Vectormatic

Am i right in seeing that the A model also has this weird steering with a pin into pin-with-pinhole sitting on a crossbar between steering arms? im really critical of that, the good old steering rack is a proven and working solution, and the mosr recent set ive seen so far with alternative steering (42048, the go kart), was poorer for it, 42022 was a bit better, but that is mostly because weird steering is apt on hot rods, surely a modern sportscar has normal rack/pinion

Lol, i remembered the arches being smaller from the official pics but figured, who am i to question jim? I wonder if extra stiff shocks are in order for a racecar like this, sinxe this just uses the generic 42039/77 suspension platform, some modding might be appropriate

Cool review jim and the model is juat what i want, a more bad megablocks looking cheaper porsche Regarding the wheels, since it has the same arches, do the 42056 wheels fit, and do they look better size wise?

Top work jim! Im off to read them now!

like 65 it will drop in price soon enough, 65 can be found in shops for 60 euros now IMHO, lego MSRP is high for most sets either way, i cant really bring myself to pay MSRP for any medium/big set, regardless of theme, the coming porsche might tempt me though, it just looks soooo cool

Thanks Jim, ill be sure to check back in two days

Dont mean to beg here, but any hints as to when they go online?

It should absolutely be mentioned in a review if parts are faulty/misprinted, but generally speaking the majority of end users will get proper QA-ed parts, and not having TLG replace the bad parts and also including them in the review, thus means that the review will no longer be a proper indication of what a typical customer should expect. Speaking in general (not just lego), reviewers should absolutely mention any and all issues encountered with the product, but the professional thing to do is also to take this up with the producer and give them a chance to resolve the issue.

What else were you expecting if you already had the gearbox crossed out? Ill happily agree that for the price, compared to other same sized technic sets this thing is light on features at best, and i can think of plenty of features to add besides the obvious gearbox (moving wiper, airjacks, adjustable suspension/aero), but i cant see how anyone reasonable and paying attention could have expected anything more then what it is. Price-wise im sure itll be available for a good bit under MSRP soon enough, amazon.de are pretty good, im not sure €100 will happen often, as >33% discount is more of a fluke then a regular occurrence for most lego sets, but im willing to bet you can get one for €120 within a month of launch.

42077 doesnt look anywhere near as good though, 42000 for instance makes for a nice display model, 42077 looks pretty bad and boxy, 42096 by comparison looks worlds better, to me it even looks better then 42056 once you fix the bulbous headlights The lack of features is bad, but no-one here should be surprised, i called it not having a gearbox as soon as rumours surfaced of it being a licensed set, 42056, 42063 and 42083 all suffer from "form over function" due to bloat, offering the same features as sets half their part count/price. Not to mention the fact that if they succeeded 42056 with a 911 with the exact same features (but fixed issues), but for half price, that would make 42056 looks absolutely ridiculous

Just took a peek at the instructions and partslist for 42089 and 42092, sadly both use enough newish parts that building them from my spares is a no go, even if i sub the rotor blades, 89 even has 4 3x7 curved panels, which is relatively rare Was hoping to have some advance fun and save some money on not buying the smaller sets :(

I doubt it, They will release in march as always, so a second real wave would be cramped between all other releases, and unless they want to seriously expand the lineup, there isnt much room, compared to previous years all that is missing is a single car and big set, so even if the second wave would be very modest (4 sets?) that would make it by far the biggest SC year. As for a second wave, this year we only get three single cars right? F40, Nascar and McLaren, last time that happened we got the 720S as a surprise, so maybe we will get some surprise car in 6 months, does anyone know if Ferrari (for instance) is due to release a new hypercar this year?

Same for the dutch shop, good to see €30 for the heli and €15 for the boat confirmed Also 42069 and loads of others are marked as leaving soon (but 42070 isnt!), also some decent sales going on, 20-30% off on all technic except PF, even the Chiron is €80 off!

The problem here is though, if they add a gearbox back in, and add an improved flappy paddle mechanism (and whatever functions you might find on a GTE car, maybe airjacks?), the cost will spiral out of control Lego choses to focus these sets more on looks then on functions, adding functions anyway would come at a cost, which might make it unsellable. Personally if the 911 RSR was another €300+ porsche, i wouldve skipped it.

Im more surprised that sets like 42061 got canned after only a year, it by far wasnt a weak set, and not anywhere near as bad as 76 Keeping a set in stock for lego isnt just about cost, it is also about opportunity cost, if they have to use warehouse space and production capacity for supply of parts etc.. for 42076, they can not use that same space/capacity for sets which might sell better. Pure cost/benefit only works if you can linearly and endlessly scale your production capacity at the same cost, and that is just not how this works.

