REVIEW: 8402 Sports Car

[Kernow]

_INDEXED

Name: Sports Car

Theme: CITY

Year: 2009

Pieces: 68

Minifigs: 1

Price: £6.99 form TRU

1. Introduction

This is a good year for civilian sets. Finally a more or less average car for your minifigs to drive around in to get to work, escape to the beach, but not to go shopping - you need some luggage space for that!

2. Box, parts and instructions

The front of the box:

Unfortunately the box got a bit squashed on the way home. Doh! As you can see LEGO cars just aren't as reliable as they used to be. Good job there's an emergency phone on the side of the road!

The back of the box:

Here are the contents.

Look no DSS!

Pieces loose:

Lots of good red pieces, although nothing unique except for...

The LEGO friut tree makes a welcome return after 3 years in the wilderness! This has to be my favourite green piece of plastic ever apart from the long departed cypress tree. I'm not sure why it's in this set except to try and justify the price tag. Still, I'm glad it is. You can never have enough trees.

Random instruction pages:

3. The Build - Minifig and Emergency Roadside Phone

City guy:

He looks like he's glad to be out of the office. He's got one of those smirks that says, "Look at me, I'm a big shot in my fast red car!" It suits this set perfectly.

Emergency phone:

It looks like mobile phone technology hasn't reached LEGO City yet. Just as well there's one of these to the breakdown call centre. It's a quick and easy build and looks the part at the side of the road.

"Man, I wish they wouldn't make these handsets so huge. I could do reps with this!"

4. The Build - Car

Nice blue trim, shame about the orange dashboard:

The front makes good use of the cheese grater parts. This is my favourite part of the car:

Finished car:

View from the rear:

From this angle you can see the HUGE void in front of the steering wheel. It gives the impression the designers were trying to cut costs and couldn't be bothered to fill it with something. Also I'm not really sure what's going on at the back. Is this supposed to be a convertible with the top down? And is that a vent for the engine at the rear? if so, why does the picture on the the box have the front of the car smoking? The back also looks like it's missing a number plate sticker to go on it.

View from the side:

This is a big car for one guy to be driving. Do you think he's compensating for inadequicies elsewhere?

Final shot of the complete set:

5. Bonus

Do you ever look at the box art on a LEGO set and wonder what happened next? Well now you can find out!

High flying office worker Eddie has just taken ownership of the latest high performance car from the downtown LEGO dealership. On the way home his new purchase grinds to a halt. He gets out and has a look. "They told me this car has a V12 twin turbo, but I can't find the engine anywhere!"

Three hours after Eddie realised he ground to a halt next to an emergency phone and made a call, the breakdown truck arrives. "I wouldn't have bought this one mate", says the truck guy. "This is the third one I've had to tow away this week".

Soon enough the car is hooked up. "We'll have her back home in no time!" says the truck guy while Eddie is still wondering how long it will be before he can start trying to impress the girls with his new wheels.

Moments later he sees his car disappear into the distance, with no other way to get home. "Stopppppppppp!!!"

6. Overall Rating

Minifigs - 6/10 - Nothing to get excited about, but a good civilian figure to add to the numbers

Parts - 7/10 - Some nice red pieces and don't forget the tree!

Build - 6/10 A quick and easy build

Overall - 6/10 - If your city is crowded out with police and fire vehicles then you need this set, but don't expect to get thrilled by it

This is a good little set with more playability than it would have been with just the car on it's own. It goes really well with the 7638 Tow Truck. Having built it there are a few niggles. It feels like this set was thrown together in an afternoon without much thought. It's crying out for some doors, the back end is uninspired and the big hole in the dashboard is just annoying although easy to correct with a couple of bricks. Having said that, this is the sort of set any LEGO city is crying out for, so buying this at the end of the day was a bit of a no-brainer for me.

Edited June 6, 2009 by TheBrickster

[Erdbeereis]

Very nice review!

Even though this set is a bit overpriced, it has a lot things going for it as well. It's really fantastic to get a car for a minifig in a set, and this one has nice modern design. I absolutely love the extras here. The tree is a welcome addition and that emergency telephone is a brilliant idea.

