MR Swordfish

Oh man, you're right! I wasn't looking hard enough. Looks like I'll be purchasing two of these sets If a few more parts are released in earth green, I can redesign my Lotus 49 MOC to have more accurate colors. The standard green doesn't look bad, but earth green would still be better.

Looking good!

Wow, thanks for the pic! Based on the fuzzy leaked image from a while back, I was really hoping this one was going to include 1x6 earth green tiles (a piece I don't think exists). Looks like you only get 1x1, 1x4 and 1x8, rats This is why my Lotus 49 MOC isn't earth green. Oh well, still going to buy this set!

Thank you!

After taking a shot at creating a couple of 9-wide 2017 F1 cars, I though it would be fun to turn the clock back 50 years… to 1967. The cars back then were incredibly dangerous mid-engine-missiles, but I have been a fan of their classic look and simplicity for a long time. I made an effort to recreate one in 8-wide LEGO as a kid, but I was never fully satisfied with the results. Today I’ve started all over with new designs, and I’ve done my best to capture some key details that made these cars look so distinct. I present to you the Ferrari 312 vs. the Lotus 49. ^ And here they are! The yellow racing livery on the nose of the Lotus is made up of five individual custom stickers, and nothing is folded. I felt there were no attractive options for brick-built livery, plus I knew I’d have to make stickers regardless for the racing numbers, “TEAM LOTUS” logos, etc. ^ The ’67 Ferrari 312 is one of my absolute F1 favorites, producing what is perhaps my favorite engine sound of all time. It was featured prominently in that Ferrari/Shell V-power commercial showcasing a variety of Ferrari’s Grand Prix machines. ^ The iconic Lotus 49 was easily the fastest F1 car in ’67, but arguably lost the championship because it… broke a lot. Still, with the innovation of bolting the engine directly to the chassis to act as part of the car’s structure, Lotus effectively changed the sport. ^ The raised lip surrounding the cockpit is, in my opinion, an important aspect of these classic cars’ look. I tried several ideas for capturing it before settling on this one. ^ The sections of the Lotus’ low lying exhaust pipes seen beneath the rear axle are actually attached separately from the rest of the pipes seen in the rear, using minifigure “Tool Box Wrench” pieces. ^ These two models, like their real life counterparts, differ most visibly in shape towards the rear. While there was no way to capture every detail in this scale, I did my best to approximate the distinct look of each car. The Ferrari’s 3-litre V12 engine is very different from the Lotus’ famous Cosworth DFV V8. ^ Note that the rear tyres are wider than the fronts, just like the real cars. Those older LEGO tyres actually fit perfectly on the newer Speed Champions wheels, which really worked great for these MOCs. ^ These classic cars are essentially in scale with both of the 2017 F1 cars I built a little while ago. The wheelbase of this Ferrari 312 is just over 2/3rds the length of the wheelbase on the Ferrari SF70H, which is accurate! The 2017 cars are also a bit wider than the 1967 cars (9-wide vs. 8-wide), which is also just about right. ^ While full minifigures can’t fit in the cars’ narrow cockpits, it is possible to build “drivers” using minifig heads on 1x1 bricks with a round 1x1 plates underneath. They may look like bizarre board game pieces on their own, but they work well inside the cars for display. Thanks for taking a moment to look at my MOCs! I've also posted this on MOCpages (link), and larger images can be found on my Flickr page (link). Comments and feedback are always appreciated.

Very true. You might see ideas in a theme like this that could realistically only ever be standalone sets.

Yeah, kind of like that. I have always loved full blown themes for one original concept, but if LEGO can't make them work anymore, maybe they could do this instead? *shrug* I honestly don't know, but it sounds better to me than what we have now.

Yes, precisely. Put simply, a full theme (like Space Police or Castle for example) generally has to have an entire lineup of sets across various price ranges. This is to justify the use of the resources that go into creating something with a defined logo, concept, storyline, etc., as well as to make the theme adequately represented on store shelves, which is what the retailers want. For these reasons, you won't see a properly realized Castle theme with, for example, two sets. On the other hand, LEGO has probably discovered that full blown licensed themes are selling better than full blown unlicensed themes, so they won't dedicate themselves to doing something original unless it's very well realized and gets a huge marketing push (like Ninjago). Enter the current City theme. This is where Lego is putting sets that they couldn't, for practicality's sake, dedicate a whole theme to. They do some adventure sets. Some realistic space sets. Some city cars. Some construction vehicles. Miners. Whatever. They can make one, two, three or even four sets covering a certain concept without dedicating too much of their resources (aka money) to making it happen. It also avoids the issue of having to make a theme large enough to be presentable on shelves. This is clearly a practical model that is working best for them as a way to sell unlicensed sets -- otherwise they would not be doing it. The limitation here is that City covers modern real world inspired ideas. You likely won't see crazy concepts like Mars aliens, classic knights on horses or people fighting mutant dinosaurs in City. So the idea here is to have a second theme that functions like City, but exists for other set ideas that both don't fit into City, and won't get made into a full theme, either. You would get multiple different types of sets in this theme each year as well -- the lineup would not be limited to one concept.

