It’s not all extreme sports and wildlife watching in LEGO® City, sometimes it’s nice to just get home and have a kickabout in the garden. The Family House set may not seem as exciting as some of the other LEGO City sets but it does offer a quaint little LEGO build and plenty of interesting details in such a small set. Here’s a closer look at the LEGO City Family House and Electric Car set.
Product Details
Set Name: Family Hose and Electric Car | Set Number: 60398 | Pieces: 462 | Theme: LEGO City
RRP: £46.99/$59.99/52.99€ | Number of Bags: Bags x 5 | Instructions: Paper booklet + Builder App | Stickers: Sheet x 1 | Minifigures: x 3 + puppy
Availability: LEGO Stores, LEGO Online & General Retail
Despite the house being the main feature of the set, the build begins with a simple car. It’s a similar design to the car featured in the Car Wash set. The basic design is perfectly paired with the house and the car also has another connection to the house. LEGO City sets often feature more progressive views of modern life and one of those reflections of real life is electric cars. The car included in this set is an electric car and it can be connected to an Octan Energy charger station featured under the car porch of the house. The charger cable is a stud-ended string, which the images suggest connects to the rear bumper but I think it looks better on the bonnet stud.
Despite being a family home, it is quite a small building and it’s a little more traditional than the similarly named set from 2021. Although compact, it still includes some neat little details. On the exterior, you’ll find a car porch that uses one of the newish road plates. There’s also a small black framed, glass structure, filled with plants. You’d be forgiven for thinking this is a greenhouse but it’s actually a conservatory. This small section of the house includes a seating area and a number of plants including an excellent tomato plant, which makes great use of the plant stalk elements.
The bottom floor of the house features a small bathroom and a compact kitchen area. But even in this small area, it’s been packed out with detail. The simple use of elements and how they have been put together creates a genuinely impressive little kitchen. the upper floor is actually contained under the house’s roof. It can be accessed easily by folding back the two roof panels. This small area includes two bedrooms, which, again is a great use of space.
In keeping with the set’s muted appearance the minifigures featured in the set are pretty basic. However, they do introduce some new designs for some of the elements used to create the minifigures. These include two new torsos, with the kid’s dino shirt and the Dad’s sweater top both unique to this set. The kid also introduces a new hearing aid-wearing head. Plus the Mum’s hair is a new style. As an added bonus the set also features a German Shepherd puppy, this being only the second set to feature this animal figure.
Overall
Just because the set doesn’t include any colourful or flashy features, it’s still a neat little set. It reminds me a little of the houses I saw on my trip to Billund. Although it uses a similar design standard as other LEGO City sets, which sees bases of 8×8 or 8×16 used as foundations of the build along with modular construction, it can’t be reconfigured like other sets. The best feature of the set is the little conservatory. I must admit it looks a little like a greenhouse but I think it’s the best part of the set. I also like how much detail has been squeezed into the house. The kitchen is a particular highlight. Don’t be fooled into thinking this is a boring set, the level of detail found within the set is super impressive.
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The LEGO Group provided this set for review purposes. The thoughts within this review are those of BricksFanz.com and do not reflect those of the LEGO Group. Providing the set for free does not guarantee a favourable opinion of the set.
