10197 Fire Brigade, vintage LEGO fire station, coming Sept. 2009 [News]

UPDATE: 10197 Fire Brigadeicon is now available from the LEGO Store online.

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In news that I strongly suspect reveals the mystery question mark in the 10194 Emerald Night announcement video, LEGO announced 10197 Fire Brigadeicon at LEGO fan events in Germany and Portugal.

LEGO 10197 Fire Brigadeicon

Here’s the full announcement from The LEGO Group:

10197 – Fire Brigade

Ages 16+. 2,231 pieces.

US $ 149.99; CA $ 199.99, UK £ 97.85, DE € 149.99

Build an authentic vintage fire station!

Ding ding ding! There’s a fire in town! The fire brigade drives to the scene from this detailed and realistic 1930’s fire station. Designed to fit with other modular buildings like 10182 Café Corner and 10185 Green Grocer, the station features rare LEGO® pieces and innovative construction techniques. It includes a ‘30s-style fire truck, 4 minifigures, a fire-dog, an opening station garage door, and a removable building roof for interior access. It also includes 2 fully-furnished floors with fire-fighting tools, racks for the firemen’s helmets, fire-pole, ping-pong table, kitchen with fully-stocked fridge, couch, bookshelf and a roof with a water tower and bell. Measures 14″ (35 cm) high and 10″ (25 cm) wide.

  • Includes a 1930’s-style fire truck, 4 minifigures and a fire-dog!
  • Features lots of realistic details including fire-fighting tools, racks for firemen’s helmets and even a fire-pole!
  • The station house features an opening station garage door and 2 fully-furnished
    floors including a kitchen with fully-stocked fridge and a ping-pong table!
  • Remove the roof for interior access!
  • The roof is equipped with a water tower and bell!
  • Fire Brigade features rare LEGO elements including bricks and plates in dark tan, 1×1 dark red tiles, a red hot dog and the 3x6x5 Belleville® arch. It also features gold fireman’s helmets, a tan hand bag and a red sliding garage door!
  • Measures 14″ (35 cm) high and 10″ (25 cm) wide.
  • Add Fire Brigade to your LEGO® Town and combine it with other modular buildings like 10182 Café Corner and 10185 Green Grocer!

September can’t come soon enough for me, and you can guess where my second fire station will show up in October.

I’ve uploaded a full gallery of photos to Flickr:

LEGO 10197 Fire Brigade LEGO 10197 Fire Brigade

LEGO 10197 Fire Brigade LEGO 10197 Fire Brigade

LEGO 10197 Fire Brigade LEGO 10197 Fire Brigade

UPDATE: Andreas Haase has photos from 1000steineland 2009, showing interior shots of the upper story:

LEGO 10197 Fire Brigade interior

Check out the album on 1000steine.de for more event pics from the event in Berlin.

39 comments on “10197 Fire Brigade, vintage LEGO fire station, coming Sept. 2009 [News]

  1. tiberium blue

    I don’t like it. The front seems plain and a bit… strange. There’s too much bley and not enough dark red. I don’t think it fits well with the others in the series.

  2. JD_Luse

    I actually do like it. =) Very rarely does a set come out that I truly “want”. Though, I think it does need more dark red.

  3. eti

    Talltim, that flag is even more American…

    My first reaction is a bit disappointed. I was hoping for a dark red building – those modular buildings have thus far been excellent resources for bulk quantities of unusual colors (if I ever get the Market Street I won half a year ago, I’ll have a lot of medium blue…) but this set will give me a lot of very exciting gray bricks. And what’s with the default grins for minifig heads?

    And I’m not very happy with the fact that this set is going to be about 40% more expensive in Europe than in the US or the UK. So chances are that I’ll limit myself to just the merry go round.

    Not that it’s really a bad set but it’s not as exciting as it could have been.

  4. aussiechef

    I’m a bit disappointed. Leaving aside any issues of nationalism, it just doesn’t “fit” with the other modular buildings. Different style – different period – just too different.

  5. nxtquy

    I am actually looking forward to getting this set. I think this is much better than the other modular buildings, because it is so different. It seems much more realistic.

