What can be done about the price of Lego?

Anyone with an interest in Lego will know that the company has positioned itself in the marketplace as a purveyor of 'premium product'.  That is to say, it's stupidly expensive.  But now, with everything that's going on in the world; economies still reeling from Covid and the war in Ukraine driving up prices of food and energy (among other things), the Lego Group have decided that they need to alter their prices.

Upwards.

And not just a 'bit' upwards.

A lot.

Are Lego on their uppers?  Are they scrabbling down the back of the undoubtedly cool, Scandinavian designer sofas at Billund, looking for a few Krone so that they can keep the lights on? Have sales plummeted so far that they need to put prices up rather than lay off staff?

Well, no.

I'm no economist, and I'm willing to accept that there's more to a set of annual accounts than a few easy-to-pick-off highlights, but facts are facts.  So let's take a look at a few numbers from the Lego Group's 2021 annual report.

Consumer sales up 22%.  Doesn't say what it was up from, or up to, but given that Lego is the largest toy company on the planet, I'm guessing it was from 'big' to 'even bigger'.

Revenue grew 27%.  To £6.29bn.  That was the Gross Domestic Product of Kyrgyzstan in 2017. But every company has costs, right?  Revenue's nothing if your costs exceed it.  It's all about the bottom line.  It's all about net profit.  What were you left with, once the bills were paid, once the taxman was happy, once something had been set aside for the future?

In 2020, Lego had a net profit of £1.1 billion.  Must have taken a hit in 2021 to force them to put their prices up. Right?  Right?

Actually, no.  Last year they cleared £1.5 billion. Which, if my 'back of an envelope' maths is correct, represents something like a 36% uplift in profit for the year.

I can see why they needed to put those prices up...

Well, actually, I can.  Or at least I've seen one take on it, from an accountant, that sort of, almost, kind of justifies the rises. 

It's the economy, stupid. (1)

There was an article on Bricknerd recently, written by an economist called Michael A. Craven, Ph.D which was long and complicated, but after reading it a few times, I got the general gist.  If you're at all interested, I highly recommend that you nip over to that very-excellent site and read it for yourself.  In the meantime, I'm going to summarise - in a fairly crude fashion - some of the highlights.  Then I'm going to suggest a few ways in which LEGO might act to reduce the prices.

Price rises, if not driven by sheer naked greed for more money (which does happen) are mostly driven by inflation.  When a company's costs go up, they've basically got two options:

1. Sell you less of the thing for the same price.

2. Sell you the same thing for more money.

Jaffa Cakes.  Victims of shrinkflation.

The first is known as 'Shrinkflation'.  You've probably seen it with things like Jaffa Cakes.  The price is basically the same as it's been for some time, but whereas you used to get twelve cakes in a pack, now you only get ten.  It's a relatively subtle way for companies to pass along price rises without making it blindingly obvious.  The alternative is, of course, to just whack the price up, which is what LEGO appear to be doing with a significant tranche of its products.  So what did Mr Craven have to say about this?

Well, broadly speaking, inflation is going on a lot the time, but it tends to be a slow and subtle rise.  We do also have periods of recession, but for the most part, we have low inflation and prices creep up.  Now a typical LEGO set has a lifespan of around two to three years (2) and in that time the price tends to stay the same.  So if LEGO are making X amount of profit from a sale when it launches, then, say, two and a half years later - due to inflation - they're probably making about 3% less.  The fact that they don't raise their prices in that time seems to suggest that their pricing model is built to absorb those losses.

But these days, inflation is running at anything between 8% and 11%, depending on who you talk to.  Put a set out now, and leave it at the same price for three years with that level of inflation, and the LEGO Group is going to be taking a serious hit by the time the set retires.  So what appears to be happening, according to Mr Craven's research, is that sets that are likely to retire soon are being left alone, but newly released sets, or sets that still have a significant way to go before they're retired, are having their prices bumped in order to stave off the inevitable losses that those sets will undoubtedly accrue along the way.

But is there a sneaky "Let's rake in some extra cash while we're at it!" move going on too?  Apparently not.  Judging by our accountant's figure work, the price rises, certainly the ones announced so far, are just enough to cover the likely losses if inflation stays at ~10% and no more.

So far, so good.

But, says an enraged mob of LEGO fans wielding pitchforks and burning torches, look at their profits!  They could afford to keep the prices the same and take the hit!

Well, yes they could.  But I suspect that they would soon go from 'Most successful Danish company' to 'Oh no, it's 2004 all over again!'

~ ~ ~

For those not familiar with the history of the LEGO company, in the early 2000s, they were making a huge variety of themes, with all the expense that that entails.  They were opening theme parks too and basically they lost sight of their core business.  As a result, they found themselves with around $800m of debt and making a significant loss in 2004.  They were in dire straits, and it was only through some radical downsizing of their product portfolio and (if I remember correctly) a significant number of job losses that the company turned the ship around and got back to profitability. 

