Futuron: 6875 Hovercraft

Today's installment in Futuron is a this little spaceship called Hovercraft which is about as similar to ACVs or Air Cushion Vehicles as that British show's classy little van. 

Now, that's better.  and the point is, 6875 Hovercraft is nothing like an ACV. But where there's a will, there's a way.

Naming conventions aside Hovercraft is a good example of the Futuron theme; It looks more like a domed canopy to which small scooters and multiple guns have been applied.  The front of the ship has six guns facing forward if you ignore that the little side pieces are actually small ships; and those guns are probably just running lights.  I ignore that.  Everything pointing forward has to be laser weaponry by child logic; the very best kind if I may say so.  And so this ship is just bristling with armaments.  Your Blacktron ship can't withstand firepower of this magnitude!

The back of the ship sports little round dishes that are by all indications part of the propulsion.  They are part of a heavily concentrated section of aesthetically minded black pieces in a small area; a rarity in Futuron.

Furthermore, the ship is propelled by four white rocket engines mounted beneath the ship in a diamond pattern.

The arrow tile indicates an action.

 Swing the latch forward

The cockpit lifts up, providing the primary moving feature.

The design attempts to create a bubble dome around the pilot, a design which can now actually be achieved perfectly with this piece (circa 2010-present).

Isn't progress wonderful.  The Lego Group keeps improving things, I mean, hurr durr, when I was a whippersnipper we had to use our imaginations and build our space ship canopies out of 2x4 red bricks.  Thanks, but no.  I am however part and parcel to my age, and I favor the more angular windows such as these from my childhood merely as a matter of prejudice. 

Getting back to Hovercraft, it sports these two space scooters that present a really cool idea executed in a mediocre fashion.   They're kind of chunky and too big looking as seperate vehicles, though they do give the main model a nice look.

These removable segments can reattach to each other.

The result is this rather uninspiring super-scooter

 Hovercraft is decently big thanks to its long 2x16 plate which forms the basis of the model.  It's perfect for a kid's hand, and it provides a nice hefty weight to give you that extra sense of value.  It's not my favorite, but it's not bad, ending up somewhere in the middle of the theme visually.

There are certain pieces within Hovercraft which are peculiar to itself in the Futuron theme.

This white jumbo plate/brick is exclusive to this set in Futuron, albeit two can be had in black elsewhere in Futuron.

Here is the inverted corner slope which pairs well to the upright slopes in Lunar MPV Vehicle.  You get two of them in white, and there are no other variants in Futuron.  It is an uncommon part, but it's been around for a while so it is not too hard to find.

Hovercraft has two of this rather common piece, again in white, and for our purposes they are the only two in Futuron.

That wraps up the assortment of five Futuron specific parts.  Alas, none of them are unique, although three of them are not especially common.

Now this is how you build a hovercraft, Lego style...

Okay, Hovercraft jokes to the side, here's a space pod for quick transport.  It's a bit square, but, pretty cute.

6875 Hovercraft has only three prints in the entire set, an arrow, and the shirt/smiley face.  Overall it has a nice spread of engine parts and spacey bits, but it seems very heavy on plates, once again to the detriment of brick selection.

Final Verdict: B+
Pros: Two canopy windows, lots of engines in white, good main model
Cons: Few prints, chubby scooters,  yellow spaceman

Lego 6828

Behold the chibi monstrosity 6828 Twin Wing Spoiler.  A veritable treasure trove of exceptionally good components that does not quite equal the sum of its parts.  Is it a hovercraft?  Robot?  Spaceship?  Chicken?  Pants?  I'm not entirely sure.  From the picture it is clear that the primary function of Twin Wing spoiler is not quite walking, not quite flying, maybe it's a jumper (Useless).  It's the Futuron theme's jack of all trades master of none study in tedium.  Sure I suppose it does something very okay, but wouldn't you rather have Strategic Pursuer if you're hankering for a robot? Or maybe you fancy a spaceship?  I suppose Space Patroller has got you covered.  What's that?  Not enough cool pieces you say, lacking in blue spacemen?  Well, Twin Wing Spoiler has got those.  That will have to count for something.

