allanp

On the good side, I'm so very glad they went with a regular combustion engine car as opposed to an electric as at least we'll get some mechanics! On the negative side however the Daytona looks to be a mid engined V12 with flappy paddles and rear wheel drive, so the Sian in red minus the front wheel drive, and still no chance of an 8880 style stick shift but with more speeds and cool linkage to the gearbox. I hope (but probably shouldn't expect) that they heard the critisms of the Sian (in terms of not being much of a technical improvement of the Chiron before it) and have in some way (maybe one of the few mentioned here numerous times) brought something other than a repackaged Sian.

I don't care how it looks. They could choose a reliant robin, if they made the gearbox realistic and introduced leaf springs I'd buy that over a Ferrari. But sure it has to look good on the box. But let's see, will the mechanics of this car make it the worthy successor to 8880 we've been waiting for? I remember 8880 also being called the Daytona VX4 supercar by Lego. Maybe it's just coincidence but in my own little world, this new car also being called a Daytona puts it in direct competition with the old Daytona supercar!

Helicopter sounds much more interesting now if these descriptions are accurate. New pieces for cyclic and collective surely means a new, more realistic swash plate right? I think the functioning cyclic and collective will be easy to see working when the blades are still. But even if it's difficult to see, to me it's like speed transmission gearboxes. It may be hard to see the effect but that's not the point. The point is that it accurately represents the real thing. Keeping hopes realistic but I'll be extremely happy if these descriptions are accurate.

Good review of the empty shell! I think that's the main issue with this set for me as I can't see me wanting it even if it was closer to the 2022 car. I know they have their price limitations but I wonder if this could have been done (still with the F1 style suspension) in a smaller, denser scale, leaving some budget for printed tyres and HOG steering. These large and mostly empty sets give me similar vibes to the large, empty, big in size but small on functions cat/helicopter/submarine thing from the late 90s! But then I can imagine some casual buyers thinking "oh wow, that's huge, and it only costs this much!". It sort of reemphasizes the "18+ is only for casuals, not us" idea. But this feels much more true for Technic, as other themes have had the Titanic and a few other great sets, that have some pull for both casuals and hard core fans alike. So far this hardcore Technic fan of over 30 years hasn't purchased a single 18+ Technic set. But I do have very high hopes for the 2nd half Technic sets that mostly won't be 18+. Whilst there is surely sound reasoning behind wanting to bring in more casuals, why not do so in a way that doesn't leave behind the hard core fans? Is this intentional from TLG when it comes to Technic? I of course can only speak for myself, but I do get the sense I'm not alone in my feelings.

@Technic Train Man your choice of cylinder will probably depend on a few things, like desired speed (shorter strokes are faster), desired torque (longer stroke for more torque), available air supply (large diameter cylinders if you have enough air) and what modifications, if any, you intend to do to the valves. The standard unmodified valves are quite stiff and so they probably won't work well with 1 stud diameter pneumatics.

Yeah it does seem odd that they did 12 and 20 tooth again. Why not 14t and 18t for the new gears? And hopefully those bright blue colours are only to match the colours of this set, and we get them in more tasteful colours in future, hopefully! At least now we can use chain drives on 12t and 20t gears now. But it is nice to see the 3 x 19 frames, rubber grip pieces and the transformation feature seems to work quite nicely.

Two of these, 4 connector pegs and a turntable gives you a fairly complete chassis for a crawler crane or a material handler . They will also be great for long truck chassis and so on. I'm looking forward to getting lots of these.

I think I'm going to design an F1 car for Chuck Norris, it's a pair of cowboy boots with winglets!

I was thinking of suggesting Buwizz/buggy motor type thing but he'd have to write his own code that works the gearbox and redesign for the completely different shape of motors. Might as well build a MOC at that point. The different batteries might be a good option. Or just use pneumatics

Sadly I don't know of any direct replacements, we've been wanting faster motors for years.

