LuxorV Posted October 20, 2011 I recently decided to check for myself the quality of these LEGO Cars sets. Being a great fan of the series, and being Italian, I could but choose a set including Luigi and Guido for my first ‘bite’. This one is from this year’s film, Cars 2, action packed sequel to the first, more light-hearted Cars from 2006. Theme: LEGO Cars (Cars 2) Set name: Tokyo Pit Stop Set Number: 8206 Price: 14.99 $, 13.49 £, 14.99 Euro Pieces: 146 Year of release: 2011 Prepare your pit crew for the World Grand Prix!Time is running out to prepare for the world’s biggest race - the World Grand Prix in Tokyo! Help Luigi and Guido to tune-up their skills with lots of practice. Make sure that on race day, they will leave the other pit crews in the dust! • Includes Luigi and Guido • Features Japanese-style pit • Measures over 5” (12cm) long and 4” (10cm) tall • Cars all measures over 2” (5cm) long and 1” (2cm) tall Links: Peeron, Bricklink and Brickset The Box Front The front of the box shows the completed set on a pit-lane background taken from the Cars 2 film. Not really sure why they should have a smaller gate in front of the garage area, splitting its door in three parts, but who am I to argue with Guido and Luigi? The left part of the front is devoted to advertising: LEGO logo, age range, set number, Disney – Pixar Cars 2 logo and a smiling Lightning McQueen fill this part on a nice stripped dark grey/black and metallic dark red background. The Disney logo also appears in the upper right corner. Back The back shows some play features: Luigi running through the gate thingy, Guido weaving the finish flag and Luigi getting ready for Lighting McQueen’s pit stop. LEGO and Disney – Pixar Cars 2 logo, along with a spy-car silhouette fill the upper band. What may look like Luigi and Guido’s mug shots also appear there along with their names. Sides The upper side shows again the logos and mug shots, this time without names. More interesting is the right vertical side, which sports the usual LEGO legal notices and warning, along with the lines: ‘Disney/Pixar elements: © Disney/Pixar, not including underlying vehicles owned by third parties: FIAT TM’. It would seem FIAT got the rights for the use of the only character based on an actually recognisable car design: Luigi as a FIAT 500. Contents Inside Upon opening, the box reveals two numbered bags, one instruction booklet and one stickers’ sheet (more on these two later on). Bag number one is devoted to holding and protecting the Cars’ parts. It’s full of bright coloured pieces, with some grey and black accents. Bag number two includes the parts needed to build the pit stop area. Here, earth tones dominate, along with bits of red and pearl gold. Spare parts include Cheese Slopes, Round 1x1 plates and a Lever. Not mind blowing, but useful parts all, imo. New pieces I call these parts theme exclusive pieces, as they were introduced this year with/for this particular theme. One of the most anticipated/loved/hated/discussed parts is the windshield. To be honest, I did not like it much myself when I first saw it. One thing must be said, though: it works wonders for these little guys: we’ll see later how good it looks for Luigi. The Yellow Slope, Curved 4 x 1 Double No Studs, especially in its non-decorated variant, promises to be a great piece for MOCs. Another group of looked after parts from this set includes the Light Aqua Slope 30 1 x 1 x 2/3 and Vehicle, Mudguard 2 x 4 with Headlights Overhang used for Guido (I for one would love to have more parts in this colour) as well as the new Bracket 1 x 2 - 2 x 4, here in Yellow (how many times did we need a piece shaped like this but had to make do with the old ones?). Finally, we have the Flat Silver Wheel 11 x 6 mm with Smooth Hubcap, which give our Cars a wonderfully vintage look. Well done LEGO designers! Instructions The cover reproduces the same composition as on the box front (minus the age range). On the right you can see the stickers’ sheet. I was worried when I first set eyes upon these sets: on the one side, I feared the pieces would all be printed, including the Allinol and flag ones; on the other hand they could all be stickered, lowering the value of the characters’ parts in my view. I think TLG came to a good compromise: the Cars’ exclusive parts are printed (save for some in Mack, as far as I know), while the more common ones are left untouched, to boost their use in MOCs (as you may know, I’m not a fan of applying stickers!). Random page – The build is pretty straight forward, and it does not need pieces call-outs. If I’m not mistaken, the highest number of pieces used in one step is 4... The inner back cover page shows some of the other sets of the line, to hook you buy more, of course (they almost succeeded with me!). The