  6. gambort

    It looks to me like it has a significant amount of dark tan on the lowest level so I’m not sure why people are complaining about the lack of rare colours.

  7. Will Thomas

    ^Agreed. Although I can understand that many were expecting a predominantly dark-red building, in my opinion the abundance of dark-tan and bley make up for it. And it seems almost reasonably [even for TLG], my biggest hopes if that this drives down the prices of dark-tan on Bricklink. ;)

  8. David4

    I agree with what everyone else has said, it’s very American, very plan and blah, very grey. It’s also very blocky and it really doesn’t fit on the other buildings in the theme.

    Also there is still very little dark tan, it’s only the very front, just loads of grey and not enough dark red. Also I think there should be two garage doors in the front.

    Way too much greay, it looks very MOCish.

  9. SavaTheAggie

    You people would complain if you were hung with a new rope. Don’t like it? Build something different. Looks MOCish? So does the Cafe Corner and Green Grocer. Personally I think this is a fantastic set and I’ll be buying it even if I have to expand my ever growing amount of debt.

  10. Josh

    I think its a great set. I don’t understand why people think it doesn’t fit with the other buildings. It has a very San Francisco feel to me and I think the previous sets do as well.

    I did think that it was odd that it has an American flag, but that is easy enough to change if someone doesn’t like it.

    Seems like, with every new set that comes out, all the nay-sayers come out the woodwork. I like the set. I’ll be getting one.

  11. Clefspeare

    Hey, I’m not a pieces Guru or anything,(I have a very low budget) but what is holding that trans-red piece up in the bottom left pic? And I’m surprised nobody noticed the hot dog.

  12. Thanel

    Love it. Happy I’ll be able to stick it between my Green Grocer and recently (today) acquired Cafe Corner. Had to hear about this third-hand today from a TBB reader at Legoland California, where I’ve been all weekend.

  13. Creative Anarchy

    My only objection is that there are a lot of other buildings we could use before a another fire department, a florist, a pet store, a music school, really any number of buildings would be cool. It doesn’t shock me that the the Firehouse has an American flag and I don’t think the style is out of place with the others of the series. The Green Grocer and Cafe Corner are very Americana. All three sets strongly resemble buildings in Pioneer Square here in Seattle. If the flag is an issue it’s a legitimate grouse but I’m sure you have the parts to change it. Mostly I’m excited about the ratio of pieces to $ cost. At least in US dollars this is a very generous offering after a long period of somewhat high-priced sets. Then again prices are only final when you’re holding the receipt.

  14. PonchoPenguin

    Me likey. Although, if I had the choice, I would buy Cafe Corner I think.
    Also, what does the ‘DE’ in front of the price in euros mean?
    And lol@price in pounds. It’s actually cheaper to order them from England :D

  15. talltim

    My comment ‘looks American’ isn’t a critisism. I also think it fits with the other sets and if I had any money would be buying it, (and the Greengrocer and Market Street!) :-(

  16. Nolnet

    Dang! I still need to get GG and MMP. This is gonna be expensive.
    I quite like it. Wonder how the fridge might look like :-)

    @Poncho: DE is for Deutschland. And you’re right, ordering from the UK might actually be an option.

  17. boo_augustus

    Like it as a stand alone building, but it doesn’t appear to be scaled appropriately for the Green Grocer and Cafe Corner. Those are three story buidlings, this is a two story building the same height as Cafe Corner’s third floor roof.

  18. Dean H

    @boo_augustus: Have you ever been in a fire station? The ceiling of the ground floor is usually about twice the height of normal ceilings.

  19. The Mad Physicist

    Yes, it looks very American and yes, LEGO do seem to do rather a lot of fire stations and the like, and yes it does have rather a lot of grey, but I for one think that this is a great set. The truck looks good, the set has got some great parts and it’s great to see an official set with numbers built with SNOT work! This has shot to the top of my wish-list for this year (displacing the merry-go-round).

  20. Brickwares

    Seems a strange choice as the long awaited 3rd set. Agree with many comments about it’s lack of continuity with the first 2. Definitely doesn’t look like it would be on the same block as the other two.