The legs sit flush with the 1x2 striped tile 

allowing the vehicle to stand without wobbling.

So, I suppose you're all waiting with baited breath for me to tell you about this thing.  Okay.  Twin Wing Spoiler has four moving sections.  Two control sticks, and two wings/legs that look bad either way, but hey, those feet are in a unique color.  And that is something, unique parts for cheap, sign me up.   The model is little more than a la-z-boy with rockets strapped to it and chicken wings, yes both kinds.

I cannot, in good conscience, overlook a good thing, I don't often photograph the bottoms of these sets because I don't see the point, however, this set has some good work going on with offset construction.  It's not often that we see this technique used, but I feel like the Lego company was more willing to use odd techniques in the past, whereas now it seems they develop parts to perform strange connections in an official capacity.

This is the worst model in Futuron, hands down, but as a parts pack it certainly has what the kids want.  You get a Blue spaceman, six printed tiles, and thirteen transparent bits.  Let it not be said that this set was miserly with its offerings.  All I needed to sell it to me was the Blue Spaceman and this train signal bracket in white.

The Grey Train Signal Bracket was released in sets from 1980 to 1987.  It was only available in train sets.  In 1988 the piece was made available in white, exclusively for Twin Wing Spoiler.  The set has two of them.  After 1988 it was never released again.

There are no other Futuron unique parts aside from the truly unique part.  Sorry.  I personally think the train stands are worth it, if only because the full complement of parts makes for a good assortment, and the set is among the cheapest most plentiful Futuron sets in the aftermarket; providing an easily obtained example for the cash strapped enthusiast. 

With all that aside I shall now attempt to make something better than the main model.  

This is that model, sometimes I do more alternates, but I'm content with this, it's pretty cool for my money.  

Final Verdict: C- 

Pros: Great parts pack, blue spaceman, lots of prints, great prices

Cons: Confused model design

Lego 6893

6893 is a Lego set I have known by two names.  For some of the world it is called Orion II Hyperspace, and in America it is better known as the Galactic Starship.  Additionally, I've discovered another name for the set; Roboprobe Transporter...for once it sounds apt.



The ship is a three part vessel with a detachable middle seat that can serve as a distinct vessel.  The starship can be split into two space vehicles, a garage, and a ground robot car/transport.   Overall this set could reasonably support 4 Futuron Spacemen, giving you something to do with 6703 Minifig Pack.  This is the largest space ship in Futuron without the giant angled Space Station Windows. 

The first segment of 6893 is a two man carrier with matching moveable motorcycle style windows for stopping space lasers and asteroid dust.  It's a very open design compared to the other big Futuron space ships. The Futuron theme's standard black stripe accents are heavily used on this portion of the model across three separate parts.  While the stripes were merely accents on Classic space they were often the only consistent designed print across much of the Futuron range and go a long way towards representing the theme's austere color scheme.  Okay, okay, you've caught me, the arrow prints are equally present.  But then we would have to call it arrow-tron: onward to the future; or some other nonsense.

In the middle we've got a rocket chair with hefty controls for such a tiny seat.  It's by design just a bit unfinished looking when unpaired to the larger vessel, but it does give the overall model some nice accents with the white rockets, computer slope, and blue dishes.

The Two man carrier and command chair can each take over carrying the garage.  This thanks to careful design of the segments to ensure a snug fit.

The back Garage carries Rover inside.  Rover is a self propelled car that has two too small claws for examining who knows what.  He's got what appears to be a removable bot aboard as well as a handy set of wrenches, ahem, bigger, better claws for use by the spacemen, or for automated examination of crashed moon rocks, or destroyed Black-tron spaceships. 
The garage uses two of the octagon canopies for the walls as well as the octagonal wall clips to give the back section a cool globe look.  The biggest transparent piece sits atop the front of the garage and a door in the back drops down to let the rover roll out.  There are two transparent green pieces on the garage, making this one of the two Futuron sets to contain trans green as an accent color.

