I wanted something that would not look like anything I've had so far. And all the bakeries, book shops, hairdressing salons, etc. are just houses with a display window. Luckily there's also a car shop model from Piko. It's not cheap but is definitely one of its kind. It's officially called "Bill's Body Shop" and its catalog number is 62208.
The building is supposed to have an American look. And it probably does. But it also reminds me of my local industrial architecture with simple rectangular shapes and brick walls. The bricks should have been red but... well... you can't have everything.
The packaging is surprisingly small and not heavy at all. I guess this is going to be a quick build.
We get some nice, large windows with the set. But other than that, it does not seem like there are that many details. Glue is included as it is always the case with Piko products.
There are quite a lot of "brick parts" in the box. Those are all walls and walls connectors.
There's also a gray roof and a garage gate. Looks like some sliding mechanism is included for the large door.
The manual is very clear and the parts are tagged but... somehow the numbers in the documentation don't really match the ones on the elements. It does not really break anything, not even raises the difficulty but it's still awkward.
Two sheets of stickers are included. Surprise! No German labels are available this time at all (except for the posters but those are optional).
Let's build it finally. Step one - the walls. Notice anything interesting? The door knobs are black. They come with the gray parts set but are actually black. Seems they've been covered with an extra paint. Cool, isn't it?
One element definitely stands out - the garage door. The gate can be raised or lowered along the plastic rails. I don't believe anyone would actually play with it but it allows us to set up the scene the way we want. Definitely appreciated.
A very difficult step. Twelve pieces need to be connected together at once to form a perfectly shaped rectangle.
But it's doable. Piko designed a set of small elements that are installed at the joint points and add strength to the structure.
The roof is flat. And it does not cover the top completely - just in 99.9%. This means it is not fully waterproof and some rain will get into the building.
The last batch of details is added. Please note that after the small roof is installed at the top of the double door, it can no longer be fully opened. I wonder why it was designed that way...
Add some stickers on top of that and the building is ready. I've even equipped it with a LED-strip based interior lighting already (hence the wires).
The custom labels on the service station are not a coincidence. They recall an actual car shop in my city. It's the place where I've met the woman who later became my wife. I hope she'll appreciate this small romantic element :)
Let's see some more pictures...
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As I already mentioned, I've decided to add interior lighting right away. I usually go for warm-white LEDs but this is a car service station so cold-white solution seemed more appropriate. It turned out pretty good in my opinion.
Now with a proper crew, we could even pimp up a time machine!
What do I think about the product? It looks nice and interesting even though the design is really simple. The building covers a pretty large area (51cm x 25cm) which may be an advantage or not depending on the layout size. The quality of the product is flawless.
One thing that is clear to me is that its price is just too high. 150 Euro for a rectangular structure with a few details and no baseplate is really too much. But I guess this is what you have to pay if you want a building that actually stands out from all the regular houses. Luckily I only need one of those :)
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