I like the look of these old American pick-up trucks and have been toying with creating my own model for a while, so I was quite pleasantly surprised when this got released. My one concern before I built it, however, was that it might be rather fragile with the building techniques required. I needn't have worried, however.

The build comes together nicely in 8 stages, the first being all the seasonal accessories. My advice would be to save bag one until last - I wish I had - otherwise you've a lot of small side builds floating around, and it would have been nicer, for me, to complete these as a finishing touch.

Apart from that, the build is very enjoyable. The truck is built on a largely Technic chassis, with a nice model engine and working steering. The doors have a nice mechanism to hide the hinges, rather like a real car door, with rubber Technic connectors 45590 to add friction and keep the doors closed. The various panels are created using various SNOT techniques. At times, it feels like they will be flimsy but clever positioning of studs means they all come together with satisfying clutch power. Even the clips used for the rear wheel arches snap in nicely.

This set contains, as might be expected, a lot of dark red parts. There are very few other colours hidden away underneath. I'm aware that there have been problems with colour consistency in dark red in the past, but (at least for my copy) there are no such issues here - all the various parts have very high colour consistency, to the point I can't see any differences.

This is not really a play set, but nonetheless contains a host of working features: steering, doors, lifting bonnet (hood) with a proper support stand, tailgate. The robust construction also means it stands up well to handling (as tested by my young daughter) although I don't recommend picking it up by the roof!

At full price it feels a little expensive, but can quite often be found a decent discount. But it is still a great looking model that is fun to build and, if you appreciate the aesthetic of these old trucks, I can thoroughly recommend.

I was initially confused when I saw this vehicle, since most large-scale vehicles tend to be based on real vehicles. But after some examination of the set it actually won me over, and I've come to prefer this made-up vehicle to real vehicles.

With real vehicles, the designer is challenged with matching the shape and style using what pieces are available, which can be a problem for vehicles that were never intended to become LEGO sets. This can result in some decisions that I find awkward or contrived, and in some cases a feature cannot be done with LEGO at all, so a compromise is made.

With this made-up vehicle the designer was able to take the exact opposite approach, and design a vehicle using available parts so that the design is lead by the shapes of LEGO pieces rather than the other way around. I find that the final result actually more aesthetically appealing and satisfying than with other vehicles.

I would love to see more vehicles like this in the future. Maybe we could see other vehicles of the same era, such as a taxi car with luggage, a muscle car with beach gear, or a postal truck with deliveries. Maybe we could see something else, like a LEGO take on a 1980s sports car.

The one issue that is often mentioned around this set is that the shades of dark red can vary from piece to piece. While it's not optimal that LEGO colours can ever be inconsistent (it feels like they have had a long time to get it right), I find that the effect in this particular set actually adds to the look of the vintage farm vehicle. The box art actually shows us the inconsistency between the shades of dark red, so it rather feels as though the inconsistent colours are a feature rather than a bug. In any case I would hesitate to be critical of this set based on quality control issues that are outside of the influence of the designer.

A couple of the design features/building techniques are less than satisfactory. The doors are flimsy and fell apart a couple of times during the build. The hinge is interesting but fragile, and it means there is a large internal structure that I'd rather not have. There is also the issue of some alignments of the pieces not fitting together exactly, leaving little gaps all over the place, as an artefact of SNOT building in different directions. It's obviously not a Mike Psiaki design, and not up to the usual high standard of his Mustang and Porsche sets, which are wonderful and amazing! :)

I personally felt the "seasonal extras" were an unnecessary addition. I'm sure some will like them, but I like just the cars, and wouldn't really want to see things like this in future with cars like the Porsche or Mustang. They had the better options with/without the roof, and the turbo. I'd prefer additional detail or pieces used in the build, rather than added on in this fashion.

My biggest complaint is the Dark Red bricks and plates. I like the colour choice, and I'm familiar with the history of the fragility of this colour, Reddish Brown etc. I appreciate TLG has sought to rectify this, and replaces broken pieces. However, I was concerned there would be variation across the pieces, and unfortunately this has been the case. There are two distinct shades across the set, with an occasional 3rd. Pieces like the clips and small plates are a lighter shade, and this has given the car a very patchy look. Compared to other sets that are of uniform colour, like the Mustang, Porsche, Space Shuttle etc there is significantly more variation. Seeing as this type of set is designed primarily as a display piece, this is very disappointing.

I hesitate to say it, but this is the first Lego set I've regretted buying, and I almost didn't finish building it. Any other type of product I probably would have returned to the store, and I may yet disassemble it and add the pieces to my parts collections instead.