The purists out there have decided to never check out this site again after that title. To be honest, this is not something I normally do, but my kiddo was given a set as a gift and asked me to help her build it. So we were off and building.
The set is made by the company First Gear®. I had never heard of them, but they are based in Iowa. Looks like they design them there and have them produced in China. The set specifically is a Wegman’s delivery truck. For those of you not familiar, Wegman’s is a supermarket chain in the northeastern-ish US. So let’s do a quick review (if you dare).
And a quick note, I am reviewing this on my own and am not receiving any compensation from any companies.
Here’s the box. The front does not even list the name of the company which made it. It does highlight Wegman’s and shows a picture of the set. The back gives a story of the Wegman’s company and shows more of the set. I didn’t take a picture of the contents like I normally do. The pieces were all just inside the box loose without any bags. There was an instruction booklet too (which I also didn’t get a picture of).
Building was not easy. Compared to the studs of LEGO® bricks, the tolerances were just not there. You really had to force some pieces together and I had to get a LEGO® brick separator to pry some pieces apart.
Additionally, the instructions made it challenging to decipher colors. Black, dark grey, and brown all looked similar. My kiddo started the model on her own and a few pages in, we realized she had used the wrong colors and had to take the set apart and start over. In the end I made at least one error with a 1x1 black plate and a 1x1 grey plate. Whoops!
The picture below shows the pieces and what they look like. You’ll see that some of the studs are not uniform and this was true throughout the set.
Another issue…look at the pieces in the picture below. Believe it or not, they are different. The instructions do not specify the difference very well and I only figured it out when we were installing the side mirrors and the two pieces I had left were not the same size. So 1x2 cheese slope like pieces with different slopes… Should our favorite brick company try this or would it mess up the geometry too much?
Here’s the minifigure. Hands look somewhat similar, but that’s about it. The top of the head is actually hollow so glad there’s a hat.
The set itself doesn’t look too bad. It has some good play features and looks pretty realistic. There were a lot of stickers to include stickers that stretch across the entire trailer sides. The wheels don’t turn well and are full up ABS versus a rubberized type material. In the end my kiddos enjoy playing with it and it was a gift so we didn’t spend any of our money on a non-LEGO® set so I probably should limit my complaints.
Have you built non-LEGO® sets before? Any thoughts or opinions to share?
Happy building (with LEGO)!
