Review: 30121 Cars Grem

[Darkdragon]

Here comes Grem, the outcast Gremlin with something to prove!

Set#: 30121

Name: Grem

Theme: Disney's Cars

Year: 2011

Parts: 54

Minifigs: none

Price: Free (Original)

This small set was a giveaway in Sweden and I managed to get my hands on one by winning it in a contest right here on Eurobricks. This is my third Cars set to date and my first of the small single-car sets. Since the set wasn't released in the USA (as of this writing), I thought it would be a great candidate to review. Other than the two printed parts, most of us MOC builders probably have all the parts to build this set on our own.

Packaging Front

Nice bright red colors and Cars logo. The photo of the finished model almost looks unreal, I'm not 100% convinced that this is the actual model - I think it might have had some editing or possibly be partially computer generated. The angle of everything just looks a little too ... bendy? I'm not sure if that is the right word but something about it doesn't sit right with me.

Packaging Back

Standard boring polybag back. Lots of warnings in lots of different languages and illustrations in case the buyer can't read yet.

Let's have a look at the parts in this bag. I've decided to divide the parts photos into red/not-red because over half of the set is red parts and the rest are a bit of a mix.

Non-Red Parts

There are a few black parts you would expect for a car model, quite a few light-gray parts and a smattering of other colors. Most of the other colors are used for structural purposes rather than looks - personally I'd much rather have consistent colors. For example, the blue plates should be light-gray, and the yellow could easily have been black or red.

Red Parts

Lots of red parts here. The printed parts are both red and most of the model is red. Interestingly, for such a small model there are only a few really tiny parts, which is the first indication that there won't be much detail on this model.

Interesting Parts

Of course we have the printed parts - standard for the Cars theme. These parts are nicely printed with crisp lines and good details. They did a great job of capturing the personality of the cars with the printed parts. I really like the giant flame and those are not too common so it's always a nice part to get ahold of. I don't think the red 1x2/2x4 bracket is new but I certainly don't have any, though I do have similar brackets that are 1x2/1x4 and they are great for SNOT. The train window could come in handy for something in the future too.

Instructions Folded

Again a standard for polybag sets. The instructions are printed on one sheet front and back, and folded very small. It has basically the same scene we saw on the front of the packaging. Nothing too exciting to see here.

Instructions Inside Theme Advertisement

This was interesting because the advertisement depicts only three of the sets in the theme, but not even every large set. The size of this image is approximately A4 paper, which is, in my opinion, too small for these sets. It is very difficult to see much detail and nothing here would make me want to go buy the sets. I think a better way to go would have been to do a much larger image of just one set, perhaps Flo's V8 Cafe which is one of the more interesting sets in the theme.

Instructions Unfolded

Here we are with the instructions open and ready to start building. The print and colors on the instructions are fine. I didn't have any black/dark-gray confusion issues like I sometimes do on larger sets - though with only one dark-gray part it would be difficult to get too lost. The instructions continue on the back but half of the back is used for the theme advertisement.

The Build - Halfway

Well that didn't take long! After about a minute I was halfway complete with the building of the car. Everything went together easily and there were no big (or small) tricks to figure out. It's your basic car build and made even simpler by the one-piece chassis.

The Build - Halfway Plus Back

The only change here from the previous photo is that I've added the back section of the car. This portion uses an nice part that I first saw in Alien Conquest Mothership (in light-gray), the 2x4 curved slope. This small SNOT build isn't much to write home about, but perhaps good for a kid to start thinking about more creative ways to build.

The Build - Complete

Here we have the completed car. It's small, like all the Cars models, but a solid build a kid could actually play with. Everything is fastened tightly and doesn't feel like anything will fall off when you play with it. I think the fire could poke someone in the eye, but hopefully that won't happen!

With Arm Up

The window arm can move up so that the eyes are fully visible. This is a good feature that could have been easily overlooked. This is really the only way to properly see Grem's eyes since the window opening is so small.

Front View

The view from the front of the model. Watch out for that blow-torch fire! If you look closely at the front bumper (really in any of the photos that show the front bumper), you can actually see a thin blue line from the plate used underneath. This is why I think the plate should have been light-gray. It isn't fully hidden and any part not fully hidden should be a color that goes with the model.

