Tag Archives: Snow Groomer

LEGO Technic H1 2023 | Set Previews

This week marks the start of a brand a new year, and thus, as is customary, our sneaky Elves have unearthed all the brand new for 2023 LEGO Technic sets! So, following our reveal of the awesome looking 42154 Ford GT earlier in the week, here is every new addition to the LEGO Technic line-up due to reach stores in the first half of 2023…

42147 Dump Truck

Kicking off the new 2023 Technic range is this, the 42147 Dump Truck. Consisting of 177 pieces and aimed at ages 7+, 42147 looks like a great way to introduce Technic to younger builders, with working ‘HOG’ steering, a tipping bucket, and a good level of visual detail that reasonably approximates any number of generic compact trucks common across Asia in particular. 42147 costs around £9, can also be built as a rather decent looking excavator, and is available to buy now.

42148 Snow Groomer

Alternatively, with the same target age and just one difference in the piece count, your £9 for a Technic starter set could be spent on this; the 42148 Snow Groomer. 42148 also looks pretty good to us, and includes mechanical levers to operate the front blade and the rear smoothing, um… thingy. Like 42147 above, an alternative model can also be constructed (in this case the worst-looking snowmobile we’ve ever seen) and is available to buy now.

42149 Monster Jam Dragon & 42150 Monster Jam Monster Mutt

It wouldn’t be a New Year Set Preview without a pair of pull-backs. Fortunately after some dismal efforts a few years ago, LEGO seem to have struck gold with the officially-licensed ‘Monster Jam’ series, which are perfect for pull-back tomfoolery. 2023 sees another two real-world monster trucks from the American arena spectacular immortalised in brick-form, one of which is giant dog. There’s a green dragon or something too, but if you don’t want the giant dog there’s something wrong with you. Each set costs around £18, and both are available to buy now. Buy the dog.

42151 Bugatti Bolide

Continuing LEGO’s partnership with Bugatti, which has produced such sets as the huge Technic 42083 Bugatti Chiron, comes the 905-piece 42151 Bugatti Bolide. Nope, we hadn’t heard of it either. Apparently the Bolide is a $4million track-only hypercar limited to just 40 units, due for delivery some time in 2024. Unless you buy this one of course, which is available now for £45. That price still seems rather a lot for a set that has only working steering and a miniature V16 piston engine for its technical features, but hey – it’s got lots of stickers, some new panels, and lightsabers for rear lights.

42152 Firefighter Aircraft

This is more like it. Looking a bit like a Canadair CL-215 water bomber (but distinct enough not to require licensing…), 42152 brings some decent technical functions to the Technic line-up in aircraft form. And it can dump blue bricks from its hold.

Retractible landing gear, a working tail rudder, propellors that spin when the model is pushed along the floor (with its landing gear retracted), and a lever to dump the ‘water’ all feature, as do a few new pieces not seen before – including some curved corner sloped panels that’ll you’ll soon be able to find listed on Bricklink at an enormous cost. Aimed at ages 10+, 42152 is a welcome addition to the Technic hangar and will reach stores later this quarter.

42153 NASCAR Next-Gen Chevrolet Camaro

It’s time for some double branding with this; the 42153 NASCAR Next-Gen Chevrolet Camaro. Looking rather good (albeit in a very be-stickered way), the new 42153 set brings next-generation NASCAR to the LEGO Technic line-up. And by ‘next-generation’ we mean, ‘exactly the same as NASCAR has always been’. Cue angry comments from NASCAR fans.

Costing the same £45 as the 42151 Bugatti-we’d-never-heard-of above, but with some 230 fewer pieces, 42153 looks to be even poorer value, featuring only a working miniature V8 engine and ‘HOG’ steering. It does look nice though, and will reach stores in March 2023.

42155 The Batman – Batcycle

2023’s final new addition is this, the 42155 The Batman – Batcycle, which we should write in all-caps but can’t bring ourselves to. We haven’t seen 2022’s ‘The Batman’ movie, having decided that ‘The Dark Knight’ trilogy cannot be bettered, but apparently this features in it. It’s no Tumbler

But it is quite a nice looking motorcycle we have to admit, and includes an H4 engine, working suspension (via new shock absorbers in black), steering, and a phat set of tyres on new black rims. Expect 641 pieces, a 9+ target age, and £50 price-tag when 42155 lands on shelves in March 2023.

And there you have it, the complete line-up of new LEGO Technic sets for the first half of 2023. Which new Technic sets do you think are worth having? Us… we’ll take the Ford GT.