Thanks again for showing us this!

[The Green Brick Giant]

Nice little set, but i think it's clear the only reason why the tree is in the set is because the set is at least $2 overpriced. Mayeb LEGO needed to make a new mold for it and figured this is a good way to cover costs.

[BlueBard]

Nice review

I think this set is going to become quite useful for City collectors, just like the Police car one, but it's really a pity they put a MF with elements that are becoming really common and they did it in a so standard colour (even if it's a sports car a lime, orange, or light/dark blue could have been more interesting)

[Luke McAwesome]

Thanks for the review!

I've been looking around for this set, in my opinion, it looks pretty nice!

[Zorro]

A very good review where I am gratefull for.

This looks like a really average City set, as an add-on to one of the house-sets or something, since most AFOLs are more into the large sets now I believe.

[BlueBard]

I just noticed a detail that made me laugh: the MF jumping into the car (a way to justify there's not car doors anymore in little sets? )

Edited June 5, 2009 by BlueBard

[CP5670]

This car is okay, but it suffers from the same issue as several other cars in the last few years: those wheels are meant for trucks and look too big here. The smaller racing slicks would have looked better.

The tree and phone booth are cool additions. The emergency phone booth is interesting for such a recent set though, as those are increasingly being phased out in real life these days.

[Natman8000]

Thank you very mcuh for reviewing this. There is so much for me to want in this set, the chassis, the minifig, the tree, etc. This for sure will find its way into my collection. Is this the first time those grills are in red?

[Kernow]

The red grill pieces appear in two other sets including the Star Wars Republic Fighter Tank, but they're still hard to get hold of. The set is definitely poor value for money. the 7638 tow truck is only £2 more yet it has nearly double the number of pieces. The price really makes it hard to buy this set with a smile

I have to agree about the wheels being too big. This is my biggest problem with city sets. Cars and lorries shouldn't have the same size wheels. The ones most in use are too big for cars and too small for lorries. I've never understood why LEGO likes using them so much. There are only a handful of sets where they look the right size for the vehicle they're on.

[yoshy]

Thanks for the nice and detailed review!

The emergency phone booth is interesting for such a recent set though, as those are increasingly being phased out in real life these days.

Yeah, it seems like Lego City is living in the past. The City Mini-Figure Collection has a tape stereo and this set has a phone booth. Haven't seen those things used for quite a while now.

[metalandi]

This car is okay, but it suffers from the same issue as several other cars in the last few years: those wheels are meant for trucks and look too big here. The smaller racing slicks would have looked better.

The tree and phone booth are cool additions. The emergency phone booth is interesting for such a recent set though, as those are increasingly being phased out in real life these days.

not really. Guess it depends where you live, but here they are on the freeways everywhere, and are not planned to be put away.

And these wheels have been used already for cars in the 90's, not only last few years. I don't see how this is an issue, yes they are pretty wide, but usually sportcars do have wider wheels. I never liked these small wheels, they look far too tiny. Look at a real car and you'll see proportions are much better with the bigger wheels.

[alex12]

Great review.

I've had this a while and i love it.

Wish they did it in lime green though. That would be awesome.

[CP5670]

not really. Guess it depends where you live, but here they are on the freeways everywhere, and are not planned to be put away.

And these wheels have been used already for cars in the 90's, not only last few years. I don't see how this is an issue, yes they are pretty wide, but usually sportcars do have wider wheels. I never liked these small wheels, they look far too tiny. Look at a real car and you'll see proportions are much better with the bigger wheels.

The main issue I have is with their depth. They jut out of the chassis significantly and effectively make the car 6-wide. This looks fine for trucks as a substitute for doubled wheels, but it's rather odd for a car. The large tire width (compared to the hub) is also more in line with off-road wheels and not something you would expect to see on a sports car.

Those wheels were used in the town junior sets in the late 90s (which were so bad that you couldn't even tell whether they were cars or trucks ), but I don't remember seeing any other 90s car with those wheels. They were used on trucks and SUVs.

As for the roadside phone booths, it's sometimes cheaper to just leave them there instead of removing them, but cell phones are ubiquitous these days and have made them obsolete in many countries.