~ ~ ~

With worldwide economies in a parlous state, and many families finding their disposable income squeezed (or worse), only time will tell how badly these price rises will affect the company's profits in the next few years.  Listening to the LEGO community chatter, increasing numbers of people are saying that they're either going to cut down on the amount of LEGO that they buy, or they're going to stop completely.  It'll certainly be interesting to see the annual report for 2023. 

So in the meantime, is there anything that LEGO could do to reduce the prices of sets and ease the pain for those who just can't resist the siren call of those ABS bricks?  Well, I've got a few ideas.

Note: I wrote a version of the following for an article of Brick Fanatics, a website that I freelance for.  Despite me thinking that it was fairly obvious that I wasn't taking the following suggestions too seriously, judging by the comments that it received, there are more than a few people out there whose sense of humour could do with a service and an MOT.  

If you think any of the following is a really dumb idea, then it's probably because it is.  Please don't write and complain, because I'll ignore you.

So how can LEGO save the poor AFOLs of this world some money?

1. Stop printing manuals

Many, many large, heavy LEGO manuals

For any set that you buy these days, the instructions are available, digitally, via the LEGO website.  Yes, you will need a computer or a tablet or something similar to access those instructions, but if you're building a LEGO set then chances are you've got something appropriate in the house.  LEGO is not a cheap hobby.  Printing those manuals takes a lot of paper and ink, and some of the larger ones are pretty hefty, adding to shipping costs.  Scrap the manuals, save a bundle of cash.  Simple.

If you can't access the internet and you still desperately want to build a set, then what's stopping you?  There's a picture on the box and all the pieces are there.  Use your imagination!  It might not come out exactly as you planned, but hey!  It might come out even better, right?

2. Smaller boxes.

Trust me - this box has a lot of air in it.

Ever opened a LEGO set and noticed just how much fresh air there is inside that box?  In my experience, there's between 30% and 50% of nothing rattling around in there.  So why not not make boxes the right size?  Well for starters, it needs to look good on the shelf.  Premium.  And that usually means a big box.  But chances are when Joe or Jessica Afol walks in the store, they've already decided what they're buying.  I mean these people do research.  Big time! 

So a slightly bigger box?  That's not going to swing it either way.  And when they get home and the sets's built, either the box is going to recycling or more likely it's going into storage.  With the hundreds of other LEGO boxes that the Afols have.  At that stage, smaller boxes are a plus point!

The only time that a large, impressive box is going to swing a decision is for the aunt/uncle/grandparent looking to make an impulse purchase for a young relative.  And unless they're related to Jeff Bezos, they'll take one look at the price tag and opt for one of the smaller boxes anyway.

Add in the extra shipping costs for moving all that empty space around and smaller boxes are a no-brainer. (3)

3. Fewer bags.

You don't mind a bit of pre-sorting, right? 

With anything other than the smallest sets, parts these days come in numbered bags.  And those bags have an associated cost, not just in financial terms, but environmental terms too.  To be fair, the LEGO Group have recognised this, and are - at glacial pace - moving from plastic bags to paper ones which are, potentially, a greener solution. (4)

But with millions of LEGO sets produced every year, that's still a vast number of bags being created.  And until LEGO start shipping pieces in ziploc bags, they are always going to be disposed of once they've been ripped open. 

So why not just stick them in one big bag?  Must cost less, right?  Right!

Ok, I'll admit, this one is unlikely to work.

You may have noticed that in most sets, once you've completed the build, you have a handful of small pieces left over.  1x1 tiles and studs, a few Technic pins, that sort of thing.  That's because the parts for each set are weighed, presumably just before they go into those small bags, and because some of those small parts only weigh about a gramme, LEGO like to err on the side of caution and throw a few extras in, just to be sure you've got what you need.  If you tried to do that with a single bag weighing a couple of kilos, then it's a recipe for disaster.

Ok, I'll give them numbered bags.

4. Fewer specialised pieces.

Just use your imagination

The process for designing, prototyping and creating a new piece is time-consuming and expensive.  And that cost has to be recouped somehow.  Sure, when a design team starts work on a new element, they've already done some research to see how it might be used elsewhere in different ways.  Reusability drives down cost.  But what if they stuck with the original LEGO design principles and just made everything out of simple LEGO bricks?

Sure, all our sets would consist of straight lines and right angles, and you could wave goodbye to the amazing designs that we've seen over the past couple of decades, but it would all be a bit cheaper!

5. More stickers, fewer printed pieces.

You don't really need these, do you?

When a large, expensive set comes out and it's accompanied by a sheet with a couple of dozen (or more) stickers, the howls from the fan community are long and loud.  Interestingly, they're usually the same people who howl about the price, which would be even greater if those stickers were replaced with printed parts.  So do away with printed parts (which must cost more than an equivalent sticker) altogether.  That'll save a few bob.

In fact, do away with stickers in almost all cases.  There are a few sets that need them, things like Technic sets where various controls have to be identified, but broadly speaking, stickers (and by extension, printed parts) are just flim-flam.  A bit of unnecessary window dressing. If your Fire Station needs a big 'Fire Station' sticker to identify it as such, then I put it to you that it's not a very good Fire Station. (5)

6. Fewer unnecessary extras.

You really want to pay extra for these?  I thought not.

