A twist in the series? Reviewing the F1® Collectable Cars
Like many of us I'm always intrigued to see what LEGO has lined up in terms of the themed sets. In previous years we have had really stand out sets like Dungeons & Dragons, Disney and The Muppets.
I was slightly underwhelmed when they announced this set, however I guess it was inevitable to say the least following on from the formidable partnership that started between two massive IP's. Now that I have my full set built and on display I wanted to give my honest review.
- F1 Collectable Cars was always bound to happen
Since the partnership between the two we have seen some major products being released within various themes. Icons has Senna and Mansell. Speed Champions has the whole line up and it has even started taking over most of the CITY theme. LEGO has gone F1 crazy!
You cant argue with the ambition to bring new audiences in. Its just an overkill to flood the market with F1 products. It wont be long before LEGO introduce F1 to Brickheadz or even copy what Stars Wars do with the Buildable helmets.
- Lack of detail and uninteresting to look at.
You guessed it, I am not the biggest F1 fan. Speed champions have already done most of the current cars for F1 and I must say they look awesome. Plenty of detail with the sponsors and logos and you even get a minifigure. This is ultimately the smaller scaled version of those F1 Speed Champions cars but with less detail and no minifigure.
I get, it not everyone has a few hundred quid to buy all the Speed Champions F1 cars let alone the space to display them. If your going to dilute a product down at least give us some more detail or at least try and make them look different. Maybe a unique helmet design for each driver or perhaps a pull up visor with an expressive minifigure head would have made the cars pop!
The only feature which I did like was on the Alpine where it has pink wheels on the back and blue on the front. Aside from colours and printing these cars are identical.
- Very sturdy and look great to display
There are positives to this set. They only take around 5 minutes to build and is rigid and sturdy. It don't lose any of its manoeuvrability either.
They are easy to display as the parts are firm when on the chassis (even the smaller tiles and slopes) so moving them around to form your own configurations or racing grids in no problem at all. Annoyingly, these are much less cumbersome to display, move and even play with then traditional minifigures.
- Its NOT part of the Minifigure Series
Lets get one thing thing straight, this is a spin off (pun intended) from the bread and butter numbered and themed minifigure series and LEGO has fully acknowledged this.
There have been many mixed reviews on how the set has been perceived, but I can only admire LEGO for trying something different and leftfield. Has it paid off? Only time will answer that one. They may have similar ideas in the works to collectable cars which we could potentially see. This might be the new meta to integrate a series which isn't minifigures into the cycle. We are going to have to wait and see how that pans out.
- My conclusion
Are they interesting? Not overly. Is there a great attention to detail? Nope. Would I want another set like this? Perhaps not. Has it bought new and diverse attention to the sport. Absolutely! This is exactly what this series was meant to do. Build an understanding of F1 through an avenue of LEGO which is highly accessible and cost efficient for everyone.
F1 and LEGO have accomplished what they set out for. New and wider audiences. My 11 children who had no prior knowledge or interest in F1 are now conscious of the different teams and drivers and have even caught them watching highlights on YouTube.
Both and F1 are the true winners, with us consumers being left divided and unsure of what they could potentially have up there sleeved for the future.