Racers -- Technic or not Technic?

[The_Tinkerer]

I just acquired set 8649 Nitro Menace a wanted to ask everyone, Are these old Racers sets Technically Technic? Obviously the brick-built ones aren't, but the larger ones are built very similarly to the Technic sets of the time, just without as many functions.

Picture for good measure

Edited March 19, 2024 by The_Tinkerer

[heyitsdisty]

Strictly speaking, Racers is a separate theme to Technic. 

But themes are essentially just product marketing. That set is like 99% Technic parts. It's a Technic set, innit?

 

[SNIPE]

47 minutes ago, heyitsdisty said:

Strictly speaking, Racers is a separate theme to Technic. 

But themes are essentially just product marketing. That set is like 99% Technic parts. It's a Technic set, innit?

 

But remember that some racers set had almost no technic parts. So its a little weird indeed but no different to say, lego city in some ways

[icm]

Racers was an umbrella theme that had all kinds of builds as long as they were, well, race cars. Don't think too hard about it.

[The_Tinkerer]

To muddy the waters further...

[icm]

They're clearly pretty much the same build, just labeled differently. Like I said, don't think too hard about it. Some Racers builds are Technic builds, some aren't. End of story.

[williamyzfr1]

I own one of these and have always considered it "Technic"

8674

[Maaboo the Witch]

8353 Slammer Rhino has a Technic function that adjusts the ride height, involving a shock absorber.

Meanwhile, 8472 has the pretty cool directional control system that's governed by a linkage depending on which bumper hits something. The B-model is also reminiscent of the 4WD X-Track set, with gears that can be rearranged to customize its performance.

Oh, and the Power Crusher and Slammer Raptor sets have the  rubber band-driven ejection feature, though whether or not those are Technic is pretty much up to you.

Edited March 20, 2024 by Maaboo the Witch

[Toastie]

As I like building across all themes: It's all LEGO.

Best,
Thorsten

[deehtha]

Not any different than the current Space theme, it has sets in Technic, Friends, Duplo, and City. 

 

Those can be both Technic and Racers.

[TeriXeri]

I think this is as much Technic as Bionicle would be, 2001 still labeled Bionicle as Technic , but 2002 did not, and that's also the year those technic-like Racers appeared. 

[paul_delahaye]

In my collection it has to say Technic on the box for it to be a Technic set, it rules out many racers sets otherwise the collection will get even more out of hand 

[LvdH]

To be completely honest they are as much technic as the recent 1:10 scale empty shells of supercars that they put out. 

[Erik Leppen]

7 hours ago, LvdH said:

To be completely honest they are as much technic as the recent 1:10 scale empty shells of supercars that they put out. 

Exactly what I was thinking.

[langko]

13 hours ago, LvdH said:

To be completely honest they are as much technic as the recent 1:10 scale empty shells of supercars that they put out. 

And there are also system sets that have better technical functions than said supercar sets…

[SpacePolice89]

For me it's Technic if the majority of pieces are Technic no matter what it says on the box. Many of the early Technic sets had a lot of System pieces like 8848.

Edited April 29 by SpacePolice89

[icm]

I posted here but then I deleted my post because I don't want to participate in necrobumping an old thread.

Edited April 29 by icm

[SpacePolice89]

I thought that the last post was from March this year when I replied. But on the other hand one year isn't that old after all.

[allanp]

Yeah, probably not that old to bump, though this topic has been discussed a few times over the years/decades. But just because us lot have discussed it, who are we to say you can't discuss it now?!

For me, the question of "Is racers Technic?" depends on what you're really asking. 

On the one hand, Technic is whatever Lego has decided to put the Technic name on the box. 

On the other hand, Technic is what it means to us, with authentic/interesting mechanics being the star of the show. With that I think we can differentiate between the silver champion and the Williams racer.

Technic never had authentic F1 style push rod suspension till the Silver champion came out. I remember thinking it was kinda lame when it first came out with it's lack of transmission, but in that one aspect, in terms of bringing novel and authentic mechanics it was a Technic set.

Then with the Williams racer, it was just a cosmetic change, so it was all just about the authentic look of it, and therefore not so much a Technic set but a racers set.

The view that "if it contains mostly technic pieces then it's a Technic set" doesn't really hold up for me because to me, Technic isn't defined by it's pieces, only made better or possible by them. We don't ask "Is Pirates star wars because they use the same Lego bricks?" Pirates, ninjago, star wars, castle and all other brick based themes are entirely separate themes regardless of if they share the same bricks. Same for Technic, racers and bionicle (even though I think bionicle was labelled as Technic to start with).

 

[Satisfied]

Some of the racer series are built with technological components