To go along with the full Winter Village set this year, LEGO has released a companion set: LEGO 40746 Santa’s Delivery Truck contains 224 pieces and 1 minifigure, and will be available October 1st for US $19.99 | CAN $24.99 | UK £17.99. In the past, there have been gift-with-purchase sets that compliment the Winter Village in general, or go directly with the main set for the year – sometimes even two bonus sets, one in October and one in November. However, I don’t recall a complementary model like this that pairs directly with the Winter Village set and is separately available for purchase. Is it worth adding it to your list? Let’s take a look!
Unboxing the parts, instructions, and sticker sheet
The box has some generic holiday set branding, as is seen on seasonal sets that aren’t part of the Icons or Winter Village line. It looks like our delivery elf is in such a hurry that presents are flying out the back of the truck! One does wonder what kind of toy-delivery disaster has come up, leading to this situation?
Inside are 5 numbered plastic bags, the instructions, and a small sticker sheet. The bags are all quite small; you won’t need to worry about attention span for this build. The instruction manual doesn’t have a QR code to scan on the front to register the set (and to get 20 Insider points), which contributed to some guesses that this might be a bonus gift with purchase. It is rare for $20 sets to be missing the code in our experience.
The build
The build is straightforward, and mostly consists of stacking bricks and plates. There is minimal bracket usage for areas like the front fender and the headlights. The age rating of 8+ could potentially be lowered a year or two on this one.
The connection to 10339 Santa’s Post Office is visually made by using the same green “Post” logo, though the North Pole moniker is split on either side of the badge rather than being at the bottom of it. We can assume that a larger North Pole Post operation exists, waiting for builders young and old to create the varied other ways that mail can move in the far North. Armored Polar Bear parcel service, anyone?
The truck is finished off with a minimal driver’s area (it’s not enough to be a cab), a red roof, a front grille, and some random bits like a shovel and a side lantern, in case… in case the headlights fail? I can’t explain the lantern. The grille element, a 1x2x2 2/3 green window, has returned this year (in this and a Speed Champions set) after not being seen since 2001!
The final bag builds the Christmas tree that goes on the roof rack, and the presents that fit in the back of the truck.
The finished model
The finished truck features a fold-down back lift gate, a roof rack, and some gold highlights on the wheel rims and rear mudguards. The 1×4 metallic gold tiles are great to get, but do seem like an extra color in an already pretty busy color scheme. We’ve got a red hood, rear wheel wells, and roof; dark green for the front wheel wells; regular green for the front of the hood, some of the side body, and the upper trim; tan for most of the storage compartment… there’s a lot going on here.
The rear storage space is filled with presents, and some stickers give another clue about the purpose of this truck. LEGO’s product page doesn’t say this, but the “Workshop” stickers seem to imply that the back of the delivery truck contains a mobile toy workshop. Now, that doesn’t explain why the elf driver would need to go so fast that his hard work spills out the back, but being able to take Santa’s Workshop on the road to wherever it’s needed is a fun story hook! Take the elf driver and go wherever joy is needed, making and painting wooden toys – or new park furniture! – on site.
The minifigure
Our elf delivery driver (or door-dasher? Maybe he’s on the clock for two jobs at once and that’s why he’s speeding!) uses the same torso and hat/ear piece as the elves from Santa’s Post Office, but gets dark tan legs instead of green. The head is quite common, but does make this elf the grizzled veteran of the North Pole Post crew by comparison.
Conclusions and recommendations
There’s a Mr. Bean quality to driving the truck with the Christmas tree up on the roof as pictured – you just know something is going to go wrong, and hopefully lead to amusing holiday hijinks. But is this set naughty or nice? For $20, it feels underwhelming. The part count/price per piece is fine with 224 parts for $20, but this set seems like an example of how that isn’t always the best measure of value. Take away the tree on top of the truck, for example, and this looks like a $10 set to me. To feel like a good buy at full price, at least one more minifigure would be a big help, and a bit more substantial feel to the truck. Maybe more cargo area, or more of a cab to protect our poor elf from the North Pole weather. As a gift with purchase, it would be a fun bonus; on it’s own, I think there’s better value. For the same price sets such as 31147 Retro Camera or a pair of Lord of the Rings BrickHeadz are available, and $5 more gets you an adorable Baby Ankylosaur. This one comes up a bit short (elf height joke – zing!).
LEGO 40746 Santa’s Delivery Truck contains 224 pieces and 1 minifigure, and will be available October 1st from LEGO.com for US $19.99 | CAN $24.99 | UK £17.99. Also available from 3rd party sellers like Amazon and eBay.
The LEGO Group provided The Brothers Brick with an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.
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