Set Review - 458 Italia GT2 75908

Ooh, another Ferrari! TLG and Ferrari seem to go together like peas and carrots. And Shell. But they're bad so we won't discuss their relationship in the tri-fecta. Let's talk about Octan instead! Or more like Hublot the, um, watch maker? Interesting...

This little racer was built by my oldest KFOL, an 8 year old girl, as in, "You build like an 8 year old girl!". Let me tell you, that's a compliment! She knocked this whole thing out without any questions or fuss. Only once did I need to clarify the instructions (totally TLG's fault, I'm sure). As I mentioned before, the build techniques are all similar and this one seems to be the poster child.

It's also got the most printed windshield with both a name and door frames emblazoned upon its top plane. This makes it look slightly aloof without any stickers on it. I'm not much of a stickerer. I prefer the pure unadulterated look of plastic. So even though these sets come with a plethora of stickers for each car, it was with remorse that I had to tell my 8 year old daughter to take off the sticker she had just put on. Mostly I wanted to photograph the completed cars sans stickers for you to see. "Once daddy's taken pictures of the cars, we'll put the stickers on." I didn't lie, it just STILL has yet to happen.

But even without the stickers there's plenty of eye candy. The striping on the car over the rear fender is very clever. With a curved slope and a technic doohickey, my brain is tricked into believing that the curvatures came straight out of a wind tunnel session. The technic doohickey actually supports the tail light but it also changes the direction of the curve in a small space giving a very smooth appearance. Still not as smooth as the real life car but I prefer the blockiness of an F-40 anyday.

In what I thought was a mistake, a couple of yellow cheese slopes are placed on the back of the car. Apparently the stickers help carry this swoosh up the back of the car. Even so, it still looks a little funny but I can see how they're trying to match the racing livery.

Best part? Check out that tail.

Set Review - La Ferrari 75899

Week one of the Speed Champions! No, not Speed Racer. That was so 2008. Nor Speed Slammers. That was so yeesh. These are the true champions of speed featuring lots of horsies.

My four year old son built the La Ferrari. Sort of. He put together the driver, grabbed a few more pieces and got through step 3. Then the neighbor kid came over and hung out with us a for a while, advancing the model at least halfway. After he left I completed it. Oh the techniques!

I doubt it would be possible to capture the curves and lines of this car even at full scale. But the subtle use of curved slopes and other rounded pieces with offsets and SNOT do a fair to middlin' job of conveying the essence of beauty and the 4 and a half dimensions that the car was designed in. Ans since I'm not much into stickers, I'm basing this off the pure plastic.

My favorite piece is the 1x4 plate with a turned down bar. How unexpected! But the bar helps give the distinct look to the nose.  Would that some of the hood curves were only a half step instead of a full one. That would have sold the lines all the more. But we're talking about a production model here, not a one off MOC. Even so, I find little to complain about.


Except the bottom. Expect this on every car. There's a white and yellow piece on the bottom and a completely useless red 1x2 plate. This car is not nearly as bad as others, but I can see the driver's pants from below. Two extra 1x6 to fill in the chassis would have been a nice touch.

The rolling sucks too. Seriously sucks. I can push this car hard on a wood floor and if it makes it all of two feet then it wins a trophy. Two. Feet. My Hot Wheels can totally dust this so called "super-car".

The final novelty is the (re?)introduction of the trans black 2x2 brick. This part has a street value higher than crack and you get TWO of them in here! Heck yeah, come find me in the alley bro!

Set Review - Speed Champions overview

Welcome race fans! For the next four weeks I'll be reviewing the Speed Champions cars. These got my heart racing the moment I saw them. Larger than City scale, somewhat minifig scale (though only one passenger) with incredible detailing. The most exciting thing is the licensing deal that TLG acquired to produce cars from not just Ferrari but McLaren and Porsche. Porsche was a classically difficult brand to license but it IS under Volkswagen AG. Who knows, maybe we'll get a Bugatti Veyron or a Lambo next?

I challenged the kids to a new way to build. I dumped all of the pieces of ALL four sets in a big pile together. We all chose cars (or at least mine was chosen for me) and we commenced. It was delightful to watch the frustration and hear "This piece isn't here!" But we got them all built with only one error and had fun.

When I dumped out all the pieces, several of them caught my eye. These are some of the newer molds and a few are made in several colors. It's kind of disappointing that every single car uses 4 of the new bulky POOP fenders. And the Technic wheel holder POOP is a shame. But the new 2x6 rounded plate is neat and will have it's uses.

Also cool are the new spoked wheel covers. The nice thing about these is that they allow for a smaller mold to customize your car. One wheel to rule them all with a central stud allows for any of the little bits to snap on. Each car comes with two styles meaning 8 covers in all. Of course these are going to have way more uses than just wheel covers. With a central anti-stud and a diameter of ~14.8mm, they are just smaller than a 2x2 space and can click in place. My first thought was roof fans for a 4-wide train. But I bet all sorts of other greeblers have their heyday.

And then there's the windshields. Really there's only two windshields. But the larger one is used in three different ways; two with print and one plain. These are 4x6x2 with a nice curved slope and a front base that matches a 4L diameter round piece. Spacers and racers ought to enjoy these. It's a nice touch to include them plain to increase their variety of uses. The bright light orange striped one ought to still be useful but the Ferrari one is pretty limited.

Amongst all four sets are a variety of extra parts. They're all the extras you'd expect but it looks cool to see them all laid out and combined from all four sets. In reality you get multiple extras of the red pieces, the dark red tiles and the grey bits.

As you may notice there's both yellow and bright light orange. The colors are similar enough that I was afraid there was going to be some confusion and cross uses. It only happened once and we caught it early on.

The base construction of all cars are very similar. They start with a city vehicle base which is then extended 3-4 studs in each direction. All the cars are built to 6-wide and use brackets on the sides to create a SNOT effect. Two of the cars use a very similar technique and are almost indiscernible from the bottom. I would have liked to have seen a touch more variety but I guess if a technique works, use it! As seems to be typical with most builds, the "hidden" bits are built without any sympathies to the color of the overall build. This was only mildly disappointing but a little shocking on one build.

Each car also comes with a driver and a little mini-build that I assume enhances the play experience.

Next week, why does every other Speed Champions car start with 759xx but La Ferrari is 75899?