Bartybum

Well yes, but if that's true then surely you realise how fake licensing costs are, no? It doesn't cost a dime for Mercedes or Volvo to sign a contract allowing TLC to release a licensed set, so there shouldn't be any extra cost passed on to the consumer. More to the point, that's exactly why the licensing costs shouldn't be included in Ngoc's comparison between 42131 and 42100.

Licensing is a fake cost so it isn't worth considering Didn't seem to cost much for 8110 and 42043. Those two sets were stellar

More sales doesn't guarantee more profit though. I think they're probably trying to see how far they can push the profit curve. Aside from the tow truck, I feel that every single large licensed set this year has fallen inline with that philosophy: the Ferrari, Senna, Jeep, Raptor, Zetros and (possibly) now the CAT. That being said, I'm going to wait until we get more info before I judge

Unfortunately so, but it shouldn’t be excused

I think a crawler crane with some complex cable rigging would be nice

You're forgetting the all important factor here - 42131 is 18+ so that means it must be worth the money Seriously though, if this is true then it's so insidious and morally corrupt of TLC

A gearbox and all would be really cool, and hooray to them for putting in the extra complexity. However, that choice should be made in the name of increasing cost efficiency. If justification for a ~4K piece set being $750AUD is that it has $250 worth of electronics in it, then when you halve the amount of electronics the price really should reflect that change. Given TLC's latest 18+ pricing gimmick, (namely the Raptor) I'm really worried that there's a possibility they'll try to gaslight their customers into thinking that $750AUD is acceptable, because it just isn't. Alas, I'll reserve flipping out at them until we have more information.

Two data points don’t make a pattern my dude

I mean I don’t think there’s any reason to think it’s likely that we’ll get a mobile crane in 2023. It seems really arbitrary.

Along with a return of 2x7 pneumatic cylinders, I’d really like to see a $80USD sized pneumatic front loader

I’m willing to bet it’s an issue of the image being skewed

While I'm definitely not gonna buy this because it's well outside my money and space budget, I'm impressed by the aesthetics. It's a very imposing model. I'm just a little disappointed by the cosmetic actuator for the rake, since it doesn't look like it'll pitch, but other than that it's quite interesting

Do I spy a track tensioning mechanism???

Hehe I rate this. I love seeing what people do with the highly specialised Bionicle and Slizer pieces

You know, one thing I’d love to see is slow motorised models that drive and steer through engaging clutches rather than RC. Stuff like: The playability of these would be incredible. 42042 came close, but what killed it for me was the lack of steering. Obviously they’d nearly all have to be tracked, but I bet there’s a few wheeled models out there that could work as well.

Mmm I wouldn't say I'd go that far - the red fender's a bit of an eyesore. But @Void_S thoughts on messing around with a few other colour schemes?

A tunneling excavator would be quite interesting: Like for obvious reasons it wouldn't be functional but the rolling arm mechanism is quite an interesting one

Hell yeah, looking forward to the rest of this

I have no issues with colour coding but it is visible in the final product

@Johnny1360 I assume you're talking about whether MLAs and LAs have equal gear ratios? If so then I'm not sure. I doubt it though, since their internals seem to be a different size. I don't think there's any reason to believe TLC's designers would have made an effort to get them to open at the same rate though.

Oh man I’ve been waiting for updates on this one for ages, so glad you’ve come back

How does the model handle steering, by the way? The front fender solution looks nice but I fear there isn't much room to turn

@2GodBDGlory thanks for taking the time to make a video. Seems that an air tank really is more or less pointless.

To my understanding Grohl and the Technic team had wanted to do a trial truck for quite a while now, and so they presumably took the opportunity to do so once the heavy duty diffs and planetary hubs came into existence. I do hope in the future that we'll get a proper lighter weight rock crawler with high suspension travel.

I'd take a look at trying to see whether people have modified the 42035 mining loader to be RC, since it's so similar to the white dump truck