Recently, a LEGO recreation of the venerable Atari 2600, or VCS was released.  This was, for mainstream videogaming, the motherlode.  Where it all started.  The set that brought games like Space Invaders - previously only playable in slightly dodgy arcades - into the home.  Sure, there were other consoles that came before it (many of which are stashed in my loft), but this what what got the ball rolling and led to giants of the genre like the Nintendo NES and SNES and the Sega Master System and Megadrive.

The set is, like so many desirable LEGO sets, not cheap.  In the UK it's £209.99.  Or at least it is at the moment.  Who knows when the next round of price rises might hit?  So how is the cost justified?  Well, you get an almost perfect replica of a VCS.  Great.  Then you get a brick built cartridge holder and three brick built game cartridges.  Okay, I can see that.  Not essential, but a completely understandable extra which will have bumped the price up by £20 or so. 

And then three small dioramas of the games.  A castle, representing Adventure.  Some floating rocks and a tiny spaceship, representing Asteroids.  And a caterpillar.  Representing... well, I'll leave you to figure that out.  Each one comes on a small stand with a name plate.

And each one is utterly pointless, their only purpose to gather dust and have bits knocked off them when you attempt to remove said dust.  And they, too, will have bumped the price up.

Ask most people who might be considering buying this set whether they want all the extra doohickeys, or whether they would have preferred just the console and cartridges and got to keep £20 in their pocket.

Pretty sure I know what the majority would say.

So where does that leave us?  The LEGO Group, as others have said, often use a pricing strategy of 'What will the market bear?'  If they can charge a bit extra and justify it to themselves (if not anyone else), then they will.  My gut feeling is that the LEGO Group are going to see a significant decline in sales over the next year or so, and if they do, then they'll either have to drop their prices or find some way to make their sets more affordable.

If you're reading, LEGO pricing team, there are some ideas above.  

Go nuts!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

1. No offence intended.  "It's the economy, stupid." or more accurately "The economy, stupid." was the de facto slogan of the 1992 Clinton Presidential campaign.  It's been in use ever since.  

2. There are outliers.  The Death Star, the Volkswagen Bus and the Imperial Star Destroyer seemed to hang around for ever!

3. Sure, having dozens of different sized boxes would make it a nightmare to stack, store and ship them all but I'm just focusing on the positives here. 

4. There are no shortage of people who will argue that paper isn't that much of an improvement.  When supermarkets made a show of doing away with plastic carrier bags, some offered paper as an alternative.  Many critics were quick to point out that paper isn't the silver bullet it's made out to be.

Reusable canvas bags, people.  Always make sure you take some with you when you go shopping! 

5. Not faces on minifigures though.  Keep printing them.  Hordes of blank faced minifigs would be the stuff of ABS nightmares.

Book Review: 'Adrift - The Curious Tale Of The Lego Lost At Sea' by Tracey Williams

Welcome, reader!  

In a change of pace, rather than look at a Lego set or moan about the impending price rises (though I'm sure I'll get to that before long), I'm going to take a look at a book.

My wife and I have just come back from our summer holiday, which - with the exception of 2020, when we (and many millions of others) were going nowhere - we spent in the same place we've gone to for the last 20-odd years: Cornwall.

Having been so many times, we've done all the 'touristy stuff' which means that we don't feel any pressure to go and visit places, which means we can kick back and relax.  And for me, that means reading.

I usually take an optimistically large number of books with me - and typically come back with several more.  This time I only managed to get through two, which is sub-par for me, but we did make the most of the glorious weather, and get out and about quite a lot.

One of the books I read was 'The Storyteller' by Dave Grohl, he of Nirvana and Foo Fighters fame (excellent book, which I can recommend to anyone with an interest in music generally and Dave Grohl in particular) and the other was the subject of today's musing.

'Adrift - The Curious Tale Of The Lego Lost At Sea' by Tracey Williams.

It's a small-ish hardback book, priced at £20.00, though it's not difficult to find it online at a reduced price.  I'm all for supporting bricks and mortar bookshops, particularly independent ones (1) but sometimes convenience and timing demands that you use... that website.  Anyway.  The title suggests it might be of interest to those of us with a love of the brick, so what's it about?

As the book states on the inside flap:

"On 13 February 1997, a huge storm near the coast of Cornwall pushed sixty-two containers off the cargo ship Tokio Express.  One was filled with nearly 5 million pieces of Lego, many of which were themed around the sea.  Beachcombers in the southwest of England soon began finding plastic octopuses, spear guns, scuba tanks, cutlasses, flippers and even dragons on their shores - pieces that are still washing up today."

If I'm brutally honest, if you've read that paragraph, then you're pretty much done and dusted with 'Adrift'.

The bio on the back flap describes Tracey Williams as 'Writer and beachcomber'.  Some googling suggests that her only other book is a tome from 2016 entitled 'The Big Resource Guide To Teaching and Learning Texas History', but I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that that might be a different Tracey Williams.  Happy to be corrected.  Other than that, her writing seems to be contained to social media.

