Classic Town Museum

Like many Adult Fans of LEGO, my childhood was defined by the LEGO sets of the late 20th Century. While I love the sets that get produced these days with their wide variety of colours, pieces, building techniques and interesting themes, in my heart LEGO will always be the sets I grew up with, with their limited range of colours, simple blocky builds, traditional themes and basic printed designs.

This Classic Town Museum is a love letter to the LEGO many of us Adult Fans of LEGO grew up with. I have focused on features that will not only evoke this nostalgia, but which will also bring a whole new life to the older sets we might still have lying around.

To make this set backward compatible with older sets, I have restricted the palette to colours available at the time - black, white, red, green, yellow and blue. I have avoided shades of grey and brown that have changed over time, or other colours that might not be found in older sets. I want this set to fit right in when placed alongside any other sets, classic or contemporary.

I want this set to feel reminiscent of how it felt to build older sets, so have refrained from elaborate building techniques. The floors have exposed studs for minifigures to stand on, no tiled-over walking surfaces here! Having said that, I do use a couple of non-traditional building techniques for the exhibit mosaics and the outer wall decorations, just to avoid having too many basic white walls.

While this set is intended to appeal to the nostalgic adult market, I want this set to have the same appeal to children now as these sets had when I was a child.

Folded together, this set is a building that should fit in with any town plan. When the four segments are folded out, they form a showcase of different classic themes. The set can be put on display in this way, or used as a playset. There is a Pirate digging for treasure, an Astronaut in her space lab, a Forestman near his secret hideout, a pioneer woman making a withdrawal from a bank, a rally car, a prestigious sports car and a model train display.

I have also introduced a classic style for a new theme that did not exist at the time - the Caveman, inspired by the collectible minifigures and also the museum in set 60200: Capital City. The Museum logo and the mosaic behind the Caveman are based on designs in this set.

Either in a town setting or folded out, I hope this set provides plenty of enjoyment options for all builders and storytellers.

This is the feature of the set I am most excited by. Each exhibit and all of the museum staff and visitors feature new printed pieces in a retro style. This means that you can take your old Pirate, Castle, Space, Western and City sets out of storage and bring them back to life by introducing new Classic figures! Your Classic Forestmen can have a new leader. Your Classic Space astronauts can finally get out of their space suits and into a Space polo shirt. Your Classic City will have an influx of new citizens.

Along with the ten new torsos, there will be five new 'classic' head designs. The set will come with two of each, to make them more easy to collect.

While the colours, designs and (mostly) building techniques are traditional, I saw no reason not to introduce modern parts. For example, the wheelchair (at time of writing) only currently exists in 'modern' light grey, a colour that did not exist until 2004. I have introduced it here in blue, because I believe this part fits in well with the Classic Town. Other new parts have been introduced when I believe they do not clash with the 'spirit' of Classic LEGO.

Basically, this is my dream set to bring back my Classic LEGO memories in a whole new way, and I hope you feel the same way too!

Please leave comments about what else you want out of this set - A Classic Space Cyborg? A Classic Centurion? Let everyone know!