Clone Brand Review: "Tow Truck"

[Peppermint_M]

Hello people of Eurobricks. I recently came across a Non-Lego clone brand brick based building toy and thus decided to review it.

I found it in Poundworld for, you’d never guess, a pound. (Or $1.60 or €1.16).

This is a Little White Dragon brick set, imported by Ackerman, a London based import company that brings cheap but good quality things to the UK for wholesale.

As you can see from the Box there are large white stickers over the Chinese characters and a big “Ackerman Toys” sticker on the front. Also, that is clearly not a Tow Truck....

The box contained two sheets of Chinese language information, a sticker sheet, a single instruction sheet and a single polybag of parts. I haven’t included a picture of the polybag, you’ve seen one bag of parts, you’ve seen ‘em all.

Here is a photo of the instructions, very similar to Lego. It was a double sided sheet with twelve steps.

This is the finished model. The bricks are decent quality, better than Megablocks but not as good as Lego. There were no marks on any of the bricks to indicate manufacturer.

Here is the figure. As has been noted by Chris Doyle on his Blog, Little White Dragon seems to be fond of including multi-racial figures besides a simple yellow (The figure is the only major difference to the box image). He is a rather dapper chap, even if he does look like he’ll try to sell a subscription to OK! Magazine.

Here he is compared to an old Megablocks figure, a new detailed figure and a Lego minifig.

Now onto the interesting part: The tools.

As you can see, minifigures can hold them with the same grip as with official Lego accessories. (I love the hammer).

Here is a comparison shot of the tools with their Lego counterparts. ( Two Hammers! )

This comparison of the tools with the Lego shows the difference between the two. The LWD Hammer is much more detailed than the Lego hammer and the Spade/Shovel has an extra point of grip (something I believe the Lego one has been lacking).

Overall this is a rather good set and a snip at £1, the tools certainly make it worth buying.

I will not call this set a bootleg for it is rather high quality and doesn’t seem to have any elements Lego has a claim on (Bricks are a functional design Lego have been unable to patent, beaten in many courts over the past few years). Unless somebody has irrefutable proof of nefarious pirates stealing Lego moulds and reverse engineering elements, I will continue to see these as a decent quality generic brick, they stick together really well (it has survived nearly four days in my non-Lego box).

Hope this review has been informative.

Edited March 22, 2010 by Peppermint_M

[Tom Bricks]

Looks decent but I'm not one for clone brands. You should try using those instructions to make a lego truck, it shouldn't be that hard as all the pieces look similar to lego pieces.

[Svelte]

I laughed at the minifig trying to sell the OK subscription!

Lego does need to go back and retool some of their accessories. Possibly they fear a backlash from AFOLs if they fiddle with classic moulds but in the long term it will need to be done anyway. There's no point keeping some things the same just for the sake of it.

[Eilif]

I think that what you have there is a copy of an Oxford set (the figure is an Oxford design) made by Sluban (sluban often uses oxford designs and the "OK" logo on their figs) and being sold under a different name.

Very interesting. Thanks for the review.

[Peppermint_M]

I think there must be some sort of Generic brick manufacturer out there that supplies some of the cheaper brands, true bootlegs are too busy ripping off Lego and have really bad quality bricks, figures and colours... I know that the customs officials would stop dangerous/illegal toys entering through such a legitimate importer as Ackerman.

The Hammer and Shovel/Spade are really good, in fact the whole set is certainly high quality plastic. I'll have to get a comparison picture of a brick with Lego and Megablocks.

[prateek]

the tools make the set worth 2 pounds. at least the bricks are better quality than megabloks