Having said that, she's had 'Adrift' published, which is one more book than me, so yes, she's a writer, and she definitely seems to be a beachcomber.

If I'm sounding a bit critical, it's because for a book that runs to 184 pages, there's just not that much in it.  It reads like a handful of blog posts that have been stretched very thin indeed.  There's a lot of repetition, but more frustratingly, Ms Williams will often say something interesting, and you turn the page to find out more, but that's it!  She's on to something else.

It would appear that the book began life as a Facebook based photo project - there are a number of images scattered throughout the book of bricks, dragons, ducks and so forth photographed on beaches and more of collections of pieces laid out in an artful fashion which could be turned into posters, if sea worn Lego is your your sort of thing.  Other pages are taken up with sea-related poetry and paintings which fit with the overall theme, but don't add much to the story.

The main thrust of the book is one of conservation.  Of keeping the seas and the beaches clean.  And to that end, the Lego from the spill is simply one more type of plastic 'waste' that's polluting the beaches of the UK, mainland Europe, the USA and beyond.  Over the years, Ms Williams has worked with a number of others on this and related projects, two of whom are credited as co-authors.  One is Mario Cacciottolo, who was a BBC journalist on a twelve month sabbatical some years ago.  While travelling, he saw a mention of the Lego spill in a Hong Kong newspaper, remembered it when he got back to work in mid-2014 and persuaded his editor to let him chase up the story.  He went to Cornwall, met Tracey Williams and later the story went viral.

The other significant contributor is Oceanographer, Dr Curtis Ebbesmeyer, who is based in Seattle, Washington and seems to have made a name for himself tracking items lost at sea.  Most notably, thousands of athletic shoes that went overboard in 1990 and started appearing on the west coast of the USA and a couple of years later, nearly 29,000 plastic bathtub toys - including 7,200 yellow ducks - which went overboard in the Pacific in 1992.  Strange way to make a living, but I guess it takes all sorts!

As a book, it's a nice idea.  The design, however, grates on my sensibilities a little - it's as though it was batted back and forth between Laura Ashley and Cath Kidston for a while and the end product screams 'floral' despite there not actually being any flowers on it.

Ultimately it's an interesting distraction that you could read in an afternoon.  The problem for me is that you could replace 'Lego' with 'any other toy / mass produced plastic item' and it wouldn't make any difference to the story at all.

If you're known among your friends and family as a Lego fan, then this is the sort of thing that may well turn up as a birthday or Christmas present at some point.  If it does, give it a go.  You might find that you enjoy it.

But buy it yourself?  Given that you could put the money towards a Lego set, which you'll enjoy a lot more, for a lot longer, I'd have to say no.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

1. Thumbs up to Shrew Books in Fowey. It used to be a bookshop called Bookends which was taken on by a lovely lady called Kate who has turned it into Shrew Books.  It's about the size of a modest broom cupboard, but has a great selection of books, and just as importantly, Kate has excellent taste in music.  I spent a lovely half an hour or so pottering around in there and came out with a couple of books for the 'to read' pile.  If you're in that neck of the woods, I heartily recommend a) popping in and b) buying something.  

"As complex as it is beautiful." Review : LEGO Technic 42143 Ferrari Daytona SP3

Lego Technic Ferrari Daytona SP3

There's a scene in a film - which exact film escapes me at present - where a team are doing something. I think they're bad guys, up to no good, but it's possible that they're good guys up to mischief, but for the right reasons.

Anyway.  This team are made up of the usual archetypes.  The leader. The technical one. The brute force one. The comms guy who's usually also the comic relief.  You've seen it a million times.  The 'A' Team.  The Losers.  Dutch's team in 'Predator'.

So as part of whatever shenanigans the team are up to, the clever one is doing something complicated.  Maybe opening a safe or bypassing an alarm system.  It's complex work, it needs concentration and a steady hand and it's taking a while.  Time is running out, and so is the patience of the muscle who, hauling his more bookish compatriot out of the way, simply resolves the issue at hand with the application of explosives / a sledgehammer / several dozen rounds of ammunition.

I'm not really a detail person, as you can probably tell, but you get the gist.

Nerd guy pushes his inevitable pair of glasses back up his nose and shakes his head is he clambers to his feet, while the muscle strides off to their next objective, no doubt muttering some sort of witticism as he goes.

Now in addition to not being a detail person, I'm not really a car person either.  I like cars and I love driving, but on the one occasion I ever got to drive fast - a Lotus Elise at the Hethel test track for a birthday treat - I enjoyed the experience immensely, right up until the point where I threw up. 

Fortunately I'd managed to extricate myself from the car and remove my helmet first, but only just.

Despite that, I still spend time pondering about what would be in my dream garage.  Unsurprisingly, it's populated more with classics that major on looks rather than speed - a VW split screen bus, an original Fiat 500, a Volvo 245 GLT estate that's been thoroughly modernised under the skin, but on the surface, still looks like a 40 year old car.  Resto-modding, I believe they call it.   I am singularly uninformed by the technical aspects of any of them.

Something like this would be just fine 

So when we look at the supercar rivalry of Ferrari and Lamborghini, the more automotive-minded will no doubt compare the technology under skin, the powerplants, the chassis design, the various driver modes and so on. Me?  My knowledge stretches to what they look like, and the little I glean from occasionally picking up a copy of Evo magazine. I can't afford anything that they feature, but the writing and photography is consistently excellent, so it makes for an interesting diversion once in a while. 

So coming back to our seemingly-unrelated introduction, Ferrari has always seemed to me the bookish one, coming up with clever solutions to engineering problems.  Maybe using a smaller engine but with a lighter body.  Electronic wizardry eking out every last ounce of power and making it available to the driver, all the while, wrapping it in ever more elegant and curvaceous bodies.

Down the road from Maranello, in Sant'Agata, Lamborghini was more like our impatient friend.  The laws of physics were something to be defied through the application of brute force.  For years, the favoured engine of Lamborghini was the mighty V12 and not for them the sleek, slippery shapes that wind resistance turned a blind eye to.  Lambos were hulking great monsters, seemingly hewn from solid blocks of metal, straight edge upon razor-sharp straight edge, looking for all the world like a two-tonne piece of steel origami.

The scalpel versus the sledgehammer.  Both get their respective jobs done, but in distinctly different ways.  It's possible that Lamborghini's slightly agricultural approach was born from the fact that the company originally made tractors.  Apparently Ferruccio Lamborghini had purchased a Ferrari, but in 1963, the clutch broke.  Maranello wasn't far, so he went to see Enzo Ferrari, explained the issue and, with his engineering background, offered a solution.

Ferrari, so the story goes, was not one for accepting criticism.  Apparently, in a fit of pique he turned to his visitor and said:

"Let me make cars.  You stick to making tractors."

Signore Lamborghini, more than a little aggrieved, drove home and resolved to build a better car than Ferrari. And the rest, as they say, is history.  It's an interesting history, too, and you can read more about it here. 

All of which brings us, finally, to the subject of todays musing. 

The Lego Technic 42143 Ferrari Daytona SP3.

Lego have produced four expensive, 1:8 scale supercars since 2016: the Porsche 911 GT3 RS was first; the Bugatti Chiron followed in 2018; the Lamborghini Sián FKP 37 came along two years ago in 2020, and now they are joined by the extraordinarily exclusive Daytona SP3.

Manufacturers of automotive exotica don't play by the same rules as other car companies.  While the likes of Ford or Vauxhall just want to get as many buyers in to sign on the dotted line for their new hatchback or - more commonly these days - SUV, those at the sportier end of the market can afford to be a bit more choosy about who they sell to.  I read recently of someone who wanted to buy one of the more hardcore 'RS' versions of the Porsche 911.  Apparently he was scoffed at by the dealer, who informed him that unless he'd already bought at least five other Porsches, there was no way he'd be able to place an order for the race-bred version.

Others are yet more exclusive, with limited edition cars only being offered to those that have a personal history with the brand - and a stable full of cars with the their badge on the nose. The SP3 is one such car.

A few years back, in 2018, Ferrari launched the Icona series.  The idea was to build new cars - in limited quantities - on modern platforms, but to take their design inspiration from classic Ferraris of the past.  The first two cars launched were the Monza SP1 and the Monza SP2, based around the 750 Monza, the 166M and the 250 Testarossa.  Only 499 examples of each were built and despite them being illegal in a number of countries due to their lack of roof or windscreen, 499 well-heeled buyers snapped up one of each, each paying somewhere north of $3m for the pair.

Ferrari Monza SP1 & SP2

Image courtesy of drive-my.com

The Daytona SP3 joins the Icona line-up and while there will be slightly more - 599 cars will be built - 499 have already been ordered by the owners of the SP1 and SP2, while the remaining 100 went to 'specially selected customers'.

Don't expect to see one on the road any time soon. 

So for us mere mortals, one of the few ways that we might get anywhere near a Daytona SP3 is the new Technic version.  I recently got a part time job, writing freelance for a well-known Lego website, Brick Fanatics, and one of the things I do for them is review sets.  Mainly Technic, but I've done a few Speed Champions sets as well - more on them in a future post.  Up until now, I've reviewed mostly modest-sized sets, but I was delighted when I was offered the chance to review the new Ferrari.

It's released on June 1st, but in mid-May, an exciting looking - and oddly shaped - box (two boxes in fact), arrived from Billund and I set to it!

The three previous cars in what Lego have now, retrospectively, decided to call the Ultimate Series (1), are all similar in terms of construction (complicated gearbox, 'working' engine, fiddly bodywork), but have definitely demonstrated progress in packaging design.  The original Porsche came in a stylish but plain black box with minimal branding and the interior, rather than just having a bunch of loose bags thrown in, had a set of fitted, numbered boxes with the wheels set into one.  The whole set created a frame for the manual, which looked more like a Porsche Owner's manual rather than a typical Lego instruction book.

The Chiron had a similar box design - a simple picture on a blue background, but while the boxes were again fitted in, jigsaw-style (2), this time rather than plain black, they had an image of the front of the car on them.  Indeed, images on both sides, so that you could flip the boxes over and have a picture of the rear of the car if you so wished.

