Review Speed Champions McLaren P1

[brickpreviews]

As requested by one of the mods here, here is my review of the McLaren P1 newly released on March 1

The Basics

• Release Date: March 1, 2015
  
• Theme: Speed Champions
  
• Age: 7-14
  
• Pieces: 168
  
• MRSP: $14.99 USD, $19.99 CAD
  
• Box Dimensions:
  

The Car

McLaren P1 is a hybrid supercar designed by the British automaker McLaren Automotive. It is a limited edition car with only 375 units being produced for the price of 1.35 million USD per vehicle to start. It is capable of 217 MPH (350 KM/H) for max speed and can reach 0-60 MPH in 2.7 seconds. Here are some pictures of the real car from the McLaren website.

The Box

LEGO McLaren P1 comes in a small sized box with 4 unnumbered bags, 2 instruction manuals and a sticker page. I never understood why some speed champion sets have 2 instruction manuals while other sets have them merged into one.

Minifigure

This set comes with a standard driver minifigure with a silver helmet and painted jacket with McLaren logo in the front and back.

Accessory Build

The accessory build here is simply 3 traffic cones and a race curb. The traffic cones will definitely come in hand for any other LEGO City sets.

McLaren P1

The average build time will be around 15-20 minutes. The instruction manual is pretty detailed so it is hard to make mistakes. There are lots of stickers to apply though and that can take some time to get them just right. We will start with the body using the typical black vehicle base common to many small vehicle builds.

Next up is the hood/front bumper.

Note the usage of yellow wheel covers (6103455) which are new parts.

After the wheel covers we will build the rear bumper. The rear bumper utilize a black plate modified with racer car grille. Some stickers will be applied here to represent the rear lights.

The doors here also utilize some stickers to convey the curved edges.

The McLaren P1 features a rear spoiler, which uses a new part (6105957). The windshield is a painted piece that is also a completely new part (6107333)

The wheels for the McLaren P1 are black (6104403) but it utilize the same tires as all the other speed champion cars. Two sets of interchangeable wheel trims are provided.

Here is the final build.

Final Thoughts

Out of the 3 hybrid supercars I have reviewed so far (LaFerrari, Porsche 918, and McLaren P1), the McLaren P1 model is probably my favourite. The yellow/black theme is really nice to look at and the black wheels are pretty sexy. At around 9 cents per piece this set isn’t that expensive either. While the model is not comparable to the real car, I think it represented the overall shape fairly well.

Here are some comparison images with the other Speed Champion cars I have reviewed.

Alternative link for those prefer small images: http://brickpreviews...aren-p1-review/

[Bornin1980something]

It seems you saved the best for review on this site. This car is probably my favourite too, McLaren being one of the few British owned automotive success stories of recent years. Also, I have never been big into Porsches, and the McLaren is easily a better model than LaFerrari. A belated review, but certainly worth waiting for.

You've certainly been meticulous in chronicling your build, though I believe it will take me much longer than 20 minutes (I have mild developmental dyspraxia).

For me, the most intriguing aspect of this set is the minifigure. Firstly, he wears a race suit and helmet, but the car is clearly not actually a racer. Secondly, the suit bears a very strong resemblance to the classic town 'S' logo racing suit, the only distinct racing suit design TLG released in the 80s town line.

By the way, how did you deeplink the images from the McLaren website. They certainly add to the review, showing a true real-world comparison to the model. However, I would not fault for model for inaccuracy, as I see Lego, particularly minifig scale, as an abstract modelling medium. I like the way they did real-world cars in minifig scale this time, even with all the compromises that brings.

If I were to buy only one speed champions set, it would almost certainly be this one.

[brickpreviews]

McLaren P1 is definitely my favourite as well. That yellow/black combo make it stand out nicely. For the images from McLaren site I just used a screen capture software as the images they provided were several mbs in size and not suitable for image sharing sites.