Tag Archives: Technic

LEGO Technic 42129 Mercedes-Benz Zetros Trial Truck | Set Preview

1 Reply

Things are about to get very big. And very expensive.

This is the brand new LEGO Technic 42129 Mercedes-Benz Zetros Trial Truck, it measures a hefty half a metre long, and it’s due to carry an equally huge price-tag when it goes on sale later this year ($300/£275).

However that enormous sum of money unlocks the most powerful motorised truck that LEGO have ever built, with three Large motors, one Medium motor, and bluetooth control via the LEGO Control+ App.

Those motors power all four wheels, the steering, and – for the first time ever – remotely locking differentials. All-wheel-suspension, a working gearbox, and a ‘detailed engine’ (which might just be a spinning fan) also feature, which compared to yesterday’s reveal isn’t all that much, but then, 42129 looks mega off-road.

LEGO have made some properly bold claims about climbing angles in their press release, and included in the set are some marker flags so that owners can test these via setting their own off-road courses at home.

A smorgasbord of amusingly generic racing stickers are included too (‘Oil’, ‘Intake’, ‘Rack’, and – our personal favourite – ‘Axle Beam’), although these actually look OK, and 42129 is blessed with the same enhanced level of detail as other recent Technic sets.

Aimed at ages 12+, the 2,110 piece LEGO Technic 42129 Mercedes-Benz Zetros Trial Truck looks like an excellent (if monumentally expensive) addition to the Technic line-up, and perhaps the most fun way to use the Control+ App yet…

LEGO Technic 42128 Heavy-Duty Tow Truck | Set Preview

4 Replies

The Lego Car Blog Elves have been busy! Fired over the LEGO Company HQ’s perimeter wall by way of the office catapult, it’s been just a day since we revealed the brand new LEGO Technic LEGO Technic 42126 Ford F-150 Raptor set. Hot the heels of that Elf comes another, and it’s brought back quite a model; this is the brand new for 2021 LEGO Technic 42128 Heavy-Duty Tow Truck.

With over 2,000 pieces 42128 pays homage to various American heavy-duty trucks, sits at the top of the new-for-2021 Technic line-up*, and – most excitingly – it features pneumatics!

More interestingly, unlike some other recent pneumatic sets, 42128 is unmotorised, with its pair of pneumatic cylinders fed compressed air via a hand pump like the good ol’ days. These lift and extend the crane boom, whilst the pair of winches, crane rotation, rear lift, and stabiliser legs are all mechanically operated by hand. Which is awesome.

Not only that, there’s a miniature working inline-6 engine upfront, working steering, and a functioning lift on the first of the truck’s three axles.

It all looks wonderfully mechanical, and that’s despite 42128 continuing LEGO’s trend of adding ever more visual realism to Technic sets, which are now at almost Model Team levels of detail. The 42128 Heavy-Duty Tow Truck certainly contains heaps of exterior detailing, including fuel tanks, exhaust stacks, air filters, and a brick-built grille.

Less positive are the stickers though, which are surely some of the worst that LEGO has ever stuck on a Technic model. Still, you can always leave those off.

The new Technic 42128 Heavy-Duty Tow Truck set will reach stores in August of 2021 aimed at ages 11+, and is expected to cost around $150/£140 when it does so. Excited? We sure are. Although we’ll probably leave those decals unstuck.

*Or is it?… Tune in tomorrow for something even larger.

LEGO Technic 42126 Ford F-150 Raptor | Set Preview

3 Replies

The Ford F-150 Raptor is the Mustang of off-roaders. By which we mean it’s a vehicle usually seen doing stuff like this. Or this. Or this. But enough gratuitous footage of Raptor driver incompetence, because now you can crash your very own Ford F-150 Raptor at home!

Yup, LEGO have added the be-stickered off-road ready version of America’s best-selling vehicle to the Technic line-up, and it looks absolutely fantastic!

