Review: 8185 Ferrari Truck (2009)

[BrickMonkeyMOCs]

Set Name: Ferrari Truck

Theme: Racers (Ferrari)

Price: 12,990 Yen (or US$79.99 at Lego S@H)

Piece Count: 534

Year of Release: 2009

REVIEW

This is an excellent set, marred only by a few easily fixable design flaws. I'm not going to bother posting pictures of the box (it's cardboard and rectangular), instructions, or build (you can just D/L the PDF instructions from Lego's website for these). Instead I'll get straight to discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the set.

The set looks great, and has plenty of play features and functionality, including a detachable roof for the cab, big opening panels on click hinges on each side, a click hinge door/ramp at the back, sliding equipment trays on one side under the main deck, and storage racks for the F1 car's detachable wheels. Also included are plenty of fun extra equipment: A flag, fire extinguisher, two maintenance stands, two equipment trolleys with tools, a portable computer rack, and two yellow and red track edge markers. The set has five minifigures - a truck driver, an F1 driver, a refueler, and two regular crew men - all of which can fit inside the truck along with the F1 car and all equipment.

The natural comparison to make is with the earlier 8654 Ferrari F1 truck. The older set was bigger (though no more expensive!), featuring a separate truck and trailer. The new set is of course much shorter, though it is also more economical in it's storage of the car and equipment - it stores a slightly larger car and more or less the same amount of equipment in a much smaller space. It is the same height as the older set, though manages to look taller due to the redesigned cab and square rather than curved top edges.

The new F1 car itself has a longer wheel base, and looks quite different to the older one. The older one looked kind of <insert that tiresome argument> in a way, and while cute, didn't exactly match the real car shape all that well. The new car to my eye looks a bit more purposeful and accurate. Here are some comparison shots of the trucks and cars of the two sets:

So what are the design flaws of this set? Well, there are quite a few, though most are easily fixable. There were two major flaws with the older 8654 set: The ridiculous use of stickerage providing all of the detail on the front grille of the truck, and the raised seat height inside the cab preventing the driver from being able to wear his cap. Does the new set fix these problems? No. We again get massive and unnecessary stickerage providing all of the front grille detail. Here is what Lego should have done with both sets:

And while this time there is much more headroom inside the cab, the seats are still mounted on 2x2 plates, with the result that you can actually see the toes of the seated driver and passenger above the top of the dashboard! So I have again lowered the seats by removing those plates, and I've raised the dashboard a bit with some extra black tiles. I managed to reuse those removed plates to modify the shelf behind the driver for storing the refueler's breathing apparatus (which won't fit in the sliding equipment trays).

Another minor niggle is that with the higher roof, the struts providing the outer edges of the windscreen no longer actually reach the top of the dashboard, leaving a noticeable gap. Also, the sliding equipment trays would have benefited from some kind of securing mechanism for holding them in place when closed. As it is, they tend to fly open rather easily. One further point which led me to make another minor change is that the set is designed to store the F1 car only when the wheels are removed. It's a great feature to have the wheel racks for storing the removable wheels (and there are wedge bricks on the side doors preventing the wheels from sliding off when the truck is moving). But it is better to at least have the option of storing the car with its wheels still attached. Without modification, the car's front wheels just prevent the side doors from fully closing. This can be fixed by removing the 2x6 plates on the side doors which don't really need to be there anyway. The tool boxes also don't fit quite as well when the car's rear wheels are attached, but they can still fit either turned around or stored with their wheels facing rearwards. I also added a couple of white 1x2 tiles onto the deck floor so that the striped track edges can be stowed securely without sliding around everywhere.

Like most Ferrari sets, this one is plagued with an abundance of stickerage, including torso stickers for all minifigures. Some are necessary, such as the big Ferrari badges, and the white stripes for the side doors (the white parts of the cab look silly without the stripe stickers applied). And it's easy enough to simply not apply other stickers (I used only three of the available nineteen(!) stickers for the F1 car). But relying on stickers for the front of the truck is unacceptable. Stickers do not last. They will eventually become brittle and peel off, and the front of the truck - without modification - looks really silly without them. Other than that though, it is a fantastic set which has plenty of play value and looks great as a display model.

FINAL RATING

Parts: 4/5 Nothing new. Lot's of red. Quite a few click hinges. And the wheel rim inserts are nice.

Build: 4/5 Fun, but nothing particularly challenging or clever.

Cost/value: 3/5 Significantly overpriced, especially in comparison to the 8654 set.

Design: 3.5/5 Great overall design, but too much reliance on stickers, and too many minor tweaks needed.

Functionality/playability: 5/5 Excellent. Tons of features and accessories.

Minifigures: 4/5 Five of them, though they all have stickered torsos.

OVERALL: 4/5 If only they had used bricks instead of stickers for the front grille! This is still a great set though, which any Ferrari fan should pick up (if they can afford it).

Edited September 16, 2009 by SpaceMonkey

[The Cobra]

Sticker abuse is a common problem of most every Ferrari set.

The car itself doesn't look different from the ones in 8168 Ferrari Victory, and this makes sense. What does not make sense is the same pricing of the old truck despite a -300 piece count.

[Marko]

Thank you for good review. I like your style that emphases on practical modifications to get most out of the set. Also it is always good to have here at Licensed forum Ferrari and other real life licenses covered. I planned to buy the old truck set but always lacked money on that particular set and finally discarded the idea. Now your review made me again think about getting the Ferrari truck to complement my Ferrari Garage with Räikkönen and Massa. Probably I would no go for the new version

[prateek]

Great review. This is a good set, but it is way too expensive.

[BrickMonkeyMOCs]

Sticker abuse is a common problem of most every Ferrari set.

The car itself doesn't look different from the ones in 8168 Ferrari Victory, and this makes sense. What does not make sense is the same pricing of the old truck despite a -300 piece count.

Yes, the car is exactly the same as in the 8168 set. And you're right about the price! I had assumed that the earlier and much larger 8654 set was more expensive, and while I do not recall exactly what I paid for it now, I don't believe it was any more than I paid for this one. So I have edited the review to reflect this. According to Lugnet, the original price for 8654 was even US$20 cheaper than for 8185.

The same price (and with some of the same flaws) but with 279 less pieces? That is quite ridiculous, and at the same price the older set is still the better one. Not that I regret my purchase for a second. It is still a great set for those less concerned about price and also willing to do a little modding.

Edited October 2, 2009 by SpaceMonkey