tomacwhite

Wow awesome! How does it look? The alternate model for 8258 is fab looking, can't wait to see pics of both! :)

Go get it, Blakbird! Look forward to the review and photos :)

There is a review of the 8063 Tractor and Trailer on brickset, so I guess it's available now. It's on the US Toys R Us website for $99, and the UK Toys r Us site for £89. LOL! However, its still not on the Lego site itself, which is rather odd, no?

I was surprised it was still on the UK store, and priced at £99 too which I thought was a damn good price for the spec of the model. I went to my closest Lego shop and they said they stopped stocking it a while back, but it will be available online for a while yet because of its popularity. Perhaps it wasn't a bigger hitter in USA?

I have finished her, behold the red beauty that is Lego Technic model 8865 "Test Car". Wow. I don't ever remember the car shinning as much as it is right now, it looks stunning after its lovely multi-point clean. After washing the parts in warm water and drying them, I then went back to each individual piece with an old toothbrush and scrubbed any dust that might be clinging onto the pieces. After this, I went back AGAIN with a Detol wipe and wiped off any water marks that had appeared from them not drying 100%. It was worth it as its looking amazing right now. Very early steps. Crazily, there are only 24 steps to complete the Test Car! Suspension added to vehicle. Early steering construction The famous 135 piece in 1 step engine, fully built. Sorry, I really wanted to have a bigger, more in depth breakdown of this but it didn't really happen too well. Engine put onto the chassis. The next step is to build the dashboard.. Dashboard construction: Completed transmission: I will take more tomorrow in day light, the red is coming out really badly from this point and shoot camera. I really enjoyed rebuilding this model, it was an utter delight and the only bad experience was having to salvage a few parts from the old Lego box, but that's not the models fault :) I love the fact that the pistons work at different speeds depending what gear you're in. That's a very clever design and shows that the transmission actually does something functional as well as looking like it does. Steering and suspension is great, the pop-up headlights are neat and although one of them is a little flimsy after 21 years, the blue reclining and adjustable seats are very nicely detailed. For this set I replaced all of the friction pins with the new slotted type, and I also replaced the axle pins with the new type (which are of course tan coloured but you cannot see them when the model is complete). For new parts, I bought new elements to replace the yellow piece on the engines fan, the ones that I had already had teeth marks on them from when I was a kid :) 8865 was an awesome model when it came out originally and its still equally as impressive now. The construction, complexity and level of detail is simply staggering. Please bring us a new Super Car, Lego :)

It arrived! It's a birthday present off of my girlfriend so I've gotta wait a couple of weeks before I can go near it. Looks awesome from the cover though :D It shipped from Lego (direct from Denmark, I thought they would have UK stock but I guess its an older line now) on Tuesday and arrived (England) this morning, pretty good going :) I am going to be 31 in two weeks yet I am feeling like a child at Xmas waiting to get the pressie :)

Just finished building the model and its awesome! Really love the design, and the gearing system is very interesting to watch and build up. There loads of spare parts with the model which I guess will be used with the B model. I might give that a build at some point, although it doesn't look as interesting. If it could of had a tailgate that opened too (like the old Power Crane B model with pneumatics) then it would be way cooler, but I guess that would be very hard to do with gearing.

Those illustrations are impressive, what tool is used to create the 3D Lego bricks?

This lunch time I completed the first manual which is building the chassis. It was really enjoyable and (so far) it feels very rigid. Can't wait to start on the cab tomorrow :) Edit: I've cheekily built loads more at work, and I now have a model that is pretty near completion. I need to add batteries to check everything is running ok before continuing with the boom construction. The cab looks ace though and is really nicely detailed. What's cooler is that it uses some normal Lego bricks for its construction. Not many mind, but a few :)

This looks like a disappointing model considering the price and what else Lego have released this year. £20 more then the Front Loader and nowhere near the detail/features. Also, is it odd for Lego to release one more Technic product after their summer lineup?

I just started building this model today (it arrived at work, yay) and I am really enjoying the building process. It's interesting as at home I am rebuilding the 8865 Test Car which of course uses the old style of building, so its cool playing with both. I love the transmission on this, it looks like it will work very well and be incredibly smooth (the gearing is very nicely done). I am in the early stages of construction at the moment but so far its a cool model and a nice intro for me back into model day largeish Lego Technic building.

