Erik Leppen

Good to see a review of this set. Great review, that highlights all there is to say about it. I'm still on the fence about the set itself though. I think it's just not very "pretty". Now I get it, it's machinery, and it's Technic, but somehow it looks messy and a bit flimsy. The messiness is partly due to all the pneumatic tubing, but the rest of the set feels somehow lacking coherence in some way. I can't put SEND FOOD my finger on it though. It might also be the color scheme, where yellow and black are mixed too much, with no single discernable part being wholly black or wholly yellow. It's a mix everywhere. Add the orange and the color clash is complete. Also, the proportions seem a bit weird, with the small undercarriage and the large superstructure and cabin. The cabin raising feature is cool, but makes everything more flimsy and flexible. Don't get me wrong. It seems to be a really good set, and I was surprised by how the battery box fits in. But I think we just get spoiled with so many great sets lately that a "good set", focusing on functionality, just feels a bit incoherent.

I think set 42035

I'd really love to see this as a set.

Interesting find in the inventory: is this the first set with yellow and gray axles of the same length? 5 and 7 are both present in both colors. This is interesting, because it means axles are not fully color coded.

I don't count on it. I mean, the set itself is not cheap either. If the set were free, yes, then I can imagine 5x7 frames prices would drop. But I'm not so sure that having 50 frames in a 300 euro set will do much.

Yes, but that terminology is confusing. After all, 7^2 + 9^2 is not equal to 11^2, and 2 x 4/5/6 is not equal to 7/9/11. The end holes of an 11 beam are 10 studs apart (11th hole - 1st hole: 11 - 1 = 10). If you use Pythagoras, use the distances between the centers of the holes. The you can do the actual math. Then you get 3/4/5 satisfying 3^2 + 4^2 = 5^2, or 6/8/10, or 5/12/13, 8/15/17 or whichever other combinations you can use :). That you craete the 10 distance with an 11 beam or a 12 brick is good to know and often useful, but the Pythagoras theorem works on 10, not on 11 or 12 :) So, the ring has a diameter of 20 (centers of holes), and as the thickness is 1, it has an outer diameter (edge of plastic) of 21 studs (2 * 10 + 1, or, alternatively, 2 * 11 with 1 overlap).

Which means the distance between the centers of the holes on the edge, and the center of the circle, is 10 studs. That's the distance I was talking about :).

It's a nice surprise that the new curved gear racks have extra holes at whole-stud positions. Good design by lego to have them have a diameter of 10 studs, so they can add holes at (6; 8) and (8; 6) via Pythagoras.

Great... this car was on my to-build list, I guess I can take it off again... Anyhow, great model, I love how aggressive it looks. Great use of panels and flex axles to get the shape you need. Great job! :)

I'm pretty sure 42039 is much larger than that. Are you sure you're not confusing studs and cm?

If I read a topic about 42055, I expect discussion about the set. Not about its reviewer. Can we please stop speculating on that, and just talk about the set instead?

I really really like those smaller-scale models, Edwin. For me, it's really "less is more". Superb work :)

Maybe (in fact, it's what I hope) TLC guys are reading the forums and found Blakbird's solution for step 5 and want to apply that to the updated sets.

It is. 8448 has a 5+R, this is a mistake in the video/image.

The cause of the lockup is not the new axle joiner. It's the misalignment of the 2L beams linked to the changeover catches. Some system should have been in place to make them "click" to 90 degree angle multiples. So I think the real problem is in the unit behind the steering wheel; that part does the alignment of the axle that controls the shifters.

To be honest, the review seemed to be written such that non-AFOLs finding the review directly from Google can also find their answers here. I liked that!

Thanks for the review, Sariel. It's a great video showing perfectly all ins and outs of the set. Thanks! But I have a few questions about your ratings. I mean, after a several-minutes-long discussion in the video and a discussion here in your post, about why this is one-third too expensive and should have costed about $200 instead, you rightly put "overpriced" as the first con. Then why does it get three stars for value-for-money, i.e. "average". Why? What should TLC do to make you give two or one stars on value-for-money? Also in the comparison with other supercars you mistakenly put the 8448's gearbox as 4-gear. In fact it's 5 + R and, IMO, the most ingenious gearbox of that time. PS Also I'm kinda surprised by your 5 stars for building experience. It means you found it a true joy to stack beams and panels for more than 60% of the build time. ;) The set may disappoint many fans of true Technic, but your review is sublime. Thanks! And the biggest plus of the set is of course that its luggage compartment is the best fit for your hamster ever found in a Lego set :D