Green Slopes

Technic creations don’t have to be ginormous piece-hungry behemoths. Sometimes small and simple can be good, as proven here by Zsolt Nagy’s ‘Mini Snow Groomer’. Stick to the green slopes via Eurobricks or Flickr.

My Other Tracked Vehicle is an Excavator

We’re not sure that this title really works as a bumper sticker, but as this snow groomer by Dyens Creations doesn’t have a bumper it’s moot anyway. Dyen’s creation is indeed constructed from another tracked vehicle though, being built entirely from the parts found within the Technic 42121 Heavy Duty Excavator set. There’s an adjustable elevating blade, a rotating and extending crane, and an attachable ice grinding thingumy too. Building instructions are available and there’s more of Dyen’s snow groomer B-Model to see on Flickr, at Eurobricks, and via the video below.

YouTube Video

My Other Car’s a Mining Excavator

With over 4,000 pieces, bluetooth remote control, and seven electric motors, LEGO’s enormous (and enormously expensive) Technic 42100 Liebherr R 9800 Excavator set is the largest yet produced by the company. If you’re going to make a ‘B-Model’, using just the parts from one official LEGO set, it may as well be from the biggest!

Previous bloggee and Technic genius Grohl has done just that, with his amazing 42100 snow groomer B-Model. With seven motorised functions including remote control drive and skid-steering, an elevating front blade, lowering groomy-thigumy on the back, plus a crane and winch, Grohl’s 42100 alternate is as functions-packed as the set from which it’s been built.

Grohl promises instructions are on the way if you fancy turning your own Liebherr excavator into a snow groomer yourself, and until then you can check out the build on Flickr via the link above.

We’re also looking for you to build your own B-Models from existing LEGO sets (whether that be from the enormous 42100 Liebherr R 9800 or the smallest City set) in TLCB’s Lock-Down B-Model Competition. You could even win yourself some brilliant bluetooth remote control prizes to bring your Lego creations to life! Check out the competition details by clicking here and get B-Modelling!

Two Technic Tools

Lego Technic Pneumatics Snow Groomer

It’s a Technic double today, with two entries into the latest TC10 competition on Eurobricks. Both are pneumatically operated creations, as specified by the contest rules, and both show how brilliant LEGO’s little air cylinders can be.

First up (above) is this magnificent Technic snow groomer by Samuel Wharfe, with no less than six air-powered functions. The front blade raises, lowers, oscillates, and its edges can be adjusted to suit wider or narrower tracks, the rear blade can raise, lower and deploy smoothing rollers, and the whole vehicle can be raised above the snow via a pneumatic suspension system. There’s lots more to see at Eurobricks, and via Samuel’s Flickr photostream.

Today’s second pneumatic creation was suggested by a reader and comes from newcomer luukietechnic. Luukie’s heavy-lift telehandler, and it too features a wealth of functions. A Power Functions driven pneumatic pump provides air pressure for the boom elevation and self-levelling attachment, as well as a tilting cabin, whilst mechanics control the telehandler’s boom extension and four-wheel steering. You can see more of the build, including WIP photographs of the mechanics, at Eurobricks via the link above.

Lego Technic RC Telehandler

Well Groomed

Piste Basher 01

“Well Groomed” is an epithet hardly ever applied to The Lego Car Blog Elves. Bickering, fighting and speaking a strange guttural Elvish language often leaves our workforce looking as though they’ve been asking for directions in Wales.

However, Samuel Wharfe has produced this very nicely turned out Snow Groomer (Piste Basher if you’re British) using just the parts from the 42038 Arctic Truck. Samuel has produced a neat, good looking vehicle from possibly one of the strangest and ugliest Technic sets of all time. He has also included several of the most important working functions.

There’s a raising & lowering tail, to produce the smooth “corduroy” lines in the snow that early bird skiers enjoy. There’s a lifting & lowering bulldozer blade, which can also be swivelled in order to sculpt the features in the snowpark. Lastly, there’s a winch to enable the machine to wind itself up the steepest of slopes. In reality, the cables on these winches can be over 1.5km long and swing about a lot. Piste bashing is done at night (when nobody is supposed to be skiing) and the cables make moonlight skiing in modern resorts a high risk sport.

Click these links to see more photos and details on Flickr or to join in the discussion on Eurobricks.

Snow Cat

Lego Snow Groomer

BR 350 Snowcat

With snow falling outside the windows of The Lego Car Blog office, and the Elves mistakenly thinking it’s Christmas again, we thought it would be topical to post this, a Town style BR 350 Snowcat snow groomer by Alex B on MOCpages. Turn up your heating and head on over to Alex’s MOCpage to check out this an his other creations. Brrr…