6446 - Crane Truck

The lowly crane truck.  Coming around to tow your precious vehicle.  Maybe you drove your lego car into a castle and it exploded, or a dinosaur ate half of it.  Inevitably, everyone needs to deal with the tow truck.

Interesting name, crane truck.  Feel like proper nomenclature would be tow truck.  Wonder what the significance of the socket wrench on the truck and on his shirt is.  Maybe they wanted a generic tool for their logo in order to convey an idea of mechanical skills.  The blue cap represents the blue collar work that this man is involved in, towing trucks and possibly repairing them.

Let's look at the vehicle itself.  Red is a pretty common color for tow truck (white being second most in my opinion) and the yellow lights on the top are also commonly found on such vehicles.  But there is something missing - a roof.  Why was this vehicle designed with no roof?  It's a small set at only twenty-six pieces, but I feel like a roof is an essential part of car construction.  This set was released in 1999, one of the worst years for Lego sets in terms of both sales and design quality.  Crane Truck was released during Lego's dark ages, and it shows.  Compared to the 1986 set Super Tow Truck it pales in comparison.  Just look at the two sets, Crane Truck hardly even resembles a vehicle when compared.  No headlights, smoke stacks, fenders, or any other small details that make a truck look like a truck.

Looking at the 2009 set Tow Truck we get probably the best example of a lego tow truck set.  It looks and feels like a real truck;  thick and wide, with real truck details.  I suppose it's important to keep in mind that these sets all had different piece counts and prices, but the modern set is just great and really exemplifies the sorts of sets that The Lego Group can produce.