traditional parts’ list. I like the clean background that does not catch the eye too much, but still prevents the page from being totally blank. Building Start We start off with Guido. As said, and expected, the build is pretty simple, yet ingenious. What I do not appreciate too much is the use of two plates instead of one. Granted, two plates can be useful, but I hope this choice was not made to raise the pieces count only. Luigi follows the same path… Guido Once finished, our friendly little Guido is ready to work with his Spanner / Screwdriver. I think TLG designers put him first in the instructions so he can help build hid pal. Luigi Luigi is equipped with headset and microphone to communicate with Lightning McQueen and make sure everything is ready for when he needs a pit stop. Judging from his expression, everything is working fine. The additional clip is meant to be used for holding other parts, or can be fancied as the door handle. (If truth be told, the microphone should be hold by Luigi’s right clip, but…). Contrary to what some youngsters may think, Luigi’s back ‘windshield’ decoration is not meant to be a cartoon-ish design of its own, but it’s the perfect reproduction of the actual original 500’s posterior engine air-vents (sorry Clone O’Patra!). Pit Stop Area The box gate/thingy, Allinol tank and ‘finish line’(?) complete the set. The gate looks nice and quite a piece of oriental architecture. Finished set Complete set Lightning McQueen is nearing the pit stop area, Guido and Luigi get ready for him! Two friends The race is going well, and Luigi and Guido are enjoying the Tokyo atmosphere. Smile for the cameras! Bonus images Sad Luigi Flipping the mudguard piece, we can have the sad expression for Luigi. Granted, the bumper is now above the mouth, but it does not look too bad. I like the additional playing options this allows; too bad Guido’s mouth piece cannot be flipped as well for additional expressions. Maybe it’s time for some customiser’s work! Helping a friend Mater is always around to help friends in need… or just to allow Guido play his favourite game: PIT-STOP! Size comparison Our happy characters pose alongside an alien (for their car-verse) boxer. As you can see, they are fairly minifigure-proportionate. Farewell Guido bids you farewell until we meet again, maybe at a Ferrari race! Final comments Overall, this is a nice little set for Cars’ fans. It includes two of the most popular characters, as well as a bit of background to add to playability. As one would expect, the main goal of this kind of set is to prompt you to buy more, and it has been achieved pretty well. On the other hand, even if I do not expect anybody to go army-building with Guido and Luigi, it is a nice and cheap way to get more characters. Design & Colour scheme - 10/10 (It is not always easy to get a good look with a set that has to be based off some other media. Being Cars a kid’s toon, the characters are bright coloured, while the background is real world-like. TLG designers [as well as Disney/Pixar ones] managed to balance well the two aspects and give us an eye appealing set.) Characters - 9/10 (I’m very happy to see how these versions of Luigi and Guido turned out. Granted, Luigi is a bit too blocky, but we are dealing with LEGO, the block [or brick] game for excellence! Guido, on his side, is just pure cuteness!) Parts - 9/10 (Great variety of useful parts, a reasonable amount of new pieces, though much of them are printed. Of course, the greatest MOC potential reseeds in the pit stop area parts, but the Medium Blue and Light Aqua pieces from Guido [if one will ever take him apart] are a good addition to anyone’s inventory.) Playability – 10/10 (It’s cute speaking Cars! What more reasons do you need to find ways to play with them? The accessories add to that, too.) Build – 8/10 (Nothing too complex, but some efficient solutions are used.) Price – 10/10 (Though this is a Licensed set, it looks to be one of the most balanced ones price-wise: 146 parts for $/€ 14.99 is pretty good in my book, especially of late.) Overall: 9.3/10 Excellent As always, questions, comments, and pic requests welcome! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
The Penguin Posted October 20, 2011 Superb review! Thanks for the great experience! Actually it was one of the few sets I was going to get, since it has some very nice parts and the design of the heroes is really a top notch. good day, ladies and gentlemen! ) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
lightningtiger Posted October 20, 2011 Thanks 'LuxorV' for this review, Luigi is great but Guido is the bomb....AWESOME little guy he is eh ? Oh, those hub-cap wheel rims would be ever so handy for MOCing city vehicles. Brick On Race On ! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
