Lego: McLaren F1 Car & A Flying DeLorean

 

Several years ago we started developing a Christmas village made of Lego sets. We started with a train that circled the tree. It even has an engine allowing for movement! We then added several buildings, including a train and fire station, some stores, etc. At this point we have enough buildings to have an actual village. It's been a cool tradition and a neat way to get back into Lego building as an adult. Along the way I've periodically picked up sets for myself. The most recent one was the McLaren F1 car.

Most of the Christmas village sets we've built have been in the 1200-1800 piece range. This car was right in that neighborhood at 1434 pieces. While average in terms of number of pieces, it is not average in terms of physical size. This car is absolutely massive. It measures over 2 feet long (25.5 inches)! It is plenty big to place on a shelf for display and is easily the largest Lego set I've built in terms of actual size.

This car was also unique to me in that it is a Technic set. Instead of using traditional Lego bricks, the pieces on this car are held together by rods and pins that connect pieces with holes in them. This is the first Technic set I've built since I was a kid, when I had a dirt bike. Generally speaking, I'd prefer to build using the traditional bricks. Connecting the pieces with the Technic connectors can be a bit cumbersome. However, using this method allows for some options in terms of movement that you can't get with regular Lego bricks. This car, for instance, has front wheels that move when the steering wheel moves, pistons that move when the rear wheels move, and an active suspension hidden within the body of the car for the front and rear wheels. None of this would be available with traditional bricks. The Technic connectors also allow for curves and shapes, something else that wouldn't be available with traditional bricks, where you're mostly limited to 90 degree angles. The Technic connectors absolutely make sense for this set, despite being a bit of a pain.

The other set I built back in the summer of '22 was the DeLorean time machine from Back To The Future. This car uses traditional Lego bricks, and thus isn't quite as complex as the McLaren F1 car. With that being said, it has a complex suspension set that allows it to switch between the land-based and flying versions of the car from the various movies. It looks great, and comes with a Lego Doc Brown and Marty, and of course the car has a flux capacitor! If only the F1 car came with a Lego Lando.