Lego

[VXR]

The new Formula 1 Speed Champions have reinvigorated the line for me. I don't think I bought any of the cars from last year, as I didn't think any of them looked right and what they did with the F40 was unforgivable.

However, I've bought 4 of the F1 cars so far, and my Dad, who hasn't really done Lego system since I was a boy, went out today and bought 6 at once. So, I think it's fair to assume this has been a massive success for Lego.

 

[TB]

That is impressive.

https://www.brothers-brick.com/2025/02/24/lego-godzilla-minus-one-is-double-plus-good/amp/

 

[Carpocalypse]

Finally got the london bus set, it took about 20 minutes to make it (I like to take my time), worst part was the side adverts, though.

 

[sesselpupser]

@Carpocalypse I can't stand doing stickers, they're a large part of why I like Creator 3-in-1 sets so much, but even then I have a couple with stickers but I just haven't applied them. I think they make sets age poorly because they trap dust at the edges and if you ever have to do stickers that line up across multiple pieces, long or symmetrical ones they'll never be quite right.

That said, I've read there's a trick where you put some water with a little dish soap where the sticker needs to go and you can slide it around to align it then it'll set as normal - haven't tried it myself. You can also wash stickers without damaging them, apparently.

Oh and translucent stickers, you have to get them exactly right first time! I hate them sooo much.

 

[Greycap]

I'll have to get at least one of the Speed Champions F1s, not sure yet which. The Ferrari looks tempting because, well, Ferrari, but something else could be an option too.

 

[sesselpupser]

So tonight I built something other than a City set for the first time in a long time - 7347 Highway Pickup.

First, the pickup that gets picked up by the bigger pickup:



It's old 6-wide Speed Champions-ish sized, satisfyingly free of ultra-specific pieces and as you can see has opening doors, bonnet and tailgate - not bad at all for its size!

The main event:







This is deeply, deeply cool. It's hard to choose a favourite detail but for me, oddly, it might be the door pockets. It has hand of god steering - not a huge fan of the upside-down Technic plate to add the button for the light bricks though - with a limited steering angle and to achieve it the tyres on front and rear are different, fronts are narrow (I guess to allow space for steering) deep-tread off-road tyres and the rears are wide road tyres, I think I would've preferred the same wheels front and rear except the rears doubled up as duallys, not sure there's enough space though. Still, minor flaws aside, I love this.

Edit: forgot to show off the engine:


Shame about the yellow bricks on the inside but what can you do?

 

[Spacegoat]

Had to go to the dentist yesterday. So I swung by Target on the way back to the car and picked up the Alpine Speed Champions F1 car, as a little treat and to go with the older McLaren and Aston set.

Question. Are all the new F1 Speed Champions this boxy around the rear? Honestly, I think I prefer the older designs because of that. Still nice though.

 

[sesselpupser]

I sniped a listing for a 60103 City Airport Air Show at a pretty good price, it came with an extra plane and I have to say, I was expecting the planes to be pretty meh but this one is actually great, all things considered:


The canopy is definitely a bummer but for something constructed with so few pieces it has a good amount of detail, a good overall shape and it's really big. Shame the stickers are so poorly applied and peeling but oh well, it was cheap. I can probably get replacements anyway. I'll have to replace a couple of the white pieces in this set though, the wings of the other one of these jets have bad tan lines.

 

[Awong124]

Had to go to the dentist yesterday. So I swung by Target on the way back to the car and picked up the Alpine Speed Champions F1 car, as a little treat and to go with the older McLaren and Aston set.

View attachment 1435878

Question. Are all the new F1 Speed Champions this boxy around the rear? Honestly, I think I prefer the older designs because of that. Still nice though.

I think maybe 3 of them have a boxyish rear end, but the Alpine is by far the worst.

I sniped a listing for a 60103 City Airport Air Show at a pretty good price, it came with an extra plane and I have to say, I was expecting the planes to be pretty meh but this one is actually great, all things considered:
View attachment 1436149

The canopy is definitely a bummer but for something constructed with so few pieces it has a good amount of detail, a good overall shape and it's really big. Shame the stickers are so poorly applied and peeling but oh well, it was cheap. I can probably get replacements anyway. I'll have to replace a couple of the white pieces in this set though, the wings of the other one of these jets have bad tan lines.

Some of my sets with white pieces are already turning yellow. They're only a few years old and don't get exposed to sunlight and they still turn yellow.

 

[Awong124]

 

[Chris30]

So tonight I built something other than a City set for the first time in a long time - 7347 Highway Pickup.

First, the pickup that gets picked up by the bigger pickup:
View attachment 1435563
View attachment 1435564

It's old 6-wide Speed Champions-ish sized, satisfyingly free of ultra-specific pieces and as you can see has opening doors, bonnet and tailgate - not bad at all for its size!

