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Overall I'm happy with the Mack, considering its only a first half set. It's not mechanically authentic (note the LAs and engine), but again, this is a first half set made to a smaller scale and smaller price so it's understandable, and it looks gorgeous with a near perfect choice of colours. Would I have preferred a model of something smaller than a Mack 18 wheeler made to a larger scale so that it could be made machanically more realistic? Yes, but given the subject matter, I think the designer did a fantastic job of realising a massive American style 18 wheeler at this price point. It really does look very good! I'm also very happy to see they are releasing the 5x7 frames in a colour other than lbg. Big thumbs up for that one! Hopefully those frames will now be made in the same colour as whatever chassis or structure they are part of, they are so big there's no reason to colour code them. It's not like they are hard to find, so well done TLG for the Mack and for recoloured 5x7 frames. The rest isn't for me but it's not supposed to be. First half is squarely for kids, though there are some gems, like the BMW motorbike. I'll be getting the Mack for sure to tide me over before news of the second half! For now it's nice to see with the Mack a continuation of a trend towards sets with a more universal appeal as opposed to whatever that detour was the latter half of 2017!

Oh, it's entirely a childrens toy. The usual debate though usually revolves around the question of should it also be made to appeal to adults aswell. The usual analogy I use is to compare movies made for children, such as "UP" made by Pixar and "spy kids 3D" made by whoever. These are both entirely childrens movies, both have MPAA ratings of PG, but there is a real life authenticity to the emotional mechanics of the story behind the Pixar movie "UP" which makes it enjoyable to adults as well as children, thereby making it an overall better product which is also way more successful and will always be remembered as a great movie. Combine that with the knowledge that we know Lego can release awesome sets like the Arocs which appeals to both kids and adults and it makes you wonder why they would release another truck which basically removes the appeal it is to many adults. Like, why would you do that?

Saw 42070 at Smyths (in the UK) reduced to £149.99, it's still not for me but I thought someone here might like it for that price. Strangely, In both Smyths and Argos the Arocs has actually gone up in price to £179.99! Still worth it!

Those set descriptions sound good, the first responder has 4 wheel drive, suspension and steering with working steering wheel? That would make it better than the Dakota wrecker from 1994, which was a great set. But that list looks like pure speculation rather than news. As for those looking for new parts, the more interesting new parts for any given year USUALLY first appear in the second half, but not always.

According to Argos and Smyth's websites, the older arocs in "boring" white and gray is still outselling the new PF tow truck in "dazzling" baby blue! Go to Smyth's website and order sets by popularity, arocs is ahead of tow truck, and when I went to the Argos website it showed that 7 arocs sets were ordered recently, while the tow truck had no orders in last 48 hours. Things for TLG to consider me thinks: Colours do not mean a thing if the set itself is poor. BABY blue in whatever variant it's produced (any and all shades of light blue) is a crap colour that does not appeal to teenage boys looking for something "cool". Stick to regular or dark blue. If you must have a third shade of blue try metallic somewhere between regular and dark blue in small quantities, like the mudguards of an Ariel atom for example. Poor sets are like a Thomas the tank engine TV show that only appeals to kids. The colours are obnoxious and distracting, themes and ideas are overly simplified so that kids can understand, but it's inauthentic, its only reason to be is to distract the kids with nothing worthwhile while a parent does the dishes. Good sets are like Pixar movies, suitable for kids and also in many ways educational to kids whilst also being understandable and not afraid to present children with often quite complex and emotional themes and more mature and tasteful colour pallets. It's true that toys can't talk and trucks aren't made if Lego, but there's an undeniable authenticity to the emotional drive behind a Pixar movie and so they are also very much enjoyed by adults as well.

The wheels on the rally car look too small to be the class ones. Ide say it's the same wheel that fits in the tumbler front wheels perhaps.

Absolutely appalling

So, I guess no one has tried them yet? I hear the lipos are very good and they maintain a 1.5 volt output during their life span before recharging, which is better than any alkaline or 1.2 volt rechargable. They are also much lighter. I've been looking at the kentli batteries, they look like good rechargable lipos. But they are expensive so I haven't tried them yet.

Excellent review, very much appreciate the pics with wheels to see how it would look with them I'm still undecided though. The good: I like the realistic live axle suspension and ackermann steering geometry, and I like that it actually has working 4WD, and the door mechanism is nice too. The bad: The rest of the many functions, like opening doors in general and the shovel in the back, the roof going up and down (basically another door, but in the roof), the slide out draw and so on, those are what I consider little secondary kinda auxiliary detail functions, they are nice touches, like the pop up headlights on 8880, but they are not main functions like suspension, steering and 4WD, which is this sets only main functions. For well over 2000 pieces that really isn't that many main functions. Now, of course a set may only have very few, or maybe even only one main function and still be good IF that main function is something we haven't seen before (different steering modes in the Claas) or been able to accomplish in a nice, efficient way already with existing Technic elements (the digging wheel of the BWE), however, this is not the case here. And of course there's that purple colour, which despite Jims best efforts still puts me off. The conundrum: But what few main functions are present are done very well. As I have said the steering has good geometry and the live axle suspension is also realistic, the whole design looks like a finished, high quality build, and it's also good value for money. So I'm in no rush to get it but I can see me picking it up for full price.......eventually......maybe next year But WHY PURPLE!!!! I know they want their sets to be striking on the shelves, but a grinning monkey in a purple mankini would also be striking, that doesn't mean it would be desirable!