Im not a fan of the charger, the hood is just a flat deck, the rear is also waaay too flat, missing out on the curves. The challenger seems to have the same wheelcaps as the nascar camaro, but without prints to suggest high sidewall drag radials So far the F40 is a definite yes, might even get two, one for the competizione, one for the regular version. Might also get the Nascar, even though nascar doesnt appeal to me, the car looks pretty cool. The rest is an easy pass for me though, unless i run into the dodge set at 50% in a clearance or something

Just did some math based on the dimension on that review Assuming scale 1:8 the length is almost exactly right (0.015 stud too long) the width of the lego model is too much (by 1.6 studs) the height of the lego model is too low ( by 1.6 studs) the wheelbase is a bit too much (by 0.6 studs) So assuming they were going for 1:8, 42056 nailed the length/wheelbase (the only thing they could have done is make the wheelbase 1 stud shorter, for a -0.375 deviation), but the width is off by 5 percent, and the height nearly 10 percent, in opposite directions, meaning the front/rear profile on 42056 looks waay too wide 42096 meanwhile is 10% off the length, 3% in both width and height (in opposing directions, but inverse to 42056, the front profile is too high, but far less drastic then 42056). The wheelbase is off by 1.5% Honestly, the margin of error on the dimensions is roughly the same on the porsches, 42096 might be a tad long, but at least it gets the height a lot better, and the roof/cabin structure looks a bit more meaty/filled in. Looking at the pics im guessing the front can be shortened by 1 or 2 studs without running into rebuilding the entire front end from scratch, the rear might also be able to shrink by 1 stud, which would put the deviation down to <5%.

That is disappointing, did anyone ever do the math on 42056? I guess ill just start out with building it, if the dimensions look wrong enough to bother me, ill put some effort into shortening it, thankfully the wheelbase and width/height are all good enough to be left alone, just taking a few studs out of the bodywork length should be the easiest dimension fix there is.

OMFG, hype! The F40 is one of my favorite ferraris, getting one in SC form is awesome! I might end up picking up two, one in standard competizione form, one to convert to normal spec (im thinking recoluor the spoiler, delete the splitter, modify the bonnet stickers) Judging from the leaks so far, this might actually be my only SC buy next year (as im slowly losing interest in the theme, and i dont really care much for chevy/modern minis), but what an awesome car to get in SC form!

42048 is a pretty good suggestion imho Id also suggest 42075, it has most features of the bigger cars (engine, diff, suspension, steering), extra playability (opening doors, hood, hatches at the back, winch, flip-up floodlight) and quite attractive design. I feel like for an 11 year old kid who has no prior technic experience going straight to the bigger models might be overreaching a bit, especially if sets like 42048 and 42075 can deliver 90% of the experience in <50% of the parts/price. Also, if the kid digs pickups, 42029 is pretty cool if you can still find one.

Too big/expensive imho Ive got a single speed champion on my desk, and its a spare. Given that in offices valuable things do disappear from time to time (havent seen it happen in my own workplaces, but still), and desk space is at a premium, im not putting a €40 big-ish set on there

Im not 100% on that, it could be that the entire front shell flips up, the middle of the hood is obviously connected to the wheel arches, but those arent secured at the bottom, i cant quite make out the front to see if there is a solid connection from the front shell to the frame, but i wouldnt be surprised. Either way, i think they messed up with this set, the corvette as a car isnt recognizable enough to be worked out in 400 parts, if you'd shown me this car without the corvette stickers, i would have pegged it for some generic design, not a corvette. I might end up getting it as a parts pack/base for MOC/MODding eventually though, but the set itself does nothing for me.

Anyone expecting a gearbox hasnt been paying attention to recent trends: - 42056 had a poor gearbox, and was just generally missing features for a technic set of that price level -42063 was a whole $15 more expensive then the previous bike, and had much more parts, all dedicated to show over substance, the lack of a chain actually means that despite the telel-lever front suspenion, the BMW probably has less moving parts then 42036, despite having 228 extra parts, and no extra functions, again, style over substance in a licensed set. - 42077 was missing features badly compared to its predecessors 42039 and 42000 - 42083 continues the trend of 42056 in being light on features for its pricepoint, and while the gearbox is improved, it also shows that designs this complex have problems in lego form, the slop in all the gearmeshes added up making for waaaaaaay too much play in the connection between wheels and engine. Putting any kind of gearbox in 42096 would mean it surpasses 42056 as a set, unless they somehow manage to make an even worse gearbox. For half the price, that simply isnt happening, not in this short a gap between sets. Personally i off course would have prefered a gearbox, even a basic manual fourspeed like 8880 had, but being realistic, that was never going to happen. At least we get a very cool display model (in that respect i much prefer this over 42056), and im willing to bet there is space in there for the die-had AFOL to put in a proper gearbox, especially with the wave-catch part. We get a "budget" body/chassis which looks 100% on the mark, and get to fill in the blanks ourselves, or not, and just use it as a display piece.

The description text mentions independent suspension I wouldnt expect too much otherwise, this is a licensed set after all, and it can eclipse the gt3rs at half price

Good eye! I checked two of my cylinders, the older one (Ferrari enzo, so ~10 years) has a slit in the gallery for the pins, the newer one (go kart, i think 42048) has a solid gallery but a slit in the cylinder skirt under the gallery (42077, my most recent set has the same skirt slit), the pics of this porsche have neither, so solid gallery and solid cylinder wall I always thought this part was the same from almost 30 years ago, turns out i was wrong, and indeed we are getting a new mold next year EDIT: checked the porsche pic again, they have the same cylinder wall slit... so could be the same mold as recent technic sets