We're still on the outside of both F1 and Lego, there's likely some stuff, some discussions that we don't know. TLG did update the design of the Zetros, maybe the same is already planned for the McLaren? I mean, how else could Lego possibly release a fully accurate model of something which is still changing?

Well I just ordered 25 meters

I was very happy to see a couple of lengths of pneumatic hose was available. However the prices....their not just high, they have to be an error right? I can understand why they would want to slightly inflate the prices for individual pieces, especially pieces like the new ones unique to the BMW for example, as it might hurt the sales of the actual set if you can just buy the few parts you need cheaply. But it is great for TLG to sell these pieces as there are people (like me) that will likely never buy the BMW set, but I will be buying the parts at some point, so Lego will still make some money out of me. So there's a balance to be made there. However the prices of some parts (like pneumatic hoses and the 500+ HUB) is way more that just a little inflated, they're so expensive, they have to be an error I think! BTW, for parts like pneumatic hoses and string, I would really like to see those sold in much longer lengths, like 5 or 10 meters so we can cut them to whatever sizes we need.

I'll have you know that I'm a whiskey sippin manly man, no sissy girly nonsense for me, I want the sound of heavy electric guitars and V8 engines and violent movies with hot smokin chicks and Clint Eastwood! *Whispers* but 2 become 1 is my favourite of theirs!

I don't know why now that I think about it, but the last roller coaster felt very much like a wooden coaster to me. I mean, steel coasters have tubular support frames and often have triangular truss braced track, just like the last roller coaster. Wooden coasters don't have triangular truss braced track and are build from square sawn timber, not round logs. So I don't really know why I see the last coaster as being a wooden coaster, maybe it's the layout or the look of the support structure or the colour scheme, I don't know. Does anyone else view the last coaster as being a wooden coaster or is it just me?! Whatever the next fairground set is I am very much looking forward to it. If it is a coaster they could make it just as big, if not slightly bigger than the last coaster while keeping the cost down by having the much simpler frame of a more traditional looking steel coaster. Instead of stacking over 500 round bricks they could use fewer longer pieces. And if it does have a loop it would also make more sense to be a more traditional looking steel coaster. Blue track with black tubular A frame supports going in all different directions and angles would look awesome.

There's also the BMW front wheel mounting bracket. Indeed with the second half still to be seen this could be a great year for new parts if this first half is any indication.

I hope so as it would make them much stronger. If they are using these to form the chassis of the waste handler (you would need much else) and the crawler crane it would help explain their seemingly low piece counts. I am looking forward to getting these new "chassis rails"!

The halo on the F1 would have been a good place for the flex axle. Maybe Lego or McLaren didn't want to give the impression that the safety roll cage was soft? But I agree that flex axles can create nice flowing lines not possible with rigid pieces. The Sian is a good example of being fully panelled with few gaps but still using flex axles to augment the lines.

I think I see some cross braces, about every 7 studs?

Looks good enough with the new panels and I like the look of the new frames. But even without a gearbox it would have been nice to get a few more details, such as the 2 stage final drive gear reduction for a nice, high revving engine when you push it.... ....hand of God steering and printed tyres.

I always like to try and help problem solve peoples Lego issues but with this I have no idea. Have you tried turning one of the diffs round?! It does seem like a permissions thing if I had to guess. Maybe the download was corrupted? I don't know, when you uninstall an app from your phone, does that actually delete the previous downloaded copy of the app entirely? If not how do you delete it so you can redownload a fresh copy?

3: 10 5: 6 1: 4 7: 3 4: 2 8: 1 This was a hard challenge for sure.

