Recently I picked up the new Technic Megacar, the 42232 Koenigsegg "Sadair's Spear". It's going to be, I'm quite certain, a 4104 piece ABS headache. I still wake up fretting about the rear end of the Ferrari Daytona SP3 that I built a few years back and I doubt that the Koenigsegg set designer, Kaspar René Hansen, thought at any point 'Let's make this one a bit easier - that's what the Technic girls and boys will want.'
So while I'm looking forward to building it which, if past experience is anything to go by, will need two or three days of free time, sometimes you just have an itch to put some pieces together. Doesn't need to be big, doesn't need to be complicated, you just want to rip (1) a box open and build something.
We (2) have a house rule that says I can only ever have one Lego set on display at one time, so the Speed Champions Ferrari F40 that's been out for a while was deconstructed (great little set by the way) and carefully stored in numbered ziploc bags, then the table was cleared for some building action.
Thus I had a rummage into the bag (3) that lives in our back bedroom where 'recent purchases' go before either being built or transferred to our Lego storage facility (4) and came up with 60485, Hot Rod!
- Lego City Hot Rod
- 81 Pieces
- RRP £8.99 (though you can find it a bit cheaper if you shop around - I found it for about £6.50 in a sale).
It's a dinky little set that takes no more than ten minutes to build. There are three paper bags of parts in the box, plus the two large rear tyres and a small manual. The box image shows the car hurtling though a desert landscape being pursued by a similar style hot rod, though my research (5) suggests that a car of this style is more like to have been a 50's style street racer. Additionally, with the jacked up stance and larger rear wheels, it likely would have been referred to as a 'Gasser". For the drivers of these cars it was all about getting weight over the rear wheels and gaining as much traction as possible to get a fast start off the line. A typical hot rod of the era would run the standard quarter mile in about 15 seconds, but something like this would aim for 11.5 - 12 seconds.
Given that the sum total of my street racing knowledge comes from watching the "Fast & Furious" films, I know that the benchmark for a car worthy of respect is a ten-second quarter mile time, so for something to be running just two seconds shy of that, 70 years ago, means they must have been fairly hair-raising things to drive - I doubt any of them were running Nitrous systems controlled by an onboard laptop!
The set comes with a minifig driver, a cool looking dude in jeans, a leather jacket and a t-shirt with a grumpy looking bulldog on it which I believe is a unique print. He has bouffant hair and a smirk that says "Yeah, I'm cool and I know it. And so does everybody else."
Onto the car then, and it becomes obvious that this set is designed if not 'for' then 'to be accessible to' younger builders. Indeed the box states it's for 5+. Each step has the left-hand page showing which parts you need to find, then the right-hand page showing where the pieces go.
It comes together quite quickly and it's a pleasant surprise to find that both the radiator grille and the flames down either side of the car are printed parts rather than stickers. Maybe Lego took the pragmatic decision that many young hands might be building these sets, and to avoid tears before bedtime brought on by wonky sticker placement, thought 'let's just be kind and print them instead'.
The colour scheme is primarily purple and lime green, which reminds me either of the Hulk, or Daphne from Scooby-Doo (6). Other reviewers have already pointed out that while the lime green parts are quite vivid, the green flame print on the sides is rather more subdued. Honestly, I don't think it matters a jot. The flames look great and the colours blend in perfectly with the rest of the car. The engine has no bonnet, so the cylinder heads are exposed and orange flame is spurting forth from two of the pistons, while more flames appear at the exhaust pipes. This strikes me as an MOT fail for sure, and potentially a fiery death for our leather jacketed hero. Maybe like Dom Toretto, he just lives his life a quarter mile at a time.
What a guy!
Back to our less-than-safe car, the designer has done a great job of giving it a jacked up stance without actually doing much, structurally. The chassis is actually ruler flat, but by putting larger tyres on the rear, it does elevate the back end slightly, then by hinging the roof at the rear so that it tilts down to meet the top of the windscreen... Lo! A mean looking machine.
Indeed at first glance you wouldn't think there was room to let Danny Zuko, or whatever his name is, sit in the car - certainly not without removing the hairpiece, but ye of little faith! He fits!
So. A neat little build, fun to make, great to look at and destined to be zoomed across living room floors around the world. At £8.99 it's a bargain. If you can find it cheaper then it's a no-brainer.
Highly recommended.
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- Hahahaha. As if I'd ever rip a box open. A serrated knife gently worked into the gaps to cut through the glue and you can close the box up like it had never been opened. As it should be. Children and clumsy people - get a responsible adult to help you if necessary - I don't want to hear tales of fingers being pierced (or worse).
- I say 'we', I mean, 'my beloved wife'.
- Well, I say bag. Two bags. Two large Lego bags. Stuffed full.
- I'd like to say I'm joking, but... Honestly, the move to a bigger house can't come quickly enough.
- Five minutes Googling.
- Side note. I have two Scooby Doo sets from back in 2015/6. 75902 Mystery Machine and 75904 Mystery Mansion, the latter being the only way you could get the Velma minifig. I've just seen what they're worth on a secondary market in their unopened state. Yikes! as Velma would say. Now I don't want to open them.
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