    I’m confused by the number of comments saying that it would be great for the coloured brick etc. Surely it would be MUCH cheaper to hit bricklink and buy a load of that colour?

  21. Puddleglum

    @Brickwares: Sure, if ALL you want are the dark tan and dark red elements, BrickLinking them will be cheaper than buying the set. But you have to be willing to pay hefty per-part prices for rare part/color combinations. (For example, dark tan 1×2 and dark red 1×4 bricks both run about 30 cents a pop on BrickLink). I would have a hard time paying, for example, $50 for 200 parts out of a 2200-part set that cost $150. Not to mention the shipping costs that can add up quick if you have to place multiple orders. But I guess some folks’ collections have grown so massive that they only want to grow it by BrickLinking the exact parts they want.

    Despite their high price tags, I think the CC-series of sets (and MMV to boot) offer some of the best value out of LEGO’s entire lineup. Great per-part prices, and you get large quantities of useful parts and rare colors that are difficult to amass without lots of expensive BrickLink orders.

  22. Rocko

    I have to admit I would have preferred a more Ghostbusters looking firehouse but this is very nice too. Also, it’s a must buy because of the price to parts ratio. Everything else seems to have gotten way more expensive this year.

  23. nxtquy

    ^Agreed. You’d be surprised at how seemingly inexpensive sets were just a few years ago. Though it doesn’t have as many pieces as Green Grocer, I prefer these colors over the sand green.

  24. gptee

    well i dun mind a fire station for a modular building just as long it’s different from the city theme fire station. fire brigade is packed with loads of stuffs and details. i am buying 2 copies of this and make them sit side by side so it will look more impressive. :-D

    hopefully lego will continue giving us more modular buildings of the cafe corner standard. :-)

    btw, i think cafe corner and green grocer can be european – if i am not wrong. fire brigade looks NYC.

  25. legomason

    If you wait a little, the prices Puddleglum refers to will come way down due to the influx of supply of these pieces.

  26. Puddleglum

    @legomason: Think so? Dark blue 1×4 bricks come in large quantities in 3 sets (Cafe Corner, Market Street, VW Beetle), and they still sell for 26 cents each on average.

  27. Andrew Post author

    For all of you subscribed to get comments by e-mail, I’ve added a link to photos from 1000steineland in Berlin, showing the interior of the upper story. Yes, there’s a ping-pong table.

  28. mbellishments

    A direct quote from Wikipedia regarding colors, etc:
    A challenge faced by the designers of these sets is that they are not able to work with the full palette of Lego bricks and colors ever produced when designing. Instead they are limited to the bricks and colors currently in production by Lego at the time of the product design. As an example, for Café Corner, the designer wanted to include a bicycle piece in the set, but at the time, the machine that made bicycle pieces was broken. It had to be fixed in order for the designer to be able to include the piece in his design.[2] With Market Street, the fan designer was limited to only the bricks and color combinations available as ‘active components,’ meaning bricks that were already in production. No new bricks could be introduced.[3]

    There have been scheduling challenges faced in the design of the Modular Houses sets. For the Green Grocer set, the designer believed that the set could have benefited from another design iteration before release. The detailed nature of these sets requires a greater amount of design time than a normal Lego set. It is expected that future sets in the series will not suffer from such schedule pressures.[9]

    During the design of Café Corner (and presumably with the other sets in the series), the designer had to work closely with the building instructions team due to some of the “unorthodox techniques” that he used “which have not been tried before in official LEGO sets.” [2]

    The reason interiors were not included in the first two models in the series, Café Corner and Market Street, was because they could not be seen in the pictures included on the packaging. Once the success of Modular Houses sets had been proven with these first two sets, for the third set, Green Grocer, the designer was allowed to include interior details in each of the floors. As a result, many of the interior details of Green Grocer are not visible on the box and are only discovered while building the set.[9]

  29. onetruescotty

    This set is amazing, just F.Y.I.

    Also: stop complaining about the flag and brickbuild your own if its such a big butthurt to you.

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