I bought this kit several months ago, and it was time to make it:
A licensed Technic kit is a bit weird, but it’s another construction vehicle, and I’m a sucker for those. Although to be honest I would have preferred it without the ‘power functions’, which sadly have become more than just an option in recent years. More on that later.
The box is suitable massive, but strangely empty when opened. I guess they make it bigger to make it seem like it has more pieces than it does! Unlike other kits, the bags aren’t labelled and you need to open them all before starting. If you don’t like sorting pieces in advance (and I don’t) this sort of packaging leads to longer build times due to the time digging through the pile to find a particular piece.
The instruction book is massive – over 300 pages in total. As usual for Lego kits, it’s wonderful designed and makes the kit very easy to assemble. Things start off complex from the get go. I’m only a few pages in and you can see already how complicated the gearing for the wheels is. It also becomes quickly apparent just how large the finished kit is:
That’s a shot from much later in assembly, showing the massive bulk of the main engine compartment. You can see how dense the construction is here, and you can see how the ‘power function’ elements (such as the motors) are structural. Even if you wanted to build the kit without them, you would be in for some serious customization and deviation from the manual. I’m not a big fan of this approach.
It’s an extremely sturdily build model, and I know if I’m ever going to take it apart it’ll be a hell of a job. Good thing I didn’t make any mistakes during construction…
…except that I did! It’s hard to see in the photo, but I used the incorrect axle on one rear wheel, all the way back at the start of assembly. I didn’t notice this until the 11.99th hour (long after the above shot was taken) and it was a real chore disassembling half the underside of the rear wheels to fix the problem. Had I made an error somewhere internal in the model, I may have had to put it away somewhere for a while out of frustration!
All told the construction took me maybe 6 or 7 hours over a few weeks. Here’s the gigantic (and heavy!) finished kit:
A better shot:
And one for scale:
Since many of you know just how big Yossie is, you can clearly see that this is a monster of a Technic kit. It’s heavy and long enough that you need two hands to carry it!
And how does it work? Here’s a quick video I shot of the ‘power functions’:
A bit slow perhaps, but impressive given the size of the model. I don’t show it too well in the video, but it moves along quite speedily for it’s size!
Verdict: massive, impressive, complex and fun-to-build technic kit that I believe would have been even better without the motors.