With the Lamborghini the game moved on again.  No picture of the set, or indeed of anything at all, on the front.  The cover of the eye-searingly green box was a representation of the car bonnet, complete with Raging Bull badge and very simple but effective graphics.  The back of the box was more typical, with an image of the car, but inside, six sculpted boxes replicated the distinctive engine cover, complete with overlapping flaps.

The Ferrari box is unusual.  rather than the usual big, rectangular box, it's a more compact, squared off affair with a lid in Rosso Corsa that not only lifts off, but has a segment cut out.  It looks classy, in situ, but it falls over when you try and put it down.

Classy packaging

With the lid off, if becomes apparent that the base of the box is to be tipped on its side, where three internal boxes appear like the drawers of a Snap-On tool cabinet and together give an image of the rear of the car, with it's distinctive, Testarossa-like rear grille.

Box interior

Ok, enough waffling about boxes - let's build the thing!

First up is the gearbox.  It's typical of the other gearboxes in this 'Ultimate' series, insomuch as there are a lot of parts and I don't fully understand how they work.  Fortunately the diagrams are clear, regular twiddling ensures that nothing gets snared in the build, and after about 90 minutes, it's complete.

Gearbox - everything turning as it should

Two things to note at this point.

Much of the promotional material about the car has mentioned the complex, eight-speed gearbox in this set.  Less is mentioned about the fact that the car itself only has a seven-speed gearbox (3).  I'm guessing that the way the gearbox is constructed means that only even numbers of gears are possible.  Which leads us on the the second point.  As far as I can tell (from watching a number of video reviews), the way it works is that there are four sequential gears, each moving the pistons slightly faster than the last, and then there's another gear which effectively steps them all up again.  However, one YouTuber spotted that a part in the instructions was shown in the wrong position, meaning that instead over having the car flip through the gears, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8, it actually goes 1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4.  

There is a simple fix.  Simple, that is, if you can get to the gearbox.  I can't, so it stays as it is.

The engine, by comparison, is a straightforward - if large - affair, and other than the fiddly step of trying to drop six pistons into their respective spaces in the cylinder block - and then repeating it for the other half of the engine -  it passes without comment.  Or swearing. A situation that won't last to the end of the build.

Next up is the rear subframe, which anchors the axle and suspension.  On the Chiron, it was noted that the weight of the model meant that there was a lot of suspension travel, so with the Lamborghini, the designers came up with an alternative design, so that the shock absorber element was mounted almost horizontally, giving a much stiffer setup.  It still used the existing, relatively small and skinny shock absorber however, that will be familiar to Technic builders from dozens of other sets.

Subframe (rear)

Not for Ferrari - who worked closely with Lego to develop this set - the same skinny shock that has been used before.  Oh no!  A huge new shock, only used once before, in the recent BMW M 1000 RR, and appearing here in red for the first time, looks impressive and far more like a 'real' shock absorber.

Monster new shock absorber

The front subframe follows, and gradually axles and connectors bring moving parts together.  The gearbox still spins freely, but worryingly, the pistons in the engine aren't moving.  I decide that something will be hooked up later to rectify this, and plough on.

Soon after, the steering rack snakes through the bodywork and up to the nascent dashboard.

It is at this point that the first parts of the bodywork go on, just behind where the doors will be, and I see a pin sticking up.  I check the diagram and it's clear that the pin should be flush with the beam that it's currently protruding from.

But it isn't.

I do some rough mental calculations.  I reckon to strip the car back to the point where I could replace the pin properly, and then retrace my steps to this point would take about four hours.  I am on a deadline to get the set built, photographed and a review written and that's four hours I do not have.  The pin won't be visible once the car's complete - the problem will be if it stops me putting a part in at a later step.

I study the images of the finished model, whisper a prayer to the Lego gods and press on. (4)  

I'm about seven hours in now.  There's a bit of work to do on the (fairly minimalist) interior including a very neat step where you build the transmission tunnel cover, attach it to one side and then it folds over on itself in a very clever fashion.  I like steps like that.  Another part of the interior that's installed is a shifter that lets you move between Drive, Neutral and Reverse.  The mystery of the non-functioning pistons is solved.  I was in neutral!

Now we're on to the bodywork.  I'm faced with a sea of red beams and panels and an ocean of pins and the seemingly impossible task of making one of the curviest cars I've ever seen out of pieces that are inherently straight. (5)

But slowly the body grows.  Parts are attached at crazy angles and elements are used in ways that most people would never think of in a month of Sundays.  The windscreen is 'suggested' by four flexible beams but, on reflection, passes muster.

The rear wings, somehow, take on the sweep of the real thing in the same way that, if you draw enough straight lines, each at a slightly steeper angle to the last, you'll end up with a smooth curve.

The front wings - which might have been modelled on the 330 P4 which was campaigned in the 1960s - remind me of nothing other than the 308 GTS, aka 'The car Tom Selleck drove in Magnum, P.I.' aka my favourite Ferrari of all time.

Magnum P.I. and his Ferrari 308 GTS

And then we're on to the doors.  Oh, the doors.

