My father bought me this set when we were at our local Toys"R"Us one day, along with set 2996, the Adventurers Tomb. Both sets had immediately caught my eye, because neither were listed in any catalogues I had at that time, and even at age 7 (or possibly 8), I was a sucker for rare and obscure things.

Box/Instructions

It's a simple cardboard box type of packaging and there is nothing much wrong with it. The alternate builds on the flip side are a bit lackluster, but who cares, right?

Parts

This set has quite a few tan parts to go around, which at the time were quite rare, so I imagine they made me happy. Also, the car does not feature the hinged type of windscreen that was common with the early Adventurers cars. Instead, it comes with two smaller clear panels, which are quite rare, I believe. The only other model that comes with one of those is this set's "sister set", number 2996.

My only criticism is that this set has two 4x6 plates that could've easily been replaced with a single 4x12 plate. I'm not really saying it's a bad thing, it just seems a little pointless.

Minifigures

You get the professor and a classic skeleton, neither of which are really that rare. Though the skeleton does wear one of those fancy yellow-and-blue Egyptian headdress things, which is a plus.

The build

Building this set is fairly simple, but it all works nicely and feels sturdy enough.

Overall opinion

This has got to be the best of the cars from this line. It's quite a bit larger than the other Adventurers cars (excluding trucks) which does a lot at enhancing its playability. The model looks fantastic and comes with enough accessories to satisfy all your adventuring needs.

Overview:

Ahhhh, the good old days of the Johnny Thunder and Co.. IMO the best "characterized" Lego theme ever, Agents coming in a distant second. The four adventures JT and friends took all over the globe were all great subthemes, giving us amazing minifigures and sets (that I wished I had all owned if not for my dark ages...) With the new Pharoh's Quest theme looking to pick up where the classic Desert subtheme left off (and with the time period looking the same), I thought I'd review this great set that would fit in nicely with PQ.

Parts:

As a Castle lover, I never complain about more skullys, and definitely not when they come with a detailed mummy headdress. The good prof Charles Lightning looks like this in pretty much every Adventurers set, so you have one you have 'em all. Great fig nonetheless.

The vehicle base with two spacious seats is predominately available in Adventurers sets. A couple Indiana Jones sets carry them, and if you have 'em already, the new PQ line uses them too. An amazing piece, looks great and is really useful. The grille and tires are nice too. The storage box, backpack, camera and accessories are just icing on a really big cake. Top marks here, all really nice elements.

Building Experience:

A simple build. The front of the car is mainly the prementioned vehicle base, with a printed 1*2 dashboard tile. The back of the car contains a 6X6 area for storage, which is really well thought-out, as it can fit the storage box+ backpack+ tools easily. A flapper piece at the tail loads and unloads the goods. Really good color scheme and design all over, giving this car a really desert campaign feel.

Playability:

As you can tell this set was not meant to be played/displayed with alone. However, for a set with less than a hundred pieces it offers enough goodies to stand on its own, almost a self-supporting tank, in a sense. Place it with any Desert sets and it'll be good to go.

Price:

As it was a limited release over S@H, where I got it for around USD$12 (gotta check the catalogs I recently found, but somewhere around that price), it's gotten quite pricy now. I've looked over the regular websites to pick sets up, and as of this day this baby goes for $30 up for MISB, around $20 for used. I wouldn't pick it up at the MISB price, for you can order the parts and build it yourself cheaper, but if the opportunity ever comes for a $10~$15 buy, go for it.

Conclusion:

Aside from Castle, my favorite theme is definitely Adventurers. I will definitely pick up all the PQ sets, and for those who are doing the same I strongly suggest you look up some Desert subtheme sets to go along with them. They maybe a little pricy now, but are well designed, and bring a crew with possibly even more character than the new kids in town.

this is the best little adventurers car out there. it has the most tools, a skeleton with a headdress, and a video camera. it has the most cargo space and looks nice. the map is good and the back cal hold a lot of treasue. 5/5!

This is a very cool set with alid to the crate, 2 minifigs.

Pros:
Skeleton w/headress
Scorpian!
Red Gem
Lots of tools
Crate has lid
Opening backpack
Map, #20 i think
No Johnny Thunder!

Cons:
The opening backpack gets kinda boring after awhile, especially if you have a lot of them.

This little buggy is a great set. It has the obligatory box of tools of course, and the scorpion, but there's a lot more including a skeleton with a pharoah headress. That's not why it's great though. The design on the vehicle is superb and it looks great especially the front with the grill and the lights. There's space for a driver and a passenger in front and the back is large enough to hold the box of tools.