Christmas Day, 2014: 15-year-old me was lucky enough to unwrap a Lego Technic 4x4 off-roader, courtesy of Father Christmas.
The days between Christmas and New Year seemed to melt into one as I beavered away at the dining room table, building the model from bags of bricks to a fully functioning car, of sorts.
Fast forward 10 years and, like many of you, no doubt, I still love the therapeutic assembly of a Lego set. I’d argue that Lego’s automotive sets were also among the, er, building blocks of my career writing about cars.
The pre-eminent Danish toy maker has excelled itself in recent years, releasing a range of ultra-technical sets as part of its Lego Technic Ultimate Car Concept series, by which the firm brings an iconic car to life.
So far it has rolled out plastic brick-based renditions of the Porsche 911 GT3, Bugatti Chiron, Lamborghini Sián and Ferrari SP3 Daytona – the last of which is still sitting on my parents’ dining room table waiting to be finished. Sorry, Mum.
The level of detail that goes into these exclusive sets is extraordinary, with such models considered so challenging that Lego sticks an ‘18-plus’ age guide on the side of the box.
So how does Lego and its team of engineers go about turning a supercar into an authentic Technic set? To find out, we spoke with Lego Technic designer Kasper René Hansen, the man behind the firm’s latest Ultimate Car Concept model: the Lego Technic McLaren P1, a 1:8-scale replica of the storied V8/hybrid hypercar.
“The collaboration started around two years ago,” explains Hansen. “After we decided to go with the P1, I began development in December 2022 and finished it around a year after that.
“I was able to do a lot of research using CAD (computer-aided design) files, sketches and technical information of the car, given to me by McLaren. We made a 1:8-scale model of the car to understand its proportions and then started on the prototypes, of which I built just shy of 20.”
Add your comment