Edited June 5, 2009 by CP5670

[metalandi]

They are not just used as emergency phones here, but also the light in them blinks when there is an accident or bad sight or something similar. They are still here with a purpose, and not just cause it's easier to leave them there. Also, many people don't have cell phpnes. mostly older citizens. But this is goinf too off topic by far now

[prateek]

great review!

as the others said, this set needs doors, but can be easily modable. a bit overpriced though. they should make different colours of this car. the 2 1x2 red tiles should have been 1 2x2 instead

[Er!k]

I bought this set two days ago together with City Corner and the camper and really like it! Especially the tree and phone are nice extra's

[WesternOutlaw]

Nice review Kernow. I like when reviews contain a little story with additional set pictures, like you've included.

I have mixed views about this set, and some of the other new City cars. I'm not a big fan of the use of the wide tires with the rounded fenders. They give the vehicle an almost Volks Wagon Beatle look about them. The lack of doors and moveable parts (like a hood that lifts open) makes me think that the classic 4-stud wide vehicles had better detail than these new cars. This set still; however, has a little charm about it with the use of red, the minifig in a suit, and the nice tree.

Thanks for the review. I've indexed and added a poll so that others can vote how well they like it.

[Kernow]

Thanks for putting the poll up. I've given it an average rating. It's an ok set, but I've found it hard to get excited about it, despite spending all that time putting the review together.

[Svelte]

Thanks for the review, with the lovely pics I agree with pretty much everyone here, this set is overpriced but OK. It's nice to have the extra detail of the fruit tree and emergency help line.

Is the tree produced differently than it used to be? It seems to be made in regular ABS, whereas I though the old trees were made with softer plastic. I don't have many though, so I'm not sure if this is a recent change or not. Anyone care to comment?

[Tom Bricks]

I'm not a big fan of the use of the wide tires with the rounded fenders. They give the vehicle an almost Volks Wagon Beatle look about them. The lack of doors and moveable parts (like a hood that lifts open) makes me think that the classic 4-stud wide vehicles had better detail than these new cars.

I agree the cars without those fenders were better in my opinion. Before I saw this I thought that torso was in light flesh the skin under the collar is not yellow so maybe it's an undershirt?

[Lockt]

Nice review on this car. I picked one up yesterday for 2 reasons: 1- just to have another car that is not emergency or race in my city 2- the tree. So although its priced to high for the car alone, for me the decision to put in a tree like this basically made me buy this set.

They are not just used as emergency phones here, but also the light in them blinks when there is an accident or bad sight or something similar. They are still here with a purpose, and not just cause it's easier to leave them there. Also, many people don't have cell phpnes. mostly older citizens. But this is goinf too off topic by far now

Maybe off-topic, but I am glad you did. I was wondering what the light was for. In the Netherlands we don't have a light on these and they are disappearing gradually from the highways. Thank you for the information!

[Rick]

Nice review on this car. I picked one up yesterday for 2 reasons: 1- just to have another car that is not emergency or race in my city 2- the tree. So although its priced to high for the car alone, for me the decision to put in a tree like this basically made me buy this set.

Now that I think of it, these are the reasons for me as well to get it... I think the tree was even the main reason. But as was said before, for a car that is supposedly to be towed by 7638, the hood should be able to open and the hook of 7638 should be attachable to the front of the car!

Edited June 7, 2009 by Rick77

[Kernow]

The tree is made of the same plastic that has been used in the last few years. It's a harder plastic than the trees in the 1980s were made from.

Rick77 you're right about the hook from the tow truck. There's no way to attach it from the front. You've got to be really careful when towing it from behind though, as the front has a tendency to scrape along the ground, which is really going to be bad for the shiny red paintwork!

[Rick]

The tree is made of the same plastic that has been used in the last few years. It's a harder plastic than the trees in the 1980s were made from.

Mine is a little bend, but that could just have been the wind blowing at it from a certain angle The round fruit tree is definitely my favorite tree, it hasn't been around much in the last years (but that's true for all trees, plants, and flowers). Btw: the City Corner (7641) could have done with some more green (just one lonely flower )...