It’s fair to say that until recently, LEGO® City sets were quite pedestrian and churned out the similar sets on a yearly basis. Then the LEGO City Adventures TV series came along. Not only did it inject characters into the popular theme it began a renaissance for the evergreen theme and that’s continued ever since. Even the sets which may not seem that exciting on the surface, offer something unique. That’s the case with this set, as we were all distracted by otters, the Custom Car Garage certainly wasn’t on my radar. But it was one of the sets I have to review and I must say after building it, I was quite surprised. So let’s find out what it has to offer in another new LEGO City set review and a closer look at Custom Car Garage.
Product Details
Set Name: Custom Car Garage | Set Number: 60389 | Pieces: 507 | Theme: LEGO City
RRP: £44.99/$49.99/49.99€ | Number of Bags: Bags x 5 (plastic) | Instructions: Paper + Builder App | Minifigures: 4 | Stickers: Sheets x 1
Availability: LEGO Stores, LEGO Online & General Retail
The basis of this set is a garage which specialises in customising cars. This also forms the main and quite unique play feature of the set. The build split into sections with 2 cars and 5 parts of the garage equipment. The 2 cars in the set have fairly similar build processes and look like most other cars from the LEGO City sets. Yet they both hide a special connection point on both the front and rear of the vehicle.
Before taking a look at the cars, I’ll focus on the garage scenery. This is split into 5 buildable sections which are then connected together using Technic axles and angled connector rods. Normally this type of connection, especially in System brick-focused sets, can look a little odd but it works for this set.
The sections which make up the garage include 2 fairly simple racks used to store the extra car parts. A stationary car jack ramp and 2 wall-like sections. One of these was particularly surprising and not what I expected it to be. It’s a wall with a window-like gap and within the gap are three blocks which can be spun around. On the blocks are blueprint-like images of cars. With the larger central block having the body of the car on them and the smaller blocks featuring spoilers and bumpers. The idea is these can be mixed and matched to create different combinations. But the surprise was these pieces are actually printed. I expected them to be stickers.
The other section is slightly more detailed with a drawing board and numerous clips to store the various tools included in the set. This part also has a shelf to store a couple of engines, providing another part of the cars which can be changed. You’ll notice a couple of signs on top of each of the walls. These are the smaller island plates introduced in the LEGO Mario sets, it’s nice to see them used in other sets. Unfortunately, the detail on them is achieved with stickers.
The rest of the buildable elements are pretty simple builds. The racks are both the same and have angled shelves which can nicely hold the additional parts used to change the appearance of the cars. The ramp is just a raised platform. It doesn’t have the ability to be raised or lowered but it does have a set of raised elements on each ramp so when cars are placed on them, they won’t roll off. The set also includes a tool chest and a hoist. I love the look of this little section of the set. The Y frame bracket and the wheels look great.
The 2 cars are where things get really interesting. They both have a rather jazzing livery, with the detail on the side panels and the spoiler being stickers. Oddly, the roofs on both cars are printed pieces and the one on the predominantly yellow-trimmed car has a very cool wolf-themed printed roof canopy. Although both cars are very similar looking, one has an engine in the front and the other at the rear of the car. Both can have their standard engines removed and replaced with a much more intricate ones.
But the main customisable aspect of the cars is the ability to remove the front bumper section and the rear bumper/spoiler section and replace them with different styles. Each car has 2 different variants of its bumper and rear section, although you can mix and match them to create even more styles. These switchable pieces can connect to the body of the cars via a couple of clip plates which are securely fixed to a 1×2 shaft brick.
There are 4 minifigures included in the set. They are largely created from parts previously used in other sets but also feature some new pieces. These include the torsos of the male driver and the welder. In fact, the welder has a few interesting pieces. Her hair is featured in pink for the first time and her welder mask is also unique to this set. Plus she’s a wheelchair user and has the newer version of the wheelchair element, which can actually fit through a LEGO door. I also like that her welding torch is attached to her chair. It’s nice to see diversity being shown across all LEGO products.
Overall
I wasn’t expecting this set to be as much fun as it was. It was a great building experience and the ability to customise the 2 cars is a genuinely neat and unique play feature. But the most exciting part of the set is the various printed pieces. As I built the set, I wasn’t expected the printed elements, I even thought I was missing a sticker sheet. It’s just nice to have sets which provide something different for the LEGO City theme, even more so when they are as fun as this set.
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This set was provided BricksFanz and provided by the LEGO Group for review purposes. The thoughts within this review are that of BricksFanz and do not reflect those of the LEGO Group. Providing a set for free does not guarantee a favourable opinion of the set.