Thanks for the review, Jim. Great work, it's a joy to read, and the photo quality is unprecedented. I really wonder how you even did that. The set itself, too bad it turned out so mediocre. Especially the gearbox, which admittedly is quite a feat of engineering, but that it doesn't work properly is a mistake. One thing I don't understand about this set, is, if the book is supposed to be "coffee table", why did they even include the instructions in the same book? Nobody reads the building instructions at the coffee table, so 93% of the book is of no use there. Why didn't they just include two books. A normal instruction book, and a nice, but thinner and therefore much lighter, better-to-handle and less-likely-to-slip-out-of-your-hands-and-damage, hard-cover book covering the extra info. This was the first review I read. Now going to check out Anio's story and the videos :D

I'm curious whether there are any other tires that would fit the Porsche's wheels, and whether there are any other wheels that would fit the Porsche's tires.

Thanks! But do you have those in larger resolution? Right now we can't read the part counts... But is that yellow axle an axle 11? It sure looks like one. After al, there're three lengths of gray axles (probably 3, 7, 9) and two lengths of yellow axles (probably 5, 11).

Wow, this looks really great! I especially like the triangular build of the frame. Also all the detail adds to the realism a lot, well done! I also really like the color scheme and the mix of studded and studless building. Everything looks very brutal, I like it! (I don't know the real bike, nor do I know much about motorbikes in general)

In what way is this reusable? Do you use such things for sorting parts when MOCing? That would be a lot of wasted space with those transparent plastic trays with single-piece recesses. It can really only be used for repacking that same set, and even then, all the pieces from that same set could be packed in a much smaller box... Now I agree that there's nothing special about the Porsche packaging, but I haven't yet encountered any single box in my 20+ years of buying Lego sets that I personally considered keep-worthy. Not even the Lego Games or the Architecture sets. A box is packaging, and I don't need TLC's packaging as I have a much more economic storage system myself. So yeah... for me, the ultimate packaging just means more waste. The environment will be thrilled... At least it's paper and not plastic as it was with sets like 8868.

Anybody noticed the Claas contains the new 3 x 6 x 3 panel in black? It's on the front hood, just below the silver 1 x 3 tooth piece, and stickered with the Claas logo.

Well, I understand that, but one good thing about 8448 was that when you were done with the whole chassis, fitting on the bodywork didn't take so much time anymore. A few red pieces here and there, and you're done (I'm exaggerating a bit, but you get the point). Also, because the bodywork itself had the magnificent gull wing doors and their accompanyinig (simple but clever) mechanism, and because the chassis was studded, it didn't feel to me like you were just stacking more beams. There was a change of pace that felt fresh. That was one thing I liked about the "half-studless" sets of around 1990-2000. This made 8448 feel like a real Technic set. Focus was on the chassis and the functions. With this Porsche, it looks like when you're done with all the functions it has, you're only at 35% of the build. And I haven't had that feeling when going through the instructions of the great MOC cars by various builders. (That may be because I have a slight preference for 1:10 cars above 1:8 ones.) Now it may be inherent to a car model (rather than a machinery model), but to me it makes the set less appealing, because there's less "Technic" to enjoy. Focus seems to be on the looks (which is perfectly udnerstandable for a licenced set, but the Unimog was also licenced and that's a really great and very functional Technic set). I'm just afraid that the build will get tedious if it doesn't contain moving parts. Now this may be the same with 42039 (one of the few recent sets I own, and one I quite enjoyed building), but that one only had half as many parts and costed less than half as much.

I watched the AutoBild video, and I must say I'm a bit underwhelmed by the whole thing. The problem I have ith the set as a whole is, that after box 1 has been finished, all the rest (box 2, 3 and 4) is just liftarms and panels. So that's 500 steps of clicking beams together. For a 2700-piece set, it offers little functionality. Yeah, it has a cool gearbox. For the rest, it offers the same as 8865... The least they could have added, were damped-spring-loaded doors, a foldable roof, some mechanism to move the rear spoiler from the dashboard. I just feel the set's "technicity" doesn't really justify 2700 parts, and if everything were about the looks, they could better have built a Creator Expert car with Technic inner workings. Better get 42009, which has a lot more going on for the same piece count, and a lot cheaper. Or if you're into cars, get 42039 or 8070, and mod away :D