Vectormatic

Technically correct, i think many just use "C-model" as a generic term for an alternative model based on a set. Nice work by the way, i really appreciate the poetry in turning a 911 into a beetle :P And always nice to see a transverse front mounted engine

Lets not count our chickens just yet ;) 42056 seemed very promising before reviewers got their hands on it, and even if everything works 100%, there are still enough choices to disagree with (which mostly comes down to personal taste, stuff like the mini-fake engine) That said, im optimistic about it, im not a landrover fan at all, and ill need some things fixed before im perfectly content with it, but after building the chiron and currently working on the porsche, all i can say is that im absolutely hyped for another car build on that scale.

which puts it in the same scale as 42096 Either way, to me scale doesnt have much bearing on how i view it, looking at the part count and featureset i expect a building experience on par with the UCS cars, and entirely different from 42096, which was just an empty shell, a tarted up 42077.

My guess based on the pictures: Engine -> DNR -> Hi/Lo -> 4 speed -> center diff Although, i cant quite figure out how the foremost driveshaft in the pic above would fit into that idea, so i might be entirely wrong, either way, im just reasoning from the placement of the various bits we can see, and how i think that would make sense

More pictures from lego themselves: https://www.lego.com/nl-nl/product/land-rover-defender-42110 Im optimistic about being able to V8 swap it

Just take it off after you build it? I plan on taking off the weirdo side storage box as well While i dont agree that it is the best, today it really dawned on me that this is right up there with the GT3RS in terms of part count, and it matches the Chiron for driveline complexity. It might not have the UCS treatment in terms of box, but otherwise this car is equal to the GT3RS, we just get it at a much more friendly price. Which is exactly why i want it, i love how the Chiron looks, but i mostly enjoyed building it, as i am enjoying building the GT3RS, so i know i will enjoy building this set.

judging from the pics, there arent any assymetrical pieces in the interior, so nothing should stop you from building the dash and steering wheel section in its mirror image. Personally i prefer it being LH, the real car is (available in LH anyway), and for the vast majority of TLC customers, LH is reality, although i understand that for some brittons it might feel a bit wrong, especially on a landy.

I would hope it is better then the chiron, as in, less gear meshes and no 4 combination box for the hi/lo part, i can understand why they went with the doubled up hi/lo side for the chiron, for this car with a seperate hi/lo selector, there is no valid reason to use more then 3 clutches in the main gearbox (+1 for the FNR selector). Shifting wise it should also be less complex then the chiron, as it is just a bunch of direct manual selectors. Looking at the video, a few points still stand out as negatives to me, but i will absolutely be buying it. Only question is whether ill pounce on it for christmass this year, or do i wait for the inevitable "pimp my landrover" community project here to reach version 1.4/5 and build that straight away.

It would be nice if Formula 1 would catch up and stop basing their engine formula on 80s/90s sets when we have 42000 available with a revolutionary V8 engine!

My point wasnt that there were too many new specific parts, and the clutches have gone on to be used for great stuff, my point was just that 8880, like 42083 for instance, needed a new piece to do what it did. I plan on rebuilding 8880 sometime soon, to see how it feels after 42056 and 42083, but i first have to finish the former and get the sluban/cobi tank monkey off my back :D Either way im not entirely sure where and even if i would display 8880, i dont think it looks particularly good next to todays supercars, and im affraid the white wheels will yellow even more..

Yuck, that is one ugly car in real life, and not very land rover-esque, especially for something carryint the defender name, very much a lifestyle school run SUV-look, not some serious off-road machine. The lego version had it looking a bit more rugged at least. Odd as it is, that might seriously impact my buying decision, i have no interest in having something ugly on the shelf, or something which reminds me off an ugly car...

Looks good @Oozin, the chrome tape looks a bit odd when one is used to matte finish lego, but certainly improves the look of the result. I also like the opening engine cover. Im currently in the process of building 42056 according to the PMP 1.4 instructions and enjoying it so much that i might rebuild my chiron to PMC spec later on, The chiron out of the box is acceptable from a technical standpoint, but the pimped out porsche is easily a step or two above it in terms of technical features from what i can tell right now (just built the gearbox and flappy paddles)

@arioh, what is the general look of the car with those big wheels on it? I might jump in this 8081 frenzy once i finish my GT3RS, but i dont have the appropriate tires, and the 42077 ones are the closes thing i have available

Amazing work! This is what the 8653 enzo should have been! The only niggle i have is the mini fake engine, i really dont like this, but considering the scale and detail level, it is the only possible solution here, so i wont harp on about it, considering i dont have the skill level to build something like this, im not sure i have the right to any criticism anyway :P This is definitely going on my "to build" list, ~ 1500 parts is a much more do-able endeavour then those 3K+ monstrosities, and for this model i already have the wheels etc.. So after raiding the partsbin the cost for extra parts should be reasonable

@Thirdwigg ill consider it, looking over the parts list again, i should be able to fix up an alternate front suspension, and the tires from 42077 have the same outer diameter. The only thing not sufficiently in my partsbin is shocks, so id have to raid another model for them. I do have a 42056 to build though, not sure what i want to do first. Either way, i still think that for a next iteration of the TMC, a currently available set is an obvious choice, to me the ~300-600 part set range (to which 8081 belongs) generally provides for excellent models, and would provide every entrant with an easily available and the same starting point

I absolutely love this idea @rm8! Personally im not advanced enough at mocing to take part in those contests, but i love MODing technic sets, pretty much anything i buy either ends up in the partsbin or modded. I would like it though if a next TMC uses a more readibly available set as a base, 8081 is quite old, and for me was in the middle of my dark ages, and picking one up used is difficult and expensive (relative to its original price and store availability). I always kinda thought thaty 42075 would be a nice base for a contest such as this, so i would suggest that for a next TMC, pick a set which is still in stores and in the $30-60 range, that will allow anyone to jump in and participate without hunting down specific parts or old sets. Looking at 8081, the steering rack and wheels are relatively rare, so pulling one out of the partsbin seems unlikely too.