Constructed from 1,379 pieces (many of which are in Porsche 911 GT3 RS orange), the new LEGO Technic 42126 Ford F-150 Raptor set faithfully recreates the crashiest of pick-ups in Technic form, with working suspension, a V6 engine, all-wheel drive, opening doors and hood, and functioning steering.

Continuing the trend for increased visual realism of Technic sets, 42126 includes a few System parts, a wealth of stickers (much like the full-size Raptor), delightfully knobbly tyres, and even the ‘HOG’ steering device is removable, so as not to affect the set’s aesthetics when it’s parked on a shelf.

Not that it should be parked on a shelf. It is a Raptor after all…

The new LEGO Technic 42126 Ford F-150 Raptor set is expected to cost around $100 when it reaches stores later this year, and is – for reasons of which we’re little unclear – aimed at ages 18+. Perhaps it’s because LEGO know it’s going to spend much of its time doing things like this…

Technic 42114 6×6 Volvo Articulated Hauler | Review

9 Replies

It’s review time here at The Lego Car Blog, as we add another LEGO set to the by now pretty huge Review Library! This set review comes from one of our readers, who dons the Reviewing Anorak (which may or may not be a real thing) and takes on the enormous remote controlled LEGO Technic 42114 6×6 Volvo Articulated Hauler. Wojtek Hildebrandt is the reader in question, and so good is his review that TLCB Team are frankly a little worried for their jobs. That’s not true of course, as they don’t get paid… Anyway, over to Wojtek!

…

LEGO has a long-standing tradition of recreating dominantly yellow construction equipment in Technic sets. This is rather a grateful theme for construction blocks after all – simple shapes and function over form. Recently these have mostly been Volvo licensed vehicles; wheel loaders, excavators, and haulers with different degrees of motorisation – from full (as in 42030 loader) via optional (to power 42053 excavator pneumatics) to none (for endless knob spinning fun with 42081 concept loader). The time has come for a fully remote-controlled articulated hauler – a Volvo A60H with the Control+ app.

Beauty is in the eye of the behauler.
First, let’s have a look from the outside. This is a looker, at least for a construction machine. We can see it already on the box cover, where the hauler is put in some blurred quarry environment. It fits well, but then the same image is sometimes used without the background, which makes the chassis twist look weird, like doing some unlikely stunt.

Speaking of weird: LEGO’s previous attempt to minify a Volvo hauler – the B model for 42030 – had it all wrong (even with the number of wheels), but if you’re generous enough, you can say it was a tribute to vintage, skeletal Technic sets. If so, then 42114 is more from a bloodline of Model Team or recent adult Creator sets, even if it uses mostly Technic parts. Of course, the pins and holes are there and some proportions and colors are off, but both overall shape and some neat details are very true.

Let’s start from the business end; the dump body – we’ll call it the body from now on – has a complex shape with clever usage of tapered panels (which are flat on both sides, unlike straight panels) and very few empty spaces. I guess you couldn’t haul sand in it, but it should be perfect for some beans or potatoes. Or lemons to match the colour. The driver’s cab is correctly centred and surrounded by a proper, orange safety railing as well as accurate big mirrors. There is a slightly surprising mudguard serving as a dashboard, my favorite seat made of a single curved panel 3x5x3 (which seems to fit the same purpose regardless of model scale), and a warning beacon on the roof that twists slightly to turn the Control+ hub on or off.

Further to the front, we have one of the best-looking parts – a nicely sculpted bonnet. The impression is improved by a few stickers, but even without them all the angles and curves feel just right, even if they’re not entirely true to the original, e.g. with headlights. One curved panel covers the limits of the other and everything works together nicely. It’s wobbly during construction but becomes solid enough eventually. The front bumper on the other hand is no match for a durable look of the original, but to me, it doesn’t harm the overall impression too much.