I started rebuilding 8865 tonight and got a good distance in (one step from the famous 135 piece engine build) and bam! I have a couple of very important missing pieces/elements. A grey 2x1 Technic brick and a length '2' axle for the headlight assembly. Along the way I also replaced a missing grey 1x1 smooth piece by a black one (you cannot see it, its under the steering) so will have to replace that too. I think these parts must have been missing when I took it apart as the lighting area was pulled apart slightly when I took it from my old bedroom. I've loved rebuilding this set, its great to go back to the old style of building with proper bricks that click lovingly into place with a positive 'snap!' Lots of the old Lego sets had parts which needed to be stretched and bent into position and this is no different, with numerous parts which need to be encouraged into place :) Anyway, I am going to go and find the parts and continue. So far though, it's looking great and very clean and shiny. Some photos: Nearly all of the pieces ready to rock. You'll be surprised at how many normal Lego pieces there are with this set, its quite staggering. First step: Start of the transmission construction: Completion of model so far: I aim to get to rest of the model finished by the end of the week (as long as I can get hold of the parts!). EDIT: I started to build the engine up today and once again I am missing a few vital elements so will have to hunt them down. I think I know where they have gone; these are parts that were missing from the gearbox (same elements used) and lighting rig when I rescued the model. Sigh. Never mind!

I checked with Lego just to be sure and like the first reply said, they are the same but the ''B' model includes batteries. That was out of stock (in fact not on the system at all) so I ordered the 8275 and will get some batteries from elsewhere. Very excited :)

Great review and photography, thanks very much. I saw this set in the Lego shop in Milton Keynes yesterday (UK store), and whilst it looks totally awesome, I am going to go for the Bulldozer instead as its got more to it. I think if the drive was motorized and the winch too I would probably go for it. It's still ace though and your photos really showed it off well :)

I just looked on the (UK) Lego store to order the 8275 Motorised Bulldozer and I noticed there are two models there, 8275 and B8275. They look identical but does anyone know if there is a difference between the two, if any? Thanks!

I love the idea for a parts list for Technic sets, this is especially helpful for me as I am slowly going to rebuild all my sets over the coming months. I know there are places out there with inventory lists already, but having it all in one place is great! :)

Some pics of 8258 like the ones you did for this would be great though, would you treat us to some? :)

I've never had a Technic tractor before so I am quite interested in this. However, I saw it on the Toys R Us (UK) website last week and it was listed as £89.99! Seems very expensive considering the 8275 Bulldozer is £10 more and you get SO much more with it.

Just a small update. I have ordered the replacement parts and they should be with me within the next few days, so I'll be able to start building it back up again then.

Does anyone know what happened to 8063 (the tractor with trailer)? Maybe it's been put back until 2010?

Thanks!, I thought that would be the case. It's great that there are lots of UK sellers too. I am really looking forward to putting this back together again, its going to be ace :)

Do they share the same model code as the old ones? The new ones on Bricklink are coded 4459 The old ones listed on here: http://www.peeron.com/inv/sets/8865-1 say the same code but are the old type.

Mine are like this, are these the old ones? Could you put up a link to the new ones? I am not sure what they look like! Cheers :)

The cleaning went well, the pieces all look superb now! Some of the grey "chassis" pieces needed a bit more attention to get rid of the hardcore dust on them, but everything is shiny now :) I have left the pieces to dry over night but I'd imagine they'll need a proper dry down as water will sit in the small holes etc. My black friction pins all have little slots on them which is good. I am going to replace ten of them, and also five of the grey half axel-half friction pins as they have teeth marks on them from when I was a child with no finger nails! Hopefully I'll be able to start the rebuild this week!

I am going to fill up a plastic box with warm water and simply soak the pieces in the water. I am then going to use a old toothbrush to gently scrub the bricks and parts until they are shiny and dust free. For the suspension parts I am just going to clean them with the brush, I don't really want to soak any metal or set parts like those units because water might get inside and cause damage. I tried cleaning one red Lego piece and it came up really nicely, so the car should look fantastic when it's finished. It's never been kept in direct sunlight so none of the panels have faded over time.