I like that a LOT! If i hadnt already canibalized my 42077 for parts, id build this version, looks better then the A and B models

Awesome! I modded my 75 to a pickup, but i never managed a four cylinder, ill have to check how you did that

@agrof i havent been able to get a good peek at the tires to read the size, but i would love it if those are indeed 42000s tires, as that means the wheel will fit on pretty much any modern non-huge technic car, i imagine they will look a lot better on 42096 then the standard technic rims.

Makes sense, i was just wondering. By all means take your time though, as nintendo says, a bad game is forever bad, a late game is only late once.

Derp, totally forgot about the pins going though the block.... Good point @Sariel, when you say after sep 11th, does that mean you get the set the 11th, and a review will show up when you are done? Also, either sariel or @Jim, could you guys pay some attention to how much space there is under the bonnet for a propper engine, similar to the wheel comparissons on 42069? I know it is a big ask, but for me (and probably others), that is a make or break question for this set

Agreed, the "cilinder walls" on the lego parts are waaaaay too thick compared to real engines, so yeah, an inline lego 6 is probably in terms of length/borediameter worse then a real world I8. So for lego model purposes, i can agree that using the std parts for an I6 is an issue, i think from all the leaked pics we already kind of knew the space wasnt there to put one of those into the defender. I would've much prefered an I4 though, i fully expect the Defender to also be made with an I4 engine, so realism would be there, it just wouldnt be the top spec model. And on a tangent, it makes me wonder if one could bore out the lego cilinders and 3d-print some oversized pistons. I dont think a stroke-increase is very possible (given that that also would increase the distance between the cilinder mounting holes and crankshaft, meaning a new engine front/back brace is in order), but an overbore fake engine....

Would a 2JZ be just as long as a V12 based on the same bore pattern? That is the way it is with I4/V8 engines AFAIK, the main difference in size is that the V6 engines are wider and need more plumbing, and sometimes a the aux belt stuff is more complicated. Either way, the normal piston engines are heavily scale dependent, i did the math on this for the GT3RS, and going by scale and piston diameter, the porsche has a 1.6L engine :P On a smaller scale model, obviously you end up with a very different result, and for some models the regular piston engines are indeed ridiculously oversized. Personally im perfectly fine with the normal piston engine size, for cars like 42000, 42039 and larger (or the old Ferrari 599 and Enzo), it feels about right. I know the scale is probably off if you do the math, but it feels correct to have a big girthy engine in racecars, and with the sump/heads/ancilieries missing, the engine bay of a lego car would look ridiculous with just the properly sized shortblock. As for the small axle based fake engine, i absolutely hate it. On the corvette Zr1 i found that it is extremely sensitive to "tuning" it correctly, push the yellow half bushes just a fraction of a milimeter to far on or off the axle, and it wont run right, which i think is a big problem, especially on smaller models which might be built by younger kids. I also feel like it is entirely the wrong mechanism. Technic shouldnt be just about building something that moves a bit, it should also be about teaching kids (within reason) how certain mechanisms work, the small fake engine in that regard is a pushrod camshaft, not a crank/piston assembly, it belongs inside a built out V8 with some faux head/rocker bits, not in place of an engine. I can understand lego doesnt want to make custom parts to achieve things like proper boxer engines or a single crank W16 for the bugatti, but if they want a small scale alternative for the normale fake engine, they could have at least put some more effort into it then this. For me, the small fake engine is a deal breaker, i'll only buy the land rover if i can swap in a proper fake engine, same goes for any model containing the camshaft engine, the corvette will probably end up parts-binned (or rebuilt into a b-model with a proper engine swapped in)

I wonder if using the motorcycle front shocks would be a viable route, they have been used before in various crawler type cars with stiffer springs, and 8880 uses two per wheel, maybe those would allow for better suspension then the current 6.5 stud ones. All i want is lego coilovers :P so i schlammmm my porsche

@romashkaman thanks, that set was square in the middle of my dark ages On the topic of suspension travel, i agree that having the car sitting with the spring somewhat compressed is the most realistic, no real world car sits at the top of its travel like most technic cars do. However... Lego springs only come in two stiffnesses, and the geometry options for adjustment are pretty limited, so setting up a model to have it sit about halfway through its travel, while maintaining enough travel to be playable, and have a decent ride height so that it looks proper (which for branded cars such as the landy, porsches and bugatti is a must imho), is pretty much undoable with current parts. So untill lego comes up with a user friendly adjustable suspension setup (which i would love, but i dont see happening, ever), i think the best they can do is having cars sit at the proper ride height at the top of stiff springs @lipko, ill trust your judgement that it works well, but im just a bit sour from my Chiron sitting just a tad to low once the suspension settles.