Green energy
Now we get to the hardware. Both real-life and miniature versions of the Volvo hauler are powered by six cylinders. In full scale, they are six, famously green inline cylinders of an internal combustion engine. For the set, they are 6 AA/R6 batteries. Which one is “greener” energy depends probably on whether your batteries are rechargeable and if so – how you recharge them. Continue reading →

Mechanical ‘Mog

2 Replies

LEGO’s official Technic 8110 Mercedes-Benz Unimog U400 set earned a stellar 9/10 rating here at The Lego Car Blog when it was reviewed way back in 2011. Fantastic functional realism, excellent use of motorisation, and an on-board pneumatic compressor make 8110 one of the finest sets we’ve ever reviewed. However, whilst expensive then, 8110 is ludicrously pricey now.

Cue previous bloggee thirdwigg, who has created his own superbly engineered Technic Unimog U400, only all-mechanical.

The loss of Power Functions components hasn’t reduced the functional realism though, with thirdwigg’s U400 equipped with all-wheel suspension, four-wheel-drive connected to an inline-4 engine under a tipping cab, working steering, a front and rear PTO, three-way tipping bed, and a pneumatic take-off too.

It’s a brilliantly simplified (but in no way simple) take on the original 8110 set, and one that you can build for yourself, as thirdwigg has released instructions for his model alongside the excellent imagery you see here.

If you missed out on the official LEGO Technic 8110 Mercedes-Benz Unimog U400 set a decade ago, and baulk at the price of them today, check out thirdwigg’s wonderfully engineered 4/5ths version at his ‘U400’ album via the link above, plus you can watch all of the model’s features in action via the video below.

YouTube Video

Super Sub

1 Reply

It’s the UEFA European Championship, when Europe’s best football teams (plus sometimes Israel for some reason) battle it out to win all the Coca Cola they can drink.

Cue the Subaru Impreza STI, a car that’s not even from the same continent, and the most tenuous title vaguely linked to a current event that we’ve managed yet. Well, it was either that or a pun linking ‘STI’ and your Mom, but we’re trying to phase out the ‘Your Mom’ jokes.

Anyway, not at all to do with the delayed European championship, nor your Mom’s list of venereal diseases, is this; Lachlan Cameron (aka loxlego)‘s magnificent fully remote controlled Subaru Impreza STI.

Powered by a third party BuWizz bluetooth battery, Lachlan’s Subaru features all-wheel-drive, working steering (that’s also linked to the steering wheel), all-wheel-suspension with electronic ride height adjustment, LED lights, and some properly realistic bodywork .

Lachlan has even created a wrapped version, like every talentless car YouTuber, turning his super Subaru into a Ken Block ‘[Hoonicorn]’ homage that looks, well… utterly brilliant (talentless YouTubers take note).

Top notch photography adds to the impression and there’s loads more to see at Lachlan’s ‘Subaru’ album on Flickr. Click the link above to take a look, whilst we get ready to watch TLCB’s home nation in action against the Czech Republic tonight. We may even have a few super subs on the bench to help us top the group…

Call the Emergency Serv… Oh

2 Replies

It’d been a peaceful week here at TLCB Towers. Sure there was an Elf fight to break up after one of them found an almost empty (but evidently still delicious) glue stick in the bin, but otherwise creations have been found, meal tokens have been awarded, and no-one has been squashed. Until today.

This is a GAZ 66 fire truck, an all-wheel-drive Soviet water tank on wheels that is still used in Russia today. Well, this one isn’t, being rather smaller, but it’s just as impressive as the real thing.

Built by Danifill of Eurobricks, this fully RC Technic recreation of the Soviet-era fire truck proved to be a throughly capably Elf-smushing machine.

Lured in by the functioning flashing blue lights and the fact that, well – it’s a fire engine, the Elf at the controls drew in a crowd of Elven admirers, before promptly squashing them thanks to the GAZ’s genuinely surprising turn of speed.

An RC Buggy Motor, Servo steering, a BuWizz bluetooth battery, live-axle suspension, and four-wheel-drive deliver equip Danifill’s creation with impressive Elf-smushing performance, whilst a tilting cab, V8 engine, opening and locking doors, and detailed fire apparatus add nothing to that, but do look most excellent.