"Torch" Side View

From this angle we can get a good look at the fire and the robot arm used as a welding torch and arm.

Back View

Here we can see the back end that I showed you mid-build. The white tile is used as a funny looking license plate with no print. There are no tail lights and no windows. Very ho-hum.

Bottom View

Yes, it's very black. Most of the base is a single part. What I don't like here is that you can see the blue plate easily and it really distracts from the overall look of the bottom. Now normally, I do realize, the bottom won't be seen at all. However, that is no reason to be sloppy with design when all they would have had to do is provide the same part in a different color.

Top View

Boring! Well at least they tried to hint at the fact that he has a luggage rack on top. There is really nothing positive I can say about the roof or hood design of this model, I don't care for either one. The roof is boring and the hood has an unfinished feel to it (one more tile is all we needed).

Conclusion

Overall a cute but underwhelming set. I do realize that it is a giveaway (at least initially) and that it is a polybag set. However, I would like to have seen a little more care taken to better match the actual Cars character. I have a few complaints that I would like to share with you.

As you can see from the Pixar image above, the color of the car in the movie is a rusty orange - this car is red. That is not anywhere near the right color. They could have gone with orange, dark-orange, or the rusty-orange color. We know they have a nice rust orange color, it was used in the Prince of Persia sets and still used in the Harry Potter sets. It could be that they didn't want to mold these parts in that color, but would that have really been such a huge issue? I really don't know, but it would have been a lot better set if at least the color had matched more closely.

My other major complaint is just the lack of detail and care given to the design of the car itself. I think they could have done a little better on the blow torche, though I do like the fire and applaud the designer for not going with the very small "trans-neon-orange" flames we see so often. The roof and hood, as I've mentioned, just have an incomplete feel to them. The lack of any sort of tail lights is very disappointing (trans-red tiles would have been a better choice than the red tiles they used, and would have solved this gripe).

Design: 6/10 I've seen better and I've seen worse, even for this size model. I really feel that there are some small improvements that could have been made to increase the quality of this design.

Build: 8/10 The build was not bad at all. It was simple but also had a hint of SNOT to it.

Parts: 7/10 Nothing to write home about here, of course the printed parts are brilliant - but it IS a Cars model after all.

Playability: 9/10 Excellent playability with this model. The build is solid and can stand up to zooming the car about and even crashing it without breaking apart. The prints are actually protected by the bumper and the window which means we may be able to find these two parts in good used condition on Bricklink some day. The ability to move the window off Grem's eyes without having to remove the whole assembly is a good design choice.

Price: 10/10 You can't beat free! This was initially a giveaway in Sweden and I got my set from a contest right here on Eurobricks. For me as a builder, as of the time of this writing, the price for this set on Bricklink is INSANE ($25-$30) for what you get. However, a Cars/Disney/LEGO collector would probably find that price perfectly reasonable for a set not available in most countries.

Overall: 6/10 I would buy this set in the store if it was around $2.99. Not having a minifigure would really kill it for me at any higher price. This would probably be a nice gift for someone that was a Cars 2 fan or collector as it's something they are unlikely to have seen before.

[lightningtiger]

Thanks 'darkdragon' for this review, at least it was free eh ?

Nice little cute set, but shouldn't Grem be more burnt orange than red ?

Neat tricks used for the welding rig and mask at least !

Brick On Race On !

[prateek]

Nice review, but I think you're being too hard on this set. You've got to remember that this is small freebie, so it shouldn't be so complicated or have any (if at all) new parts. That said, this set does have its flaws, like the weird plate colours, and the lack of tail lights.

[Darkdragon]

Nice review, but I think you're being too hard on this set. You've got to remember that this is small freebie, so it shouldn't be so complicated or have any (if at all) new parts. That said, this set does have its flaws, like the weird plate colours, and the lack of tail lights.

I may have been a little harsh on the details, I do realize this is a small freebie set. I think the biggest issue with this set is the color. If they had gone with 'dark nougat" or even just orange, it would have been so much closer to the licensed product.

[martyboy70]

I really cant get my head round the reasoning behind making him totally the wrong colour-theres just no need for it.

[Legostein]

Hello!

Thanks for the review! It makes me glad to see that the old classic car chassis is still being used in official sets.

Cheers,

~ Christopher