My son was a lucky boy for his first birthday and received lots of gifts from friends and family. One of these was the V-tech toot toot garage which has fast become one of his favourites and is now almost permanently set up in our living room.

Appearance
This toy comes in a large box consisting of garage, ramp, helicopter pad and tow truck. It is made from plastic and brightly coloured. The main body of the upper level of the garage is blue and the lower level is yellow with a red ramp that can be lifted and lowered. On the opposite side there is an orange spiral ramp. There are several different sound effects. The up and down which is quite common to v tech toys in my experience although my favourite is the Whhheeeee when a car does down the spiral ramp. The garage pump also makes a noise as does the car wash. The different cars appear to be recognised by the garage making it a well thought out toy. The lower level contains the garage pump and car wash which are slightly harder to access my after a while my son has worked out how these work too.

Assembly
This toy is very simple to assemble and although it came with an instruction booklet I didn't have to refer to it. It is fairly obvious where the kiosk, ramp, and helicopter pad slide in. It is also easy to disassemble which I have found to be very convenient if I want to pop the garage into the play pen as it is a little too big with the spiral ramp attached to it.

Use
This has quickly become a favourite toy. My son has worked out how the ramp works and has discovered how to push the car through the car wash. The buttons with the colours on them help with colour recognition although it is a little early for him to work out the weather. The garage has coped well with his fairly rough handling and has proved to be quite robust. The only part I have had to remove for the time being in the helicopter pad as it is just too easily removed by my son. My son loves the sounds and lights but I can find them to be a bit irritating after a while and unfortunately there doesn't appear to be a volume control. Added to this is the fact that the tow truck provided with the garage also plays its own tunes so it is a noisy toy. When it gets too much for me I turn it off and my son is still quite happy to play with it. Although my son is happy to play with the truck on its own when combined with the garage I do turn off the truck.

Overall
A good toy for development as improves fine motor skills, problem solving and colour recognition. The only downside is the noise but having said which I still plan to buy more cars for my son to play with in the garage and feel it is a toy that he will continue having fun with for some time yet. So good that even the tv remote control is left alone in favour of this toy. At a price tag of £28 to £39 it is a bit on the more expensive side but I feel worth the money as it is a toy a child can play with for some time.