Introduction

Catalog entry

Catalog's presentation from 1986

Previous and next mobile cranes

Technic crane

The Vehicle

The rope with metal hook

The vehicle

Moving the container

Cabin and the operator

During the racetrack's finish line construction

Alternative constructions

I've managed to find only one presentation in a small catalog from 1986, where this crane was present lifting the blue container next to the bulldozer from 6658-1: Bulldozer set. LEGO-6678-1 set released in 1980. However, this crane was quite different. Instead of the hook, it had a scoop. Therefore I boldly stated earlier that a vehicle from this set was the first crane with a hook in the history of the Town theme. In contrast, the official successor was a crane from a set of 6352-1: Cargomaster-Crane , which looked quite different and in which all the inconveniences from reviewed vehicle have not been repeated. I will describe them in more detail in further part of the article. LEGO-1489-1 released in 1989. Very similar design to the vehicle available in this set, however, it had even larger wheels. It is worth mentioning about mobile crane from LEGO-8460-1 Technic set, where you can find a vehicle exactly the same type. As befits for a Lego Technic, the mobile crane has mechanisms everywhere, where it is required. All can be controlled via the cranks protruding from each side of the vehicle. Even the support extends through the crank. This is definitely one of the most interesting Technic sets. As you can see, the concept of the crane was widely used in Lego constructions and can be found in several forms.The vehicle has four outriggers, two per side. The supports are retractable and it is possible to fold them. I think that they are the biggest disadvantage of this vehicle. Outriggers are based on ordinary holder, which is not able to keep the vehicle stable. It do not need much to fall apart while trying to operate the crane. Worse, it can be broken quite easily, if you use too much force.The barrier was used as the handle for the container, which is also used as part of the helicopter skids. This is the second drawback of this set, because the hook is hard to set up on the barrier, you have to use force to mount it on. You can not simply grab the object by handle with hook, it must be dismantled and put on. It is not practical. It is worth mentioning that both of these inconveniences have been removed in the newer version of the mobile crane released in 1991 included in 6352-1: Cargomaster-Crane set. This is a very good example of how Lego group learned from mistakes and how effectively took care of them, which I think strongly contributed to the overall success of the company.The crane can be classified as a construction vehicle, as it very useful during any building process as I proved it in many galleries by now. I suspect, however, that its main purpose was to load containers on a ship. The set included one container with openable door on one side.In summary, this is certainly one of the most interesting models, because of its size and available functionalities. Raising containers or other objects is not a problem when we have the crane!I present below one of the images of the race track's finish line building process, where the crane helps with lifting the grandstands plates. It may also be seen in many other building processes available here On the back side of the packaging we can find as many as 5 interesting alternative proposals, such as perpendicular or stationary crane. Most of these structures can be useful on the construction site. Mobile crane can also turn into a heavy tow truck for large-size vehicles. All these proposals can be seen in the alternatives section below and some of them even have an additional 'how to build?' gallery. I must say, that those alternatives were hard to reproduce from one picture.