There’s lots more of Danifill’s remote control Technic GAZ 66 Fire Truck to see at the Eurobricks discussion forum, including further imagery and a link to a video of the model in action, plus you can see one of the builder’s earlier fire engines to feature here by clicking this bonus link.

Take a look via the links above whilst we apply some Elven first aid…

My Other Car’s a Lamborghini

Leave a reply

No really, it is.

This searingly green Technic Ford F150 is the work of TLCB Master MOCer Nico71, and it’s constructed only from the parts found within the LEGO 42115 Lamborghini Sian FKP 37 set.

Nico’s 42115 B-Model features four-wheel-drive, a V8 engine, an 8-speed sequential gearbox, adjustable suspension, and working steering, and best of all there are building instructions available so you can convert your own Lamborghini Sian set into a Ford F150 yourself.

There’s more to see at Nico71’s Brickshelf page by clicking here, you can watch a video of the alternate in action here, and you can check out how LEGO recently supersized the Lamborghini Sian set on which this creation is derived by clicking here.

My Other Truck’s a McLaren

Leave a reply

We like a good B-Model here at The Lego Car Blog. In fact we ran a whole competition around alternates during the first Coronavirus lock-down last year.

Cue previous bloggee LoMaC, who has repurposed the Technic 42123 McLaren Senna GTR set into something rather more… upright.

Loosely based on Volvo’s ‘Iron Knight’ racing truck, LoMaC’s 42123 alternate turns the sleek Senna into a racing vehicle about as far from it as it’s possible to get, with a working V8 engine, functional steering, and opening doors included.

Building instructions are available and you can find out more at the Eurobricks forum here.

Life-Size LEGO Lamborghini

Leave a reply

The LEGO Technic 42115 Lamborghini Sián FKP 37 set brought a hypercar we’d never heard of to the Technic line-up, complete with a mid-mounted V12, 8-speed sequential gearbox, and nearly 3,700 pieces, many of which were varying shades of bright lime green.

Following their 1:1 scale McLaren Senna, Bugatti Chiron, and Fiat 500, LEGO have life-sized their flagship 42115 Technic set, creating this astonishing 400,000 piece full-size replica of Lamborghini’s wild hybrid hypercar.

Sitting on genuine Lamborghini Sián wheels, this life-size LEGO replica took a team of fifteen model makers over 8,500 hours to design and build, which – besides just twenty bespoke pieces – uses only genuine LEGO parts.

These have been spray-painted (a life-size LEGO first), by Lamborghini’s own painter, perhaps to give it a uniform colour unlike the 42115 set…

The result is a spectacular 2.2 ton homage to Lamborghini’s limited-run hypercar, joining an already impressive line-up of life-size LEGO vehicles. You can check out all of the 1:1 scale LEGO models to appear here at The Lego Car Blog via the link above, and you can jump to the official 3,700-piece 42115 Technic Lamborghini Sián set available to buy in stores (on sale at the time of writing) by clicking here.

My Other Piece of Earthmoving Equipment is Also a Volvo

Leave a reply

Not our snappiest title. Still, we don’t mind, because this 42114 B-Model from Marek Markiewicz (aka M_Longer) is absolutely marvellous.

Built only from the parts found within the official LEGO Technic 42114 Volvo Articulated Hauler set, and utilising its Control+ app profile, Marek’s wheel dozer is packed with motorised functionality and looks so good it doesn’t appear like an alternate at all.

Three motors provide all-wheel-drive, articulated steering, and blade elevation, whilst a gearbox  not only provides three forward or reverse speeds, it also connects power to the rotating cooling fans and working six-cylinder piston engine when the model is either driving or positioning the blade.

It’s a superb model, and one you can build for yourself as Marek has produced instructions for his Volvo Wheel Dozer 42114 alternate too.

