Following the Elves’ successful spying at the end of 2013 we selected several ‘volunteers’ to get back into the office sling-shot to take the trip over the walls of the heavily guarded LEGO Group HQ. After several days, and with only a few Elves lost to the guard dogs, the first of the new Technic sets for the second half of 2014 is safely back at TLCB Towers. And here it is; no. 42029, the Customised Pick-Up Truck.

Aimed towards the top end of Technic’s range 42029 is pitched at the 10+ age group and features a whole host of mechanical features, and for once we have a large Technic set with no Power Function motors (although these can be retro-fitted).

Amongst the mechanical toys are; all-round suspension (which is actually too sophisticated for a truck like this), working steering, a piston engine, a front-mounted winch, and a tipping load-bed. It’s all nicely robust, playable, and will teach younger builders about the mechanics of a real vehicle in a way that Power Functions motors can’t really do.

Sadly though, to our eyes Technic 42029 fell out of the ugly tree quite hard. However, it does feature lots of lovely red panels (complete with roaring bear decals) that we’ll definitely see cropping up on MOCs before long, and the subject matter on which 42029 is based is often not aesthetically pleasing either, so it could even be called realistic. Either way, looks are subjective and it’s the mechanics of a set like this that are more important, something LEGO seems to be re-focussing on in the second half of 2014.

42029 will appear in stores around half-way through the year priced in the upper-middle of the range. This of course leaves space above it for a new flagship set to fill. A flagship that’s very big, and very yellow…