Lego 1:8 Hypercars: Why are tires getting bigger and bigger?

[MAP Tec]

Since the Ferrari Daytona 2022, I've been wondering why the tires on the McLaren P1 2024 were made even bigger than on the Porsche 2016, Bugatti 2018, and Lamborghini 2020...

Tires from the Lamborghini Sian and Ferrari Daytona:

If you compare the larger tires with the steering wheel alone, the scale is even less accurate...

I am glad that the new 9L suspensions have been used since the Ferrari Daytona, as these fit better than two 6.5L suspensions and the new axle parts also offer new, more stable possibilities... 

Here are my guesses as to why tires are getting bigger:

1. Only the larger rim size fits the new axle parts, as otherwise the rim rubs on the inside.

2. Without the new axle parts, Lego was unable to install the new 9L suspensions securely and stably, as this requires the installation of many parts that need width, causing the old rim sizes to rub against them, as seen on the Ferrari Daytona.

 

I think the individual design of each rim is very well done, but I'm not a fan of the new tires myself and would prefer the old tire size from Porsche, Lamborghini, and Bugatti. Let's see how things turn out with the 2026 car.

I'm curious to hear your opinions and have a little discussion :D

[JesseNight]

That's a good question. Definitely not a scale issue since the real cars (Bugatti Chiron, Lamborghini Sían, Ferrari Daytona SP3) have the same wheel size with only some difference in width. The McLaren P1 actually has a smaller wheel size than the previous.
Maybe just a design choice to make it overall look better? I can imagine the wheel arches being hard to get perfect on scale, perhaps they wanted to fill them better so it wouldn't look off? Or maybe they realized a bit late that older wheels were too small? Or maybe they just wanna feed into people's "bigger is better" attitude with newer models? Just wild guesses really...

[MAP Tec]

12 hours ago, JesseNight said:

That's a good question. Definitely not a scale issue since the real cars (Bugatti Chiron, Lamborghini Sían, Ferrari Daytona SP3) have the same wheel size with only some difference in width. The McLaren P1 actually has a smaller wheel size than the previous.
Maybe just a design choice to make it overall look better? I can imagine the wheel arches being hard to get perfect on scale, perhaps they wanted to fill them better so it wouldn't look off? Or maybe they realized a bit late that older wheels were too small? Or maybe they just wanna feed into people's "bigger is better" attitude with newer models? Just wild guesses really...

Interesting ideas ;D, thank you very much for sharing your initial thoughts. I generally think the designs of all the tires are great, but if you change the size of the tires, you also have to adjust other things, such as the steering wheel, which in my opinion is then much too small...

[JesseNight]

I haven't been inside any of these cars but they tend to have relatively small steering wheels. Whether the scale is accurate I don't know, I think Lego just stuck to the steering wheel that's worked for all of these large models.

True that a lot more requires changing. If you just go to the McLaren P1 page on Lego.com and scroll a little down, there's this side view you can slide between the real car and the Lego one. That's where it really shows how much too large the Lego version wheels and wheel arches really are. Whether there's a reason they went with this or they just got stuck in the design, I have no clue.

[MAP Tec]

21 hours ago, JesseNight said:

I haven't been inside any of these cars but they tend to have relatively small steering wheels. Whether the scale is accurate I don't know, I think Lego just stuck to the steering wheel that's worked for all of these large models.

True that a lot more requires changing. If you just go to the McLaren P1 page on Lego.com and scroll a little down, there's this side view you can slide between the real car and the Lego one. That's where it really shows how much too large the Lego version wheels and wheel arches really are. Whether there's a reason they went with this or they just got stuck in the design, I have no clue.

Okay, thank you for your opinion on the subject. It's always good to have several points of view :D.