I'm still torn.  The doors could be the greatest part of this set, they could be the worst.  I've been looking at the finished model for over a week now and I still can't decide.

Naturally, supercar doors can't just open.  You don't pay the equivalent of a twelve bedroom mansion in a very nice part of London for doors that just open.  There has to be.... drama!  The Lamborghini Countach, first seen in 1974, was the first car to use scissor doors (6) and that set the template that supercar manufacturers followed, more or less, for the best part of the next five decades.

The Ferrari doesn't just have scissor doors though.  It has, depending on what you read, swan doors or butterfly doors.  Basically the doors lift up, as a scissor door does, but then the bottom of the door swings out.  It looks like a bird spreading its wings.

And I wonder how long it look set designer, Uwe Wabra, to come up with a way of replicating it?

Because he did.

Do they work? Yes, after a fashion.  They lift, if you get hold of the top of the door and pull them up.  With the Lamborghini, there was a rod that ran through the door sill and you could push down on it behind the door and it would pop up.  I poked around in the Ferrari and lifted up the rear clamshell and sure enough you can do the same thing.  It's not, as far as I can tell, listed as a feature or function, so whether you're supposed to open them like that, I don't know. 

It lifts, and it spreads out like a bird's wing.  It is quite something to see.

The confusing doors.  Are they great?  Are they not?

Pushing it down again, unfortunately, is rather less elegant.

Along the bottom of the door is... I'm not sure what you'd call it.  If this was 1972, you'd say it was a running board.  It's probably part of the aerodynamics as it extends down the side of the car to the rear arch.  Anyway, it's a sticky-out piece that runs along the bottom of the door and lifts up with it, even though it appears not to be attached.  When you drop the door down again, as often as not, this fairly chunky piece of bodywork doesn't line up with the rest and you have to prod it back into place.

The other thing is that it feels flimsy.  Before the bodywork went on, the chassis of the car felt incredibly strong.  You could have dropped it on a table from a foot in the air and have been fairly confident that nothing would detach.  The doors, however, look like they'd be damaged by a stiff breeze.

But they're nothing compared to the tail.

The rear of the car seemingly pays homage to the 80s icon, the Ferrari Testarossa.  Probably best known as one of the cars that Crockett drove in Miami Vice, the side strakes and the grille across the rear were some of its most memorable features, and they are echoed in both the front and the rear of the Daytona SP3.

To create the recognisable 'stripes', Wabra has used regular System Lego parts, rather than Technic elements, and both front and rear are built up in an elaborate sandwich.  The front sandwiches just make up the corners and are held firmly in place, albeit at slight angles.  The rear sandwich, however, which stretches across the full width of the car, seems to be held in place not so much with studs, more... with a wing and a prayer.

The front looks good.  And stays put!

And that's if you manage to get it built.

There are a number of occasions during the build, most notably around the doors and the 'rear sandwich', when the instructions are somewhat... lacking.  You've built the sub-assembly and then the next diagram just shows them in place.  Usually when you're attaching a part, it's pretty obvious how it connects, but the doors had me scratching my head for a good ten minutes.

The rear, on the other hand, had me spend an hour rebuilding it.

I'd built the rear.  It was made in three parts - the main 'straight across the back' section, and the two curved side sections.  These three seemed to hang together with no more than two studs holding them in place and then the diagram just showed them... attached to the section above.

So I attached it.  I looked at it from a variety of angles and it seemed to look right.  Usually you'd try and count some studs somewhere to ensure it was exactly right, but no studs were visible, so I had to go by eye.  This large and fragile sub-assembly had two pins at the top edge and two pins at the bottom edge, and it was via these pins that it attached to the rear of the car.

So I offered it up and got the lower sets of pins fitted snugly.  The upper set, however were about one stud (or half a blue pin) short.  They'd sort of fit, if I pushed them, but it tilted the rear at an angle, and the pins didn't fit cleanly.  I've seen some clever parts usage to achieve unusual shapes, but it always stayed within the bounds of 'legal parts usage', and this looked wrong.

I took it off.  I tried again, and which point one of the ends fell off.  I reattached it and tried again.

Still I was left with a gap, the width of a Technic beam, running across the top deck of the rear.  I compared the rear section with the diagram.  It still looked right.

Earlier in the build, I'd come across a mistake in the instructions.  Fairly minor and easily resolvable, but now I wondered if there had been a more serious mistake somewhere.  Or whether I'd just misread something.  I was wondering if I had enough parts in the house to fashion a fix of some sort when I offered it up one last time to check what I'd need, and both ends broke.

I decided fate had intervened, so broke the entire rear section down and started again.

My sincere apologies go to Ulla Pelsø and Jane Knudsen, the two ladies who between them, created the instruction booklet for the Daytona.  For an hour later the tail was reassembled and lo!  It fitted!

The fragile rear.  Do not touch.  Don't even breathe in that direction.

Now there were just a last few pieces to add, including the amazing drum-lacquered wheels.  Whereas most Lego wheels are side-agnostic, these mirror the car exactly by having a left version and a right version, meaning Lego had had to create two new moulds for the wheels.  One new mould for a part that's likely to just be used in one set is an extravagance, but two?