Full details including that link to building instructions can be found at the Eurobricks forum here, you can watch this brilliant B-Model in action via the excellent video below, plus you can find an alternate alternate for the 42114 Volvo Hauler set via a similarly titled past post by clicking these words.

YouTube Video

My Other Truck’s a Jeep

Leave a reply

The Jeep Wrangler is one of the best off-roaders available, but what if even it isn’t quite off-roady enough? There aren’t many vehicles more capable than a Wrangler in the dirt, but one of them is the Mercedes-Benz Unimog, which will drive right over a stranded Wrangler and carry on without noticing.

Cue mpj of Brickshelf, who has turned LEGO’s 42122 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon set into a mighty Unimog tow-truck, complete with a working winch and functioning steering. Further images and instructions are available and there’s more to see of mpj’s 42122 alternate via the link above.

Dodge, Duck, Dip, Dive and Dodge

Leave a reply

The Five ‘D’s of Dodgeball make for an appropriate title today, as this wonderful ’20s Dodge Coupe is built only from the parts found within the official LEGO Technic 42111 Dom’s Dodge Charger set.

Eurobricks’ gyenesvi has included suspension front and rear, working steering, a 6-cylinder engine, plus opening doors, hood and trunk, but hasn’t stopped there.

The real ’20s Dodge Coupe was also available as a soft top, which gyenesvi has duly created via the model’s removable roof and modular A and B-pillars, allowing for a swift conversion to the roadster variant.

We guess that makes it Dodge, Duck, Dodge, Dive and Dodge.

And that’s not all. The 42111 donor set includes some rather tasty ‘modifications’ that Dom’s Dodge Charger sported in the Fast & Furious movies, including a supercharger and nitrous kit. Said modifications can also be applied to gyenesvi’s 42111 alternate, creating an authentic looking Dodge hot rod.

Which makes it Dodge, Duck, Dodge, Dodge and Dodge.

Further details of all versions of gyenesvi’s Dodge are available at the Eurobricks forum, where a link to building instructions can also be found. Dive over via the link above!

A Giant Red Digger

3 Replies

Things TLCB Elves like; Things with Guns. Things with Racing Stripes. Megan Fox (although she’s equipped with neither). Giant Red Diggers. Today is therefore a good day.

This Giant Red Digger is the work of previous bloggee Levihathan, and it’s a Poclain HC 300 – or rather a 2,000 piece remote controlled fully working replica of a Poclain HC 300.

There are no less than six motors, two bluetooth hubs, dual differential tracked drive, a V12 piston engine, and some suspiciously metallic looking linear actuators.

An extensive gallery of imagery is available to view, showing the construction, inner mechanics, and the amazing reach of the excavating arm. Head to Levihathan’s ‘Poclain HC 300’ album  via the link above for more Giant Red Digger goodness.

Bug(gy) Squash

2 Replies

The Lego Car Blog Elves, as regular readers of this crumbling ruin of the internet will know, are not a peaceful bunch.

If they find a vehicle that is capable of running over their colleagues, they will do it. It’s as certain as Russian athletic doping, Fox News bias, or your Mom putting out.

And so, with absolute inevitability, this (rather excellent) RC buggy was today used to squash dozens of our smelly little workers.

They didn’t stand much of chance in today’s mass smushing event, as this model by A_C of Eurobricks is one of the fastest, nimblest, and most agile remote control creations that we’ve ever seen.

At less than 400 parts LEGO’s enormously powerful Buggy Motor has an easy time of it, and – when hooked up to a third party BuWizz bluetooth battery delivering up to eight times the power of LEGO’s own – you can see why even the fastest Elf couldn’t escape it.

All-wheel-suspension and Servo steering also feature, and there’s more to see of A_C’s brilliant ‘RC Buggy’ at the Eurobricks forum, where a link to building instructions can also be found.

Check it out via the link above, and watch it in action in an empty tennis court below!

YouTube Video