Another idea might be to take inspiration from how real life ships are built and not build beams, but instead to build boxes. These boxes would fit together like the modular buildings to make something much bigger, but in your case they could also come apart for transport and storage. The boxes would have to be seriously over built with a good way to hold them together. The sides of the boxes would line up to create beam like lengths that run the length and breadth of the model where you need them most. The unseen sides of the box wouldn't have to be completely filled in but could be made rigid with triangular trusses. Each box could also have its own removable stand, so that you're only having to work out how to support each individual box instead of the entire model. This would make transportation and subsequent assembly of the model much easier. If they all have their own stand you're literally just placing them together like a modular town. If you then find that a box can be fully supported by the surrounding boxes you can then remove the stand for that box. It's difficult without complex simulation software, or building and testing for real, to fully comprehend how such a large model will hold up if built for real. But with boxes you only have to worry about each box. This could allow for a fully Lego build without the need for superglue or a steel frame, that could be transported and set up easily....if you have access to a semi truck. The disadvantage is that, if each box is about 1 square foot, you would have several hundred if them, each probably the full height if the model (like chunks in Minecraft). So you couldn't ever make it any smaller. At least with a steel frame, or with brick built beams, it could be dismantled into much smaller piles of detailed panels and brick built beams/steel cross sections. Another approach you could take is taking inspiration from cable stayed bridges or tower cranes, and extend the support legs up higher than the internal framework and use cables suspended from the top of the support legs to support the middle of long unsupported sections (especially the rear engine area that's probably gonna be over 6 feet of unsupported Lego). Parachord (or whatever it's called) may not be Lego, but it's much lighter, much cheaper, much stronger in tension than Lego and can be rolled up into a ball, it would save a lot of weight and Lego. But a foreseeable disadvantage here is that cranes and bridges are only strong when fully built and their upper faces orientated toward the sky. So you would have to take that into account while building and transporting.

It's true, I'd say 2015 second half (the blue crawler crane was also pretty good) and 2016 second half was a great back to back combo of sets. I remember the Porsche at the time got a few critisisms due to the gearbox and steering, and also probably because of our own high expectations of an 8880 killer, but those two years overall were the best of the studless era. Some might say the crane truck followed by 8043 was the best one two combo (unbrickme perhaps?) but it's not even close for me. The Arocs destroys the crane truck with its full suspension, dually wheels on the rear axle, more realistic steering linkage, addition of a tipper bed and of course the far more mechanically realistic and far more powerful 4 function pneumatic crane, as opposed to the very weak, mechanically unrealistic 2 function crane of the crane truck. As for 8043, I never got the love for it. I know many many people rate it highly and I certainly don't want to imply those people are "wrong" in any way, and I also never want to ruin anyone's enjoyment or delight for it. But for me, it didn't give us any new pieces and it had a very weak, much too fat and inauthentic slow moving digging arm filled with drive shafts and UJs that could barely lift its own weight (they did upgrade the LAs but it was still very slow and not that strong compared to the Volvo excavator), and you couldn't operate all functions simultaneously without switching the gearbox, which also just stalled the motor. Two functions through a turntable had also been done the year before. Maybe it's the complexity or the novelty of a fully RC excavator which hadn't been done before, it's not the worst set. I can see why people like it. Its really quite similar to 42070. With so much complexity from not that many pieces, it could rival 8480 in that respect and be a great building experience. It has a very high concentration of gears and....gears and....more gears, so there's always something mechanical to build throughout, it never feels like endless beam stacking or hours of static bodywork. I could certainly see fans of 8043 building it many times, as well as 42070.* And with full RC it can be lots of fun to play with if you're only moving the model itself. But the fun stops for me when it doesn't have the power to move more that just itself and as a mechanical model, it's lack of realism doesn't do it for me. *Just as a little side question, as you think of your own list of top ten sets everyone should own and build, how many times have you built them? While 42043 is my number one, the model I've built the most times (likely because I've owned it since I was 7 or 8 years old) is probably 8868, once every couple years. I still use the instructions but has anyone built a model so many times they don't really need the instructions anymore?!

Would this not be way stronger rotated 90 degrees, so it's an *l* (bloody font, trying to say *capital letter i beam* beam instead of a H beam?