Rock Raiders team (Docs the team leader / geologist / doctor, Sparks the engineer, Axel the driver, Jet the pilot, and Bandit the navigator) teleported down to the planet along with their mining vehicles to unearth enough of these crystals to make the hyperspace jump back to their own galaxy.
Of course it wasn't going to be that simple. Planet U turned out to be inhabited by large monsters made of rock, lave and ice. These monsters fed on the crystals, and took exception to the Rock Raiders making off with their food source; nonetheless, despite these and other hazards, the team was ultimately successful in gathering enough crystals to make the journey home.
@watcher21:
The first set to release with the Toa Mata/Nuva torso was 8008 Technic Stormtrooper, by about six months. You’d be hard pressed to argue that it was created for a single SW set. 21317 Steamboat Willie shocked everyone when it used new hats for Mickey and Minnie (at the time, Ideas wasn’t yet allowed to create new molds), but interviews later revealed that the molds were designed for their CMF counterparts that weren’t able to be first to market because they were locked into the CMF release schedule, while Ideas is not.
I’m not saying the electrobinoculars were for sure created for SW over Rock Raiders, but how many of the 1999 wave of SW sets would it have made sense to include them with? Besides Hoth, the only three other times I recall seeing them used were when Luke scans the Tatooine horizon right after R2 sneaks off, when he spots the banthas, and when the Sandtroopers are searching for the two droids. Only one 1999 set tied into any of those scenes.
@phi13 said:
"Three months ago, we'd had zero Rock Raiders sets appear in RSoTD. We've now had five."
On the one hand, I'm delighted to be getting so many Rock Raider sets, because it's one of my favorite themes of all time!
On the other hand, I'm sad we're burning through the catalog so quickly, since there aren't that many left to look forward to....
@TheOtherMike:
That was the story I heard at the time. Poking around, all I can find is that the FCC has the authority, but the only time they’ve even tapped someone on the shoulder was over something anti-smoking. And nobody even got in trouble.
@Binnekamp:
That depends on the underground in question. There are cave systems that are cold enough to use as long-term food storage.