When looking in the Collectors guide it seems like 605,606 608-610 and 614,616 and 619 had no North American release (only looked the small Legoland sets) and in '78 with the introduction of the minifig LEGO re-used the 6xx numbers in Europe.
Of course, @BrickTsar would know better, but I wonder if this set wasn't available in North America because most taxis here are yellow. But I've seen Town sets where the same set was in different colors. I had a fire station that was red with white windows (590) and there's a European version that is yellow with red windows (374). And yes, embossed bricks feel like much better quality and I doubt we'll see them again.
Well this sounds like a Topic for the AFoOL podcast! Great job on the build, awesome little set.
Thanks! Happy you liked it. Looking forward to that podcast.
This brings up a good question as to which sets may not have had a North American release
When looking in the Collectors guide it seems like 605,606 608-610 and 614,616 and 619 had no North American release (only looked the small Legoland sets) and in '78 with the introduction of the minifig LEGO re-used the 6xx numbers in Europe.
Of course, @BrickTsar would know better, but I wonder if this set wasn't available in North America because most taxis here are yellow. But I've seen Town sets where the same set was in different colors. I had a fire station that was red with white windows (590) and there's a European version that is yellow with red windows (374). And yes, embossed bricks feel like much better quality and I doubt we'll see them again.
Ah, that makes sense regarding the taxi, it always puzzled me that Europe and NA had different coloured versions of the fire station.