Sunday, January 29, 2012

Lego Adventure: Creator Cool Convertible Part 6

Imbalance

More images of the just completed Lego Creator No. 4993 Cool Convertible's alternate flat nose truck mode. ^^












The special gimmick of this flat nose truck: by shifting the two handles behind the truck's head, the entire cabin can be tilted forward.







The V8 engine beneath the cab can be seen clearly.

The gimmick is really simple, almost too simple in my opinion, ^^; which is why I didn't bother taking a video clip of it like what I did with the convertible's movable roof. Also, from the immediate first two images above, you can see that I'm using my hand to hold the truck's head as the cabin is in a forward tilting position. That "support" is necessary unfortunately, because there's an overly imbalance distribution of weight to the truck's head that when it's in such a tilted position, the back of the truck would jack upward, and the truck's head would be on the ground. ^^;

Imagine the surface is a palm, the truck would be facepalm-ing itself for its imbalance weight distribution XD

Anyway, it's just a very simple gimmick as mentioned earlier on, so I'm not too disappointed about the weight problem. It's a lot easier to use your own hand to tilt the cabin too, which is certainly another "consolatory" way to look at the necessary support. ^^;

Another two simple gimmicks:


The container coupling can be flipped to the front (right image). No idea what's the real purpose for such design. ^^;



Both doors can be opened.


With camera flash on, some of the dashboard details and the steering wheel can be seen inside the cab.

Another movable component is the air deflector on the truck's roof, which was already shown in the previous posting. ^^

Closeups on the details:




















Bottom view of the truck:





In terms of size, the truck is somewhat bigger than the convertible, although the exact discrepancy is something I'm not very sure of, since I don't have another set to do a real size comparison. ^^; The truck is definitely taller, obviously, due to the tall truck head.

The assembly is pretty fun, albeit some confusing parts such as linking the bottom frame and the cabin's frame as mentioned in Part 4. However, in comparison, the convertible is a lot more satisfying in terms of assembly. The movable roof gimmick is very interesting, so it was very fun to assemble those few components with linked movement design and imagine how they would work together for the gimmick to fire. ^^ For this truck on the other hand, the cab tilting gimmick is really too simple to stimulate much anticipation during the assembly of the parts for it. When it was done, it was there, I didn't really care too much about it. ^^;

The imbalance weight distribution issue noted earlier on certainly didn't help me to appreciate that gimmick any better either. ^^;

While the gimmicks are not impressive, the look of the truck is certainly very nice. ^^ The combination of mainly white parts with a few red ones makes it look almost just as cool as the convertible. ^^ Almost, because nothing beats the awesomeness of the cool convertible in terms of look. XD The absence of protruding studs on four sides of the truck makes it a really smooth model to look at. The curved bumper and front portion of the roof, grill, smokestake are great design elements as well.

A very nice truck model this is. ^^ Not too many points for its gimmicks, ^^; but the look is definitely great. ^^

Will try out the last alternate model of this Lego set - a mini loader in the future. ^^

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