The Lego City set 60137: Tow Truck Trouble is one of the 52 Lego City sets released in 2017. It went on sale in December 2016 for 19.99€/ 19.99$. It contains 144 parts and 3 Minifigures. The price-per-piece ratio is a bit high for a City set, at 13.9c/ piece, but I think it's worth it. This set has all it needs: a bunch of great vehicles and a lot of play value. Keep reading to find out why.
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| Cops arresting the criminal (completed model) |
Box, Out-of-the-box, instructions 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 a single instruction booklet.
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| Opened box with the spilled content |
The building process is simple, straight forward. The instructions are clear and I could not find any mistakes in them. The numbered bags split the building process into two parts: The first bag contains the parts for the safe and the two police motorcycles, while the second bag contains the parts for the red tow-truck.
There are 8 stickers in total in this set. While I would have liked more printed parts instead, I believe they add the necessary details to each of the elements.
Apart from the 3 money bills and the cowling of the "performance" police motorcycle, there are no interesting, printed pars.
After building the set, you are left with a few common spare parts, including a second red diamond piece, which can be used even when playing with this set. The second pair of handcuffs is always present in all police-themed City sets, so if you are a collector, you surely have heaps of them. I wish Lego would stop including them as spares.
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| Spare parts included in this set. The only interesting one is the extra red diamond. |
Minifigures and accessories
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| The Minifigures included in the set, front side view |
As mentioned in the intro, there are 3 Minifigures in this set: a male cop, a female cop, and a crook.
The female cop is riding the cowled, more advanced motorbike and has the dark blue "action" suit and dark gray gloves. Her torso has printing on both sides, but there is nothing printed on her legs. Her face is smug and self-confident.
The male officer is wearing the standard, baby blue "desk" uniform with a dark blue tie (with a matching backprint) and dark blue pants(no printing). He is clearly older and perhaps more experienced than his female colleague, his smile seems more neutral. Apart from that, he also has a dark brown mustache and thicker eyebrows. Both cops are wearing the standard, white police helmets.
The crook is wearing dark gray pants and a black wool cap. His striped shirt is hidden underneath an orange safety vest, like those usually worn by construction workers. His torso is printed on both sides. I really like the attention to detail here, on his back, held underneath a leather belt is dynamite sick and some matches that he could use if he can't get the safe open otherwise. His face seems more concentrated and has a bit more personality than the other two Minifigures. He also has a dark brown mustache and bushy, tho it's a different style compared to that of the male cop.
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| The Minifigures included in the set, rear side view |
This set comes with plenty of accessories. that help increase both play and display value. You get 3 100$ bills, a red diamond (two if you count the spare), a wrench, a crowbar, a blowtorch, a walkie, handcuffs, and police stop sign.
The completed model
Let's start with the least complex elements of this set, the two police motorcycles as they contain the lowest amount of parts and are not that exciting.
The dirt bike is made up of 8 components: a
silver frame,
white cowling exclusive to this set, the two
T-pieces making up the stand,
gold rims and the standard motorcycle tires. The police logo on the front is a sticker. I like the silver framing, it looks different than other motorcycles, but that's about it. The stand does not touch the ground if deployed, you have to tilt the bike to get it to stand. It cannot be placed on studded plates, it will fall over because of the uneven (textured) tires. At the same time, I don't really get the inclusion of this bike in this set. I've never seen police departments in large cities having or using dirt bikes, so it makes no sense for it to be included here (only makes sense in series like mountain/ forest/ swamp police). I think a second "speed" bike, like the other one included in this set, would have been much more useful, especially for collectors or people who like to display their sets. Nevertheless, I think kids won't mind it, In fact, I think they will enjoy it even more than the cowled bike because it's robust, small and really easy to play with.
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| The police dirt bike |
The cowled bike is similar, tho better in every way. It has a
black frame,
white cowling with the police logo printed on what appears to be the (also printed) black windshield and the same gold rims and treaded tires.
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| Police street bike, front view |
I don't know, for me, it looks more like a proper police motorcycle. It has the right stickers on the sides, the small blue light beacon and the clips that allow our female cop to transport her equipment. It's perfect. Almost.
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| Police street bike, view from the back |
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| Police street bike, view from the side |
I said almost. From a collector's perspective, I don't think the treaded tires and no stand were a good idea. If for any reason, the bike is not balanced while on a flat surface, it will tip and fall over. If this happens while the bike is on a flat desk/ floor, image what happens if it's supposed to be standing for display on a studded plate... Regardless, I like this a lot more than the dirt bike and I think Lego should have included two of them instead of that dirt bike. Kids will have a great time using this to chase down the tow truck and recover the stolen safe.
Speaking of safe, the safe is what I will be looking at next. The safe has a sticker on the door, the "Safe Inc." logo of the manufacturer. There is also a black rotating handle.
The back is not exactly exciting, but I don't see this as a problem after all a safe would be built into a wall in a bank.
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| Safe. Backside |
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| Crook trying to break into the safe. Front view |
Opening the door reveals a smaller safe inside, where the money is stored. It is made up of a light gray
mailbox casing and
front, which has a sticker on it to mimic the padlock and keypad on a real safe. The red diamond gem has a special "slot" and sits on top of the inner safe.
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| The crook peeking into the safe. Front view |
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| The crook, looting the safe. Front view. |
Overall I like this safe. It is plenty detailed and can fit in the bank of a collector without taking up way too much space. Kids will love it because it is as robust as it looks, they can drag it around using the tow truck and (apart for some scratches on the Lego bricks) it will be just fine, like the precious content inside.
The red tow truck is the highlight of this set. Unlike most "crook" vehicles in the City police line, it isn't dark red and does not have an evil-looking design theme going on, tho the
black shield-like tile on the hood definitely is an expression of the trucks sporty profile. It's perfect and collectors can use it as a normal, civilian tow truck without problems. While I believe a wider, 6 stud design would have greatly increased the quality of the details, I also consider that this approach would have needlessly driven the price up.
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| Tow truck. Front view |
The black doorstep nice detail and can be used to hold the blow torch in place. The "City Towing" sticker on the roof adds detail and supports the story that this vehicle was stolen. The trans-orange light bar on the roof is realistic. The clips on the sides allow the mechanic to carry the needed tools wherever they are needed.
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| Back of the tow truck. |
Around back is the yellow hydraulic towing arm. I like how Lego used the light gray parts to mimic the reinforced metallic components that would be needed to reinforce the chassis of the pick-up truck to be used as a tow truck.
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| Crook attaching the chain to the safe |
The hook has a
chain attached to make it easier for the crook to steal the safe in the first place.
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| Crook towing the safe away |
For me, the tow truck is the highlight of this set. It's just great: from the sporty design to the attention to detail with the towing arm, it looks unique and it blends in perfectly in any City display. Kids are going to love chasing it with the motorcycles in this set.
Conclusion
Despite the odd and unnecessary inclusion of the dirt bike (which I hate in case I haven't made that clear yet), I recommend this set. I think everything just fits together really well as a set, but it would also blend in nicely if it would be split up and distributed in the City display of a collector. Kids would love having the policemen giving chase to the tow truck pulling the safe around for hours.
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| The completed model: cops busting the crook |
The price-per-piece ration might seem a little bit high compared to the usual pricing of City sets and the completed model is not that large perhaps to justify the higher price, but if you decide to buy it as a gift or for yourself, I'm sure you will not be disappointed.
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