Extravagant, drum lacquered wheel

With the wheels and the ultra-low profile tyres fitted, it was the work of a moment to put the data plaque together and then I could sit back and admire... 

...the two pieces that were still sitting in my sorting bowl.

Now anyone who has been building Lego sets  for a while will know that you're often supplied with a few small extra pieces.  A 1x1 tile, a stud, a few Technic pins.  The sorting machines that bag the parts up work by weight, and even though they can deal with very fine tolerances, sometimes mistakes happen, so Lego would rather give you an extra piece now and again than have you find yourself short a crucial element.

But these weren't a couple of pins, these were, as the Lego database would have it, LEFT PANEL 2x5 and RIGHT PANEL 2x5.  I'd already used about six of them on the rear to create the complex diffuser / aero / thingummybob and now I looked all over to see where they might go.

As luck would have it, a YouTuber with better eyesight than me had also had the same problem and realised that it must be a problem with the instructions, as most of the 'beauty' shots that we'd seen of various promotional materials had them missing too.  But he found two red axle pins protruding at the rear, just waiting to have their angled panels fitted.  On reflection, they stuck out like a sore thumb, but sometime you can't see for looking.

And that, as they say, is that.

So what's the verdict?

I've had a week to live with the completed set now, and I've been musing on it.  Initially I thought it was incredible.  The sheer size of the set - it's nearly two feet long - gives it an imposing presence and that's before you take into account the fact that it's bright red.   It's certainly not a set to be tucked away, but displayed - on a fairly large table.

Windscreen takes 'minimalist' to a new level

There seems to be a certain irony that for a Technic set, which is all about the functionality, this set is destined to sit on shelves and be looked at, maybe occasionally having the butterfly doors demonstrated to visitors, but that's about it.  These sets play heavily on the complexity of the gearbox, but given that rolling it along the floor, while trying to squeeze your finger into a cramped cockpit to reach the - fair play to Lego - functioning paddle shifters will simply result in the pistons moving at a slightly different rate, that's almost academic.

Is Technic the right medium?  Discuss.

The true value of a set like this is in the build.  Once that's complete it's a large display piece where most of the functionality, such as it is, is borderline irrelevant.  You can open the doors, prop up the front and rear clamshell and press it down to demonstrate the suspension, but really it's not a set for 'playing with', it's a set for looking at, and some will say that Technic is not really a medium for making beautiful sets.  If you do want a beautiful car made from Lego, then in my humble opinion you're far better off buying 10265 Creator Expert Mustang.  It's over £200 cheaper and looks astonishing.

Shades of an F40?

All of which sounds like I've got a downer on the big Ferrari, but in truth, I haven't.  I'm glad that it exists.  Critics will point to the fact that Technic is not the ideal medium to recreate shapes like this, but there's a quote, in Vol. 1 of the instruction book, from Carlo Palazzani, Head of Sports Car Exterior Design at Ferrari. He says: 

“The main task for the model wasn’t to produce a faithful replica of our original car – it was being able to distil its fundamental spirit.” 

And to that end, it must be said the designers have succeeded.

$2.25m.  Or £349.99

Anyone with the first three cars in the series will already have made up their minds to buy this.  maybe not straight away - history tells us that if you hang around for a while, then discounts are available.  At £349.99 it's very much a considered purchase.  If you could find it at around say,£279.99 later in the year, that might make the decision slightly easier. (7)

Data plaque

If I consider it next to the Lamborghini Sián FKP 37 from a few years back, the big, green Sant'Agata monster just edges it for me.   There's no one thing, just a combination of small elements.  The slightly more interesting packaging.  The doors that are just that bit smoother and more robust.  The bodywork that looks 'right' rather than 'slightly contrived'...

But they're marginal gains.  The fact is that even if I hadn't been sent this set, and I had paid £350 of my own money for it, I wouldn't feel short-changed.

Like I say, it's all about the build.

And the build is fantastic.

Never was a truer word spoken.

Just one more thing.

I mentioned that when it arrived, there were two boxes.  The smaller one contained a copy of the limited edition book, 'The Sense Of Perfection'.  What I think of it is largely irrelevant, given that it went on sale at midnight last night, and was sold out before 1am.  For a while though, Lego had set the purchase limit to five (rather than, as people expected, one) and so it's little surprise that there are more than one hundred on Ebay today, going for anything up to £195, though £150 seems to be the going rate.

I'll put a review up shortly.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

1.  Or maybe Ultimate Car Series - it's not entirely clear at this point.

2.  One of the simpler jigsaws that you'll ever attempt. 

3.  Though it does get mentioned on the data panel / information plaque.

4.  You'll be delighted to know I got away with it!

5.  Apart from the curved bits, of which there are a good number.  But far more straight bits.

6.  I'm pretty sure that's right.  There's an argument to say it was the Alfa Romeo Carabo, but that was a concept car, so I'm discounting it.

7.  I'm not saying it will be discounted, just that looking at previous, similar sets, there's a good chance.