Gudi 9603 Not Lego Ice Cream Truck Set Review

I just got this ice cream truck off Aliexpress.  It's made by Gudi and the set number is 9603. My Aliexpress order came super fast despite having no tracking number.  I was starting to get worried that the seller was trying to scam me, but now it's all good.  

 The manual is in the form of a booklet, with all the instructions laid out fairly well.

At the end of the Gudi manual, there is a parts list, just like Lego.  I can't recall Lepin ever doing this in their manuals.

Gudi gives you a sticker sheet to apply all the details on the ice cream truck.  Unfortunately, the colours are a bit muted.  My sheet came munched due to the soft packaging.  While I won't be using the stickers on the truck, I might use them on a future Ice Cream parlour modular moc.

Time to start building.  All of the 228 pieces came packaged in six cellophane bags.  I've dumped them all out here.

I tried to sort all the pieces by colour, but kind of stopped before finishing all the white pieces.  Anyways you can see that the primary colours are the white, turquoise blue and pink pieces.

In terms of accessories, there is a small beige and pink table with a translucent pink patio umbrella.  The set also comes with 2 Lego Friends style minifigures.
There's a male minifig with an ice cream logo on his shirt, so he would be the ice cream vendor.  And there's a female minifig whom I guess will be the customer.
An extra hand was included.  As always, the Friends style minifigs will be given to my neighbours kids.

And here's the completed ice cream truck.  It's a neat little design with the cab area accessed by two opening doors. I like the green colours of the serving window.

With the low awning and the ice cream treats in front of the window, it makes it hard to see anyone inside the truck, I think.  The giant ice cream cone on the roof, is similar to one seen on the Lego ice cream truck.  This Gudi truck is a unique design and not copied from any Lego set.

Here's the Gudi ice cream truck pictured together with the Enlighten ice cream truck for comparison.  They are both relatively the same size length and height wise, except the Gudi truck has larger wheels.  Both trucks display well in on the streets of Its Not Lego town.   The Gudi truck serving window faces the road which is very dangerous.  After I took this picture, I remembered that I modified my Enlighten truck to put the serving window on the curb side of the truck for the safety of the minifigs. Clearly, I will have to do the same with the Gudi truck.

And done!  Here's the Gudi ice cream truck with the serving window moved curbside.

If these vehicles were parked against the curb, this is how they would look like.

Here's the front view of both trucks.  Note that the Enlighten version came with printed pieces, not stickered.  The Gudi truck has a taller windscreen than the Enlighten truck. I prefer the Enlighten trucks PA system.

The Gudi ice cream truck comes with a rear window, whereas the Enlighten truck has an opening door on the back.

While I do like the Gudi version of ice cream truck, not sure if I will continue having 2 ice cream trucks in the town.  The Gudi design lends itself better to a conversion to a food truck by simply replacing the pink bricks.

I already have a fries food truck, so maybe a salad food truck?  Let me know what you think.

Anyways, thanks for looking and see you next time.

Gudi 9215 Not Lego Fire Truck Set Review

 Hey, welcome back, it's been awhile since I last posted.  I've got a whole bunch of building block sets to review.  Today we will look at the Gudi 9215 Fire Rescuer block set.  I ordered this set from Aliexpress back in February and finally got it last week (middle of May).

This Lego compatible set has 431 pieces. Here's all the pieces after I removed them from their bags.  There is a small sticker sheet for the fire engine.  There's also a useful transparent blue brick separator tool.

Four minifigures come with this building set.  Three of them are firemen and a male minifig who has a defective arm.

Unfortunately he got two left arms and is missing a hand.  I can replace his hand, but don't know if i can replace his arm or not.

All the firemen are laughing and making fun of him, so cruel.

Gudi skimped on the back printing of the minifigs.  They could of least printed the hoodie on the back of the yellow figure.

Yellow man's house is on fire, Help!  This building has lots of windows and doors and accessories, like a ladder, a lamp post and telephone.

Go ahead, just jump and we'll catch you.  Not sure if one can trust these firemen.  They don't even have a net.  I guess it's a good thing that there's no back wall on his house.

Um, yellow guy doesn't want to jump out of his flaming house.  Bring in the ladder truck please.

Despite so many different storage areas and cubbyholes on the fire truck, somebody forgot to bring the life saving equipment.  Got lots of fire extinguishers, though.

Check the back of the truck, maybe we got some equipment there.

Nope, sorry.

Try the other side of the truck.  Darn, so much room but all empty.

Ok, guess we will have to deploy the ladder.  Luckily the Gudi design is pretty good.  The turntable swivels around smoothly and doesn't fall off like the ones on Kazi brand blocks.

The main drawback with the ladder is there's no extension piece.

As you can see, the ladder can pivot quite high and is very sturdy.

 Ok, let's see if we can douse the flames with our water gun.  Um, Mister yellow man, you can just try to climb down the ladder in front of your house if you don't want to get wet.

Before I forget, the roof of the fire truck comes off easily to access the cab compartment.  Funny design though, the fireman doesn't get a chair, he has to stand to drive the truck.  The hose reel tucks back into the firetruck when not in use.

 Here's that sticker sheet that comes with the Fire Rescue set.

Final thoughts:  This Lego compatible set is a Gudi exclusive design, I think.  There's lots of play value in this set with the small two storey building and the fire truck that has so many different features.  I like the swivelling ladder and the fire hose and reel.  The truck comes with lots of storage, but not enough equipment.  You do get some fire extinguishers, a shovel and a walkie talkie though.
The fire truck has the Lego like rims and tires which is also nice.

The only minus is the defective minifigure I got.  If there's one improvement, I would make, it would be to add a ladder extension.  I paid about $10 USD for this set but the normal price on Aliexpress is about $20-30 USD if you search for Gudi 9215.  I think the store that I bought from made a pricing mistake.

 Well, that wraps up my review of the Gudi Fire Rescuer building block set.  Hope you liked it.

Brand:  Gudi
Model:  9215 Fire Rescuer with Building and Fire Truck
Number of minifigs: 4
Number of pieces:  431
Price paid:  about $10 USD from Aliexpress

Gudi 9209 Not Lego Fire Fighting Truck Set Review

I had a good laugh when I opened my latest Its Not Lego brick package.  The Gudi 9209 Fire Truck manual almost seems to encourage arson, because it's called Light A Fire Truck.  Maybe you drive this truck around and set fires instead of extinguishing them.

I bought this small set from Aliexpress for around $5 USD.  It has 156 pieces and is recommended for children ages 6 and older.  This will be my second Gudi brand building block set.

My first Gudi building set was the Police pickup which I reviewed here.

In this set, you get a small instruction booklet, a sticker sheet, one fireman minifigure, a brush fire and a fire truck.

The Gudi Fire truck has a water cannon mounted on top.

I like that this truck is 6 studs wide so there's a nice sense of proportion.  If you recall the Gudi Police pickup truck didn't look right being only 4 studs wide.

The fire truck has lots of play features.  The top mounted water cannon rotates 360 degrees and can be positioned up and down.  There are opening doors on both sides of the truck for easy access to equipment.

The rear door of the truck swings up for more play value.  Here's the door in closed position.

And here it is in the open position.

There are hooks on either side to hang two fire extinguishers that are included with the set.  Inside the truck there's a steering wheel and a seat for the driver.

Overall, the brick quality and clutch is identical to Lego.  The truck rolls well and all the pieces fit together without any issue.  There were no missing parts.  

This is one set that Its Not Lego can recommend for it's play value, quality and price.

Brand: Gudi

Model: 9209 Fire Truck

Number of pieces: 156

Price paid: $4.99 USD, free shipping from Aliexpress