The Lego City set 60150: Pizza Van Review is one of the 52 Lego City sets released in 2017. It went on sale in Europe on the 16th December 2016 for 19.99€/ 19.99$. It contains 249 parts as well as 2 Minifigures. This converts to 8.0 cents per piece. The pizza van is a versatile set and it can fit in many Lego-Cityscapes while maintaining a very high play value and a great price-per-piece ratio.
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| The completed model |
Box, instructions, Out-of-the-box and building experience
The box art shows the built set, the set number and the age rating on the front side. The back showcases some play features It is basically just a standard Lego box, nothing special about it.
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| Front of the box |
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| Back of the box |
After opening the box, you are left with two numbered part bags, a sticker sheet as well as two instruction booklets.
The building process is simple, straight forward but it's split by the two instruction manuals into two parts: the first booklet has you building the pizza delivery scooter, the small patio table with the lime green umbrella and the chassis of the van. All these are contained in the first parts bag. The second parts bag corresponds with the second booklet. Here you finish building the van and equip it with all that is needed to prepare and sell pizza as well as drinks. This is also where you can apply most of the stickers, increasing the overall level of detail.
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| The opened box and its contents |
This set also contains a few special, printed parts, like the
pizza, the
cash register, the
pizza slice, the
soda can cap, and the
oven button panel. I think it's really nice that you get the latter 3 of them as spare parts as well, so you can reuse them for MOCs or as accessories for other sets.
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| The spare parts included in with this set |
Minifigures and accessories
As mentioned previously, the pizza van set comes with two Minifigures (a male chef and a female customer/ delivery person) and a plethora of accessories and food items (makes sense this being a food truck and everything).
The chef wears simple, black pants and a basic chef uniform with the red scarf around his neck (the scarf is also printed on the back of the torso). His face has a fancy, brown moustache with matching eyebrows. He is not wearing the classic chef's hat, but the colour of his hair matches that of his facial hair.
The female Minifigure is wearing simple, white pants and a baby blue hoodie with a dark blue floral motive. The printing on the back of her torso is kept simple. The
hairpiece is dark brown and is a rather rare part, having been used only in 7 sets (at the time of writing) since release (2013). There is also a rare
white helmet with a
dark visor included for this Minifigure, so she can ride the scooter by the law, in case she is delivering pizzas.
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| Minifigures and accessories, front view |
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| Minifigures and accessories; view from the back |
Accessory-wise, you get the aforementioned helmet, a soda can, an entire pizza, as well as a slice, a white delivery box (not printed) and a portion of french fries to go. As a note, I enjoy the creative way of putting together the french fries portion: it consists of a
1x1 dark red cylinder and a
solid yellow rock crystal, similar to the ore from the old Power Miners series.
The completed model
The completed model consists of 3 distinct elements: the red scooter, the patio table and the main Pizza Van.
Starting with the red delivery scooter, I think it looks fantastic next to the yellow and burgundy food truck and adds more play value to this set. While there is not much I can say about the build process since there is not much to build here, I only wonder about the odd decision to mount the two stacked pizza boxes off-centre, I think this looks weird.
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| Red delivery scooter |
The patio table consists of only 5 parts. There is not much special about it, apart from the
lime green umbrella, which really stands out. This part was released in 2016 and it was included in only 2 sets so far. I wonder, however, what happens with the patio table if the chef decides to move the food truck to another location, as the table doesn't fit inside the van. Nevertheless, it's another clever addition to this set, it increases both play value and display value. Not only that, but it is made up of only a few parts which can easily be bought in bulk for a more complex scene, like a street food festival or for the food area of a fairground.
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| Patio table. |
Now, on to the main model in this set: the Pizza Van itself. The van is 6 studs wide (8 studs if you count the black rearview mirrors on either side of the dark-tinted windscreen. It has an attention-grabbing bright yellow colour scheme with burgundy accents on the roof and sides.
The front of the truck has a retro look with the round headlights and rounded bonnet. While there is no obvious CITY PIZZA branding here, you can clearly see it above the driver's cabin, on the roof.
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| Front of the pizza van |
The rear end of the van is, in my opinion, quite bland and could have included more details, such as another logo or menu. I also don't like the tails lights, I find there is way too much room between the main, square ones, the trans orange turning signals and the ones on the lower side of the rear bumper.
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| Back of the van. P.S.: I'm sorry about the poor placement of the licence plate |
On the sides, things get more interesting though, as long as you can ignore the odd rim choice for this van. Why on earth would a food truck have sports car rims?
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| Side view of the van |
Here, you can clearly see the CITY PIZZA branding with a happy, moustached chef proudly holding a pizza as well as the opening hours and the menu, which seems to consist of two items, namely pizza (surprise surprise) and... salad. The salad on the menu I consider quite random, there is no salad included in this set, only a portion of french fries.
As with any food truck, both side panels (which blend in nicely with the overall colour scheme of the vehicle and have some nice texturing because of the grilles and the studs) can be opened to reveal the small kitchen inside.
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| The chef opening one of the side panels |
The small kitchen area inside is small but it seems to have everything a chef needs in a food truck to work. There is an oven with a programmable timer/ temperature setting, a cash register as well as a 2x2 desk area to prepare the food and put yellow or red sauce on it.
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| Inside view of the food truck: Oven |
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| Inside view of the food truck: Cash register and prepping area |
I like how the small available room is used and the most important details were not omitted by the designer, I couldn't have thought of a better layout.
I have never worked in a food truck, I only ordered stuff as a customer. I always notice the very limited space inside and I keep wondering how the vendors can still make great meals despite the very crowded inside. Our chef Minifigure only has 4x4 studs to move around, so placing him inside of the van in a working stance for a larger City display can be difficult. Unfortunately, the roof can't easily be removed to help to position Minifigures inside.
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| Top view of the van, without the roof |
Conclusion
The Lego City Set 60150: Pizza Van is a solid set with remarkable play value, despite minor flaws. It adds the necessary colour and diversity to any large City diorama. This set is refreshing relevant since it's a much-needed diversification from the multitude of boring, repetitive Police and Fire sets that keep being released every year for the younger audience.
Furthermore, given the price, this set has a remarkable price-per-piece ratio as well as quite a few rare and unusual parts.
Overall I like this set and it has my recommendation.
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