Yep, exactly that! It's clear that LEGO's old model of having tons of original themes is out the window. Hopefully this would be a more modern approach to offering unlicensed sets for many classic recurring genres

...well, I would like to see a generic fantasy theme alongside City. As others have said, City is where LEGO has been putting a lot of the ideas that went into original themes in the past, which I enjoy, but it's all mostly grounded in reality. It would be fun to see an adjacent theme that functions the same way as City, but instead contains sci fi and fantasy sets that don't need to be big fleshed-out themes like Ninjago, Nexo Knights, Chima, etc... I've no idea how realistic that idea is, and I'm not claiming it's what they ought to do. I'd just enjoy seeing it if it could happen.

Thank you! Ha, very nice. I really wanted Ferrari Finish Line back then, so consider me jealous I appreciate that, thanks! Oh yeah, making the minifigures fit is a real setback for the cockpit area.. and an engine adds even more problems! And yes, it's definitely trickier to make F1 cars look extremely accurate in city scale. I have nothing against doing it that way in general though, I love to see different approaches to capturing F1 in LEGO. Thankfully, these 9-wide MOCs look perfect next to my 8-wide cars, since the real 2017 spec F1 cars are legitimately wider than 1998-2016 era F1 cars... and most cars in general! And thank you about your compliments towards the cars and the stickers. I do wish the Mercedes' stickers had photographed a little less bluish, but ah well. In person they look spot-on. I didn't know teal parts were making a comeback, but I would love to have brick-built coloring on that car instead if it becomes possible. As I said in the OP, I tried doing it with green parts (like the way LEGO handled it in the Speed Champions sets), but it just... didn't look good enough to me in those colors. And according to Bricklink, it would have been impossible to acquire all the necessary parts in sand green, which might have looked okay. I kept the green pieces with stickers though, just in case I change my mind about them. Here's a bad photo from before I made the car all gray with teal stickers;

Hey come on, it's all about the fun of the build Thanks so much! Glad I'm not the only one who enjoyed the season. Always nice to see Seb competing for a win! And those 2006 Ferrari Racers sets are what got me into really following the sport as a kid after years of just liking and building anything that looked vaguely F1/Indycar. The car in "8673 Ferrari F1 Fuel Stop" blew my kid mind and really inspired me to try to build genuine F1 cars. Thanks. The solid black Halo prototype wouldn't be difficult to do, but who knows what the final versions will look like later this month. It might end up being something very tricky to imitate... but I guess we'll see. Ha, thank you! Nice to hear you liked these despite your preference for NASCAR

2017 ranks as one of my favorite years for F1 in the last decade. I love the improvements to the cars’ aesthetics, and the racing got back to record-setting speeds. Beyond that, Ferrari made a strong return to form that really took the fight to Mercedes, and I could not be happier with that development. 2018’s cars are set to debut later this month (and introduce cockpit protection to the sport), but I wanted to take one last look at the 2017 season by capturing some of it in LEGO. I present to you the Ferrari SF70H vs. the Mercedes W08. ^ Here they are! I really tried to capture the proportions of the cars as well as I could in this scale while keeping the designs fairly detailed. ^ I originally built the W08 with actual green pieces, but eventually opted to just give the car it's correct colors using custom made stickers on gray parts. It just looked so much better this way. ^ The #5 driver numbers on the SF70H are the only custom stickers I had to make for it. The rest are from Speed Champions sets (I almost always save the stickers). ^ The Mercedes has a slightly longer wheelbase than the Ferrari, as seen on the real cars (example). ^ The Mercedes also has a slimmer nose than the Ferrari, again to mimic the real cars. The front wing "aero" varies between the two models as well. ^ The last major difference between the two models are the engine covers; The Ferrari has it's T-wing mounted directly to the shark fin, whereas the Mercedes has it mounted on it's own little support arm. ^ The drivers are made with the "driver body" pieces that were included in a ton of the 2002 Racers sets. These two are from "4593 Zero Hurricane & Red Blizzard", with helmets and customized minfig heads. While it would be possible to make full minfigs fit in these cars, I don't think it's possible to do so without making the cockpit area look considerably less accurate. In the last four years I've only built one other model, but alongside these two I'll be putting up a few more replica F1 cars in 2018 for sure. This is my first time posting a creation on Eurobricks, so thanks so much for taking the time to look at my MOCs! I've also posted this to MOCpages (link), and larger images can be found on my new Flickr page (link). EDIT: Bonus photo comparison of the real SF70H vs the MOC version;

That looks great! Very nice proportions.

Ah, so it is! I suppose this should also mean the reverse is possible, and a variety of other tyres should fit on the Speed Champions rims.