I think if I get 42069 the first thing is to make narrower axles so the wheels don't protrude out from the wheel arches.

Sweeeeeeeeeet!

That's awesome, but I meant that report thingy for which you needed our questions for the designers.

It's strange but many times a photo, even the top quality official photos, just can't do justice to how a set looks in real life. It happens many times that I build a set and despite seeing the picture on the box I am still surprised how good it looks in the flesh. Your pictures seem to capture the real life appeal. Btw, I know you're a busy man Jim, but any idea when the next report thingy is coming?

I think Jim is a magician! You've made 42069 look......good! Looking forward to seeing your pictures with wheels on.

Not being able to find something is one of my ideas of stress, repeating that a few thousand times just doesnt seem fun. So I'm all for the numbered bags especially if it means they can reduce the colour vomit. If you have to only look through bag one, as opposed to the whole set, that should reduce the need for colour vomit. And if you don't agree with that you can always just dump all the numbered bags out at once.

I would guess it's a cheaper and easier process to bag parts by type only without having to number them or consider when in the build process you will need them. I mean, with the value you get with 42070 you can't expect them to number the bags as well! Oh wait, for that price ide want the bags numbered by each step of the instructions, 1 to 400 or whatever, in the yellow trays of old! To be fair I do really like that they have kept the lift up flap at least for the Technic flagships. You really need that to show off all the functions of a flagship Technic set. I do miss it being on all sets though and being able to see all the parts through the clear plastic.

42043, 42069 is better than I thought it would be, but 42043 is king, it's much better and won't be round much longer.

Great review Jim the pictures are amazing!

Very true. The Porsche is beautiful and any improvements or differences I would have liked to see don't involve power functions.

Good review Sariel nice work As for the set, I like that the dog bones come in a colour other than grey, red is a useful colour to have them in. Apart from that, can't see anything else to like. The functions do work well it seems if you only want to drive this supposedly off road all terrain truck on a perfectly flat floor, but the mechanics behind them are entirely unrealistic. The shape of the truck is good but the colour hasn't grown on me at all, it's still like a babies toy. And still I get the feeling that it was a rushed design, like tlg didn't allow much time for the design phase. This set overall feels like a Micheal Bay movie. Big and loud and striking looking on the box to attract younger fans, but it's pure fantasy without any hint of believability and nothing really new or of any substance to attract those who actually care about what they are paying for.

Yup and after about a million came now they won't take a single refugee, quite hilariously hypocritical if you ask me. But I think we've gone a tad off topic now.

very impressive progress, and no need to apologize for the pictures

Yup and it also looks to be coloured bright red.

Your modifications certainly helped to eliminate most of the friction, but compared to the real thing and due to only having one size of clutch gear, its still overly complicated and non intuative and unrealistic. Thats not your fault of course, its the current parts pallet available that forces it to be this way. And in the case of the 5+r posted above you have no choice but to transfer power through what should be redundant idlers unless you redesign it to make it even more needlessly complicated, or in the case of 8448 weaker, and in any case more unrealistic.

I really do dislike the amount of friction that exists in Legos gearboxes. They all suffer from it and I have had to redesign things to make them work freely, but it also made them weaker. Take the 5 speed + R design below for instance: It is very strong with all the gears being properly spaced to avoid teeth skipping (unlike 8448s 5+R gearbox), and it's fairly simple to build a surrounding frame/structure for it as all the axles fit into regular positions without the need for any 1/2 stud offsets (again, unlike 8448s gearbox) and the gear ratios are also more evenly spaced that 8448s gearbox. But there is a major issue with it which makes it useless for any NON motorized model like 8448 and that is the internal friction. Even if the surrounding structure is build solidly and totally rigid, there is still way too much friction, so much so that in first gear only, and in one direction of rotation only, it completely locks up solid! Being restricted to only having 16t clutch gears means that I have come across the issue many times and have had to make compromises, like it seems TLG had to do with the Porsche and that sucks. Not to mention the fact that a gearbox that has only one size of clutch gear will always be totally unrealistic and completely non intuitive for kids to understand. So whilst I can admire and appreciate the fact that the set can be modded and fixed (it's more like papering over the cracks), you can never fix the core problem of having these completely unrealistic and problematic gearboxes. For comparison, a real Porsche gearbox: Notice the two parallel shafts with various gears is basically all the gearbox is, simple, easy, efficient, intuitive, reliable and better in every way. You'll also note the rotary cam shaft used to shift gears. No chance of having 2 gears engaged at once there. Yes, it would be expensive to develop the new parts needed to make this happen, but then the Porsche is an expensive set and Lego produces new molds for other sets all the time which never sold half as many as the Porsche, and as this is how all gearboxes are in real life vehicles (minus the sequential shifting part) i'm sure these parts would be used for the next 20 odd years improving future sets.