#6693 Refuse Collection Truck

LEGO released the #6693 Refuse Collection Truck in 1987 and I got it two years later in June of ’89. Unfortunately I have no memories of who I got it from, or at what occasion.

First page of the booklet with instructions for building the minifigures and steps 1 to 10

However, the set contains two grey bins with matching lids (radar dishes) that I remember using in all my city builds, and a yellow 1x4 bracket that was very handy for SNOT techniques, although I wasn’t well versed in those at the time.

The complete undercarriage with driver's cabin — Step 10

Now, more than 30 years have passed since I last built this set. I had lost one of the red 1x1 round bricks and was missing a black 1x4 tile for the undercarriage, so I had to get some replacements from BrickLink before I could finish the build this time.

The base of the truck body — Body step 3

The truck body attached to the undercarriage — Step 11

The body of the truck is very simple, built with two panels on each side. The frontmost panels have a rather nice printed recycling symbol, although for me as a kid, those prints just meant they were harder to use for general building.

Second page of the booklet with instructions for building the back of the truck with final steps 11 and 12

The rear loader mechanism for the hopper at the back of the truck uses a space seat that adds some good machine equipment looking details. This was my only space seat that didn’t come with an actual space set, but I don’t remember thinking much about this simple example of Nice Part Usage.

The hopper with rear loader — Hopper step 10

The rear loader and hopper attached to the truck body — Step 12

The last step just adds some details to the roof of the truck and a showel and a broom fastened with clips at each side near the back.

The finished Refuse Collection Truck from the side with the driver inside the cabin and the other minifigure carrying a bin next to the truck — Step 13

I think the end result is a rather realistic refuse truck that gives a big impression in spite of being just 4-studs wide. The color scheme is uncomplicated with a base of yellow, a contrasting red line along the sides and up the back of the hopper, and then some details in red. It all goes really well together with the contrasting blue workwear of the minifigures.

The finished Refuse Collection Truck from the back with a bin placed on the rear loader

The back of the box has some suggestions for alternative builds that I don’t remember ever building from as a kid. Among them a couple of American-style truck variants that look really neat and I especially like the winch detail using 1x1 plate with ring at the front of the jeep.

Two variants of flatbed trucks, a jeep on a ramp, a wheeled bulldozer, and a small refuse truck — Alternative builds

I hope to get around actually trying out some of these alternative builds one day, but for now I’ll better focus on getting the set for the next post ready!