The main event:
View attachment 1435594
View attachment 1435595
View attachment 1435597
View attachment 1435596
View attachment 1435598
View attachment 1435599

This is deeply, deeply cool. It's hard to choose a favourite detail but for me, oddly, it might be the door pockets. It has hand of god steering - not a huge fan of the upside-down Technic plate to add the button for the light bricks though - with a limited steering angle and to achieve it the tyres on front and rear are different, fronts are narrow (I guess to allow space for steering) deep-tread off-road tyres and the rears are wide road tyres, I think I would've preferred the same wheels front and rear except the rears doubled up as duallys, not sure there's enough space though. Still, minor flaws aside, I love this.

Edit: forgot to show off the engine:
View attachment 1435600

Shame about the yellow bricks on the inside but what can you do?

Excellent artwork, don't worry about the yellow bricks, it looks fine anyway.

 

[sesselpupser]

Thanks @Chris30 but this was an official Lego set from 2012, not my work (besides assembling it).

It was when I disassembled it that it occurred to me - the reason they don't make 3 in 1 sets like it anymore is probably because it's not easy to disassemble to rebuild into the other models, stuff like this is better suited to Creator Expert where there's just one model to begin with. It honestly took almost as long to disassemble as it did to assemble because it had to be in-built in an unusually specific order.

Some of my sets with white pieces are already turning yellow. They're only a few years old and don't get exposed to sunlight and they still turn yellow.

It's inevitable, unfortunately, I've heard that even brand new sets still in the bag can yellow (if they're the old perforated bags) just from oxidisation. I've got a few old, old sets that are super yellowed, unfortunately the 4403 Air Blazers I got is quite badly yellowed as well but it's old enough (2002) that it uses pieces you can't get new anymore, like the old wedge plates with a notched corner. I might still try to refresh them but buying used white pieces on Bricklink usually results in every piece being a different shade which is worse in my opinion than a uniform near-tan white. But in the fullness of time they'll all be yellowed anyway, I suppose. Nothing to do but embrace and be OK with it, or buy new white pieces on Bricklink periodically.

 

[Awong124]

It's inevitable, unfortunately, I've heard that even brand new sets still in the bag can yellow (if they're the old perforated bags) just from oxidisation. I've got a few old, old sets that are super yellowed, unfortunately the 4403 Air Blazers I got is quite badly yellowed as well but it's old enough (2002) that it uses pieces you can't get new anymore, like the old wedge plates with a notched corner. I might still try to refresh them but buying used white pieces on Bricklink usually results in every piece being a different shade which is worse in my opinion than a uniform near-tan white. But in the fullness of time they'll all be yellowed anyway, I suppose. Nothing to do but embrace and be OK with it, or buy new white pieces on Bricklink periodically.

Yeah, I'm not too bothered by it.

 

[sesselpupser]

Clearly I know how to Friday night:


I've been meaning to work out which manuals I'm missing, there aren't many but I'm not sure I'll bother to actually collect them. For a while I thought I'd keep my boxes until I realised how much space I'd need (even when flattened), and now I'm looking at the space these books occupy, wondering if having them is worth it when it's kind of easier to use a PDF.

 

[Jump_Ace]

Clearly I know how to Friday night:
View attachment 1437792View attachment 1437791

I've been meaning to work out which manuals I'm missing, there aren't many but I'm not sure I'll bother to actually collect them. For a while I thought I'd keep my boxes until I realised how much space I'd need (even when flattened), and now I'm looking at the space these books occupy, wondering if having them is worth it when it's kind of easier to use a PDF.

Sell the boxes and books together, you may be surprised at what you could fetch.


Jerome

 

[sesselpupser]

eBay can be so tense. There's a set I like the look of but seems like it'd be a pretty boring build, until recently there was only one for sale in the UK between Bricklink and eBay, it's four times the price it was new about 20 years ago and it has been available for months - because anyone looking for this set knows that's too much for a used set that's probably not in the best condition just due to its age and is probably not a fun build either (also due to its age - I have a few sets around this era and they're, like, good enough and probably good for the time, but by today's standards they're just a bit dull). The seller, when they listed it, knew they had the only one for sale so it's priced according to that.

Then someone listed another one! It's a quarter of the price and is said to be complete with instructions. I want it, but it's an auction with almost a week to go. So I'm checking it every few hours. No one else is watching it, yet, while the other has a few watchers. It always does get a few, then no one buys it, it gets relisted and the cycle continues.

In other news, my son refers to boat studs (the circular, slightly domed upside-down tiles that usually go on the bottom of things like boats that you might want to slide across a surface) as "boobies".

 

[Jump_Ace]

eBay can be so tense. There's a set I like the look of but seems like it'd be a pretty boring build, until recently there was only one for sale in the UK between Bricklink and eBay, it's four times the price it was new about 20 years ago and it has been available for months - because anyone looking for this set knows that's too much for a used set that's probably not in the best condition just due to its age and is probably not a fun build either (also due to its age - I have a few sets around this era and they're, like, good enough and probably good for the time, but by today's standards they're just a bit dull). The seller, when they listed it, knew they had the only one for sale so it's priced according to that.

