Good morning, Oppo! Have some Lego trivia.

"Jim Spanfeller" (awesomeaustinv) 03/24/2020 at 09:35 • Filed to: None

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These little cars are actually quite valuable nowadays, so this box of them would be worth a fortune.

Fun fact: The first Lego cars were not made of Lego bricks. They were HO-scale models of mostly E uropean real cars and trucks. They were built in HO scale because it was a common scale for model railroads, which were extremely popular at the time. Even after Lego released the first wheel pieces, these HO-scale cars continued to be sold alongside small Lego buildings:

Towards the end, there was even a bit of overlap, with Lego releasing a car transporter set in 1970 that featured a brick-built truck carrying HO-scale cars (top photo) . However, in 1970, Lego actually stopped making the HO-scale cars, so when they ran out of tiny cars to put in the car transporter set , they used toy cars built by Minix instead:

user314 > Jim Spanfeller 03/24/2020 at 09:48

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That house is killer. I wonder how hard it would be to reproduce it?

Jim Spanfeller > user314 03/24/2020 at 09:58

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Well, it’s mostly basic bricks, though there are a few specialized elements that could be tricky to find. Mainly the garage door piece, which is a bit rare; the tree, and the black Mercedes, because HO-scale Lego cars in decent shape are expensive. The windows in the building are also out of production, but they are much more common pieces and shouldn’t be expensive. There’s actually a review for this set on Youtube if you want to see more:

shop-teacher > Jim Spanfeller 03/24/2020 at 10:02

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I just learned about these a few days ago. That little house is killer, and so is that transporter.

Jim Spanfeller > shop-teacher 03/24/2020 at 10:10

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The transporter is to me the holy grail of HO-scale Lego car sets. It bridges the gap between both brick-built Lego vehicles and HO-scale Lego vehicles, which is just awesome. It’s super rare though, and even if I could find one, it’d most likely be very expensive.

someassemblyrequired > Jim Spanfeller 03/24/2020 at 10:11

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I really love these early sets, but they are crazy insano expensive.

someassemblyrequired > user314 03/24/2020 at 10:12

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I bet you could 3D print the garage door mechanism and the tree...  it’s probably doable without too much trouble.

Jim Spanfeller > someassemblyrequired 03/24/2020 at 10:13

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I’ve seen the rarer versions of those HO-scale cars go for hundreds of dollars... Vintage Lego collectors take their rare Lego very seriously.

ttyymmnn > Jim Spanfeller 03/24/2020 at 10:40

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That is super cool. Thanks for posting!

ttyymmnn > Jim Spanfeller 03/24/2020 at 10:44

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Built it yourself in 3 easy steps!

shop-teacher > ttyymmnn 03/24/2020 at 10:48

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Notice the bottom of the baseplates has a different pattern. I just learned about the old waffle bottom plates last week, when I found a couple of them. Last produced in 1971.

shop-teacher > Jim Spanfeller 03/24/2020 at 10:49

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I’m sure it would be. The transporter itself wouldn't be too hard to recreate though.

ttyymmnn > shop-teacher 03/24/2020 at 10:52

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Interesting. Hadn’t noticed that. I do remember reading about how Lego improved their clutch system with the round attachment points on the bottom. Neat.

shop-teacher > ttyymmnn 03/24/2020 at 10:59

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The old plates I found are completely worn out on the bottom , and don’t work at all anymore. Apparently besides being a superior design, the round attachment points design used 30% less plastic too.

ttyymmnn > shop-teacher 03/24/2020 at 11:03

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30-percent is not at all insignificant. Multiply that by the billions of sets produced, and that makes up for an extraordinary amount of plastic.

shop-teacher > ttyymmnn 03/24/2020 at 11:20

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No doubt.

Jim Spanfeller > ttyymmnn 03/24/2020 at 13:14

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Lol, yeah those old instruction manuals were super compressed. 

Jim Spanfeller > shop-teacher 03/24/2020 at 13:15

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And I bet it wouldn’t be too hard to obtain some Minix cars to go with it...

Jim Spanfeller > ttyymmnn 03/24/2020 at 13:18

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You’re welcome! My mind is a library of mostly useless information, and it’s nice to be able to share it.

ttyymmnn > Jim Spanfeller 03/24/2020 at 13:18

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The latest ones are almost ridiculously un-compressed. A whole page to show the placement of a single piece sometimes.

fintail > Jim Spanfeller 03/24/2020 at 13:19

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I want that multi car set bad. That things gotta be into four figures.

I have a L ego fintail (at right compared to another HO scale) :

Jim Spanfeller > ttyymmnn 03/24/2020 at 13:21

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And then there’s this:

Jim Spanfeller > fintail 03/24/2020 at 13:24

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Ooh cool fintail. I bet it wouldn’t be too hard to collect the pieces of the truck set , as they’re mostly common parts. And then you could find some old Minix cars, like the later versions of the set used, which I don’t think are nearly as valuable as Lego HO-scale cars. But that set with just a bunch of cars... that’ll leave any Lego collector drooling or with an empty wallet.

ttyymmnn > Jim Spanfeller 03/24/2020 at 13:24

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Oppo is by far the best place to do that, since, no matter how useless you think it is, there will be people who are interested in it. 

ttyymmnn > Jim Spanfeller 03/24/2020 at 13:25

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To be fair it is interesting how much they an convey without language. I was a bit disappointed when the video games started talking. I was okay with the grunts.

fintail > Jim Spanfeller 03/24/2020 at 13:27

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The transporter is cool, but I mean the set below it, with just cars. Pushes my buttons. The box alone is probably worth a nice chunk of change.

I have one Minix, a Ford v an from the mid 60s.

Jim Spanfeller > ttyymmnn 03/24/2020 at 13:27

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My family and I were marveling a while ago about how funny the Sh awn the Sheep shorts are without using any words besides the occasional “Hey!”.

Jim Spanfeller > fintail 03/24/2020 at 13:29

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I realized which set you meant after I already posted my reply... Yeah, that multi-car set is basically a brick of gold.

ttyymmnn > Jim Spanfeller 03/24/2020 at 13:34

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That is a sign of genius, IMO.

Brickman > ttyymmnn 03/24/2020 at 13:35

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I miss instructions like that. Now days it’s a 30 page book for a $10 set.