  

Arrow-tron! 

 

There's a spot for the spacemen to stand on rover, although he appears to not have any controls.  Perhaps he is to be operated via the middle chair's oversized controls?  Once again he's got a striped print.

The garage design was heavily borrowed from for a later starship in Blacktron Future Generation's main base 6988 Alpha Centauri Outpost.  I consider that Blacktron spaceship, as seen to the left in this image, to be a slightly better design, but the sameness of the Blacktron II cockpits across that theme means Orion II Hyperspace stands out better by having a unique front and middle design.

This is one of Futuron's most iconic spacecraft, as it struck out in a new direction with its design, and was never truly copied in whole.  It still feels refreshingly different after all the many iterations of Space that Lego has put out over the years, and I can't fault anyone who considers this to be their favorite Lego set. It really is a wonderful toy.

I suppose we should get to the parts now.

Here's an exciting piece.  The part itself is actually pretty common, but the print, while well used, only appeared on this piece in one set.  That's right.  This part and print combo is a Galactic Starship/Orion II Hyperspace exclusive.  There are two of them, and they are a great addition to the collection.

While it may not look like much, this piece here is quite special.  It is the rarest color variant for the 2x2 standard axle plate.  11 parts are available across the entire Lego production history; primarily within town.  In the entire space theme these two pieces are all we've got.

 
Here we have a holdover from classic space brought in for one use in Futuron.  It's a nice window.  This was its last transparent entry in the space theme, and for the original space ship canopy it was a fitting sendoff.  The transblue window's next and last appearance in a set was 11 years later in 1998 for the then new theme Res-Q before it was retired for good.
The piece appeared in the space theme once more when M-tron came out in 1990.

While not especially interesting this part does represent the scarce use of trans green within Futuron.  The only other example being 6770 Light and Sound Magma Carrier.  The part here is different, albeit also available in white and trans red throughout the theme.  To some degree the use of trans green parts in this line feels confused as if blue would have been a more apt choice, but that was the designers call, I am merely making an observation.

This piece is the original variant of the octagonal window, which was updated in 1994 for Spyrius to allow for a technic axle to go through the top of it, or a minfig tool.  The original white version appeared in 1 castle set that was issued twice (Knight's Challenge), and two space sets from 1987.  One of those space sets was Polaris 1 Spacelab, which looked very similar to the futuron theme with its color scheme, but belonged to classic space.  The final entry for this piece was with the axle hole in the Star Wars Tantive IV  There are 11 of these parts available across the five sets including the repeated castle sets.  All in all a very desirable selection of sets, and a very nice piece.

I've brought these together because they work in unity, there are two of each and Galactic Starship/ Orion II Hyperspace has the black color to the exclusion of Futuron's other sets.  These are fairly common otherwise, although given the Lego group's current fondness for clickity hinges these are no longer in production. 

 

 That's a grand total of 13 pieces which Galactic Starship/Orion II Hyperspace brings to the Futuron collection.  All in all, an excellent showing.

And now for a selection of alternate models.

This thing carries a robot inside it.  I would liken its movement to that of a crater jumper.  It jettisons upward and lands somewhere else.  Kind of weird, but cool all at the same time.

The token transport rover and scooter.

This is a great little surface speeder that could fly either way.  And of course I had to give it a robot.

Here's a space fighter.  It's got a very quirky look due to my shortcuts to integrate the octagon canopy.

If I keep up at this rate there will be nothing left to build.  As it stands the set has a few parts that are big, namely the octagon windows and frames.  These gave me some trouble given the Futuron theme's heavy reliance on plates.  The set has a nice selection of parts with decent part repetition to provide many intriguing options.  I kept building new things because unlike a certain Aero Module... it was a fun set of pieces to work with.  This is a well balanced assortment of parts and colors.

Final Grade: A
Pros: Two colors of Spacemen, lots of printed parts, lots of transparent parts, excellent main model, varied part and color pallete
Cons: Hard to find