Then someone listed another one! It's a quarter of the price and is said to be complete with instructions. I want it, but it's an auction with almost a week to go. So I'm checking it every few hours. No one else is watching it, yet, while the other has a few watchers. It always does get a few, then no one buys it, it gets relisted and the cycle continues.

Oh, I get that! GL with the auction, I'm sure you'll get it

In other news, my son refers to boat studs (the circular, slightly domed upside-down tiles that usually go on the bottom of things like boats that you might want to slide across a surface) as "boobies".

This is acceptable.


Jerome

 

[Chris30]

Clearly I know how to Friday night:
View attachment 1437792View attachment 1437791

I've been meaning to work out which manuals I'm missing, there aren't many but I'm not sure I'll bother to actually collect them. For a while I thought I'd keep my boxes until I realised how much space I'd need (even when flattened), and now I'm looking at the space these books occupy, wondering if having them is worth it when it's kind of easier to use a PDF.

Let us know what you plan to build, good luck mate!!

 

[Carpocalypse]

Clearly I know how to Friday night:
View attachment 1437792View attachment 1437791

I've been meaning to work out which manuals I'm missing, there aren't many but I'm not sure I'll bother to actually collect them. For a while I thought I'd keep my boxes until I realised how much space I'd need (even when flattened), and now I'm looking at the space these books occupy, wondering if having them is worth it when it's kind of easier to use a PDF.

I'm curious, how are you planning on storing your manuals?

 

[daan]

I kept boxes and instructions from most of my sets until I read this.

Why recycling my LEGO boxes has made me a happier person

For whoever needs to hear it: recycle your LEGO boxes. Recycle your LEGO instructions. It’s going to make you a happier person.

www.brickfanatics.com

Now I just chuck them. Lego doesn't gain much value by being in a box unless you don't build it, and what's the point of that?

 

[sesselpupser]

Let us know what you plan to build, good luck mate!!

Not building much at the moment, just doing the most fun thing of all, auditing my collection...

I'm curious, how are you planning on storing your manuals?

I used to have them all in a box, actually an outer box for some Lego I ordered ages ago, but I'm not exaggerating when I say it was packed solid. Now I've got most of the Creator manuals in that box and my other manuals are in some Lego boxes that have coincidentally come with some recent purchases, I would've thrown them away otherwise. It's not a long-term solution, though.

I kept boxes and instructions from most of my sets until I read this.

Why recycling my LEGO boxes has made me a happier person

For whoever needs to hear it: recycle your LEGO boxes. Recycle your LEGO instructions. It’s going to make you a happier person.

www.brickfanatics.com

Now I just chuck them. Lego doesn't gain much value by being in a box unless you don't build it, and what's the point of that?

I read that too, but I dunno, having so many sets from a single theme does make it feel like an actual collection instead of a bunch of Lego sets I bought. Some of the manuals are just nice objects, too, the big ones like the one for 31039 or 31070 have a nice big picture on the front and even though they're impossible to use because the magazine- like binding means they just want to close themselves it feels wrong throwing them away.

That said I'm not a fan of this more recent design language:


But the set (31130), which I just got and came pre-built, is excellent, that octopus is especially great. Not very sturdy, mind you.


This is another that I struggled to find at a reasonable price, lots of BNIB at a huge markup and second hand priced just below. This one was still more than I wanted to pay but was the cheapest I've seen in months. I have to say, though, I think the cost was justified on this one, the octopus is so good!

 

[Jump_Ace]

I kept boxes and instructions from most of my sets until I read this.

Why recycling my LEGO boxes has made me a happier person

For whoever needs to hear it: recycle your LEGO boxes. Recycle your LEGO instructions. It’s going to make you a happier person.

www.brickfanatics.com

Now I just chuck them. Lego doesn't gain much value by being in a box unless you don't build it, and what's the point of that?

For small sets that holds true, but for large sets, the boxes really are worth holding on to. To sell large sets with a manual that's been stored safely in a bin, plus the box it will fetch significantly more coin.


Jerome

 

[daan]

I said I throw all the boxes out but that isn't strictly true. I've kept the boxes for the Chiron, 911GT3, Pacman, and a couple of others that fit in the Pacman box, but that's it.

 

[SPhilli911]

I recycled most of my boxes but kept the ones that go with larger sets or boxes that are interesting such as the 1:8 Technic cars. Also, I kept all vintage boxes because those are nostalgic.

I thought about recycling the instructions too but have all of them for now... stored in 3 very heavy boxes 😂

 

[Nacho Libre]

This is my first Speed Champions F1 set and was a gift from my little brother. It was more challenging that I thought for my tired eyes due to the abundance of small black pieces and lots of stickers. I don't think I'll buy another from the set but I would be curious when the new cars come around for the 2026 season.

 

[daan]

I appreciate that is the colours of the Lego builder app, but does anyone else see the joker in there? Purple suit, make up, green hair?

 

[Carpocalypse]

Just brought the 40519 New York Postcard set

(not actual build)

Still in warehousing.