A library that only holds flagships is a badly built library. If every box that went out was 3,500 pieces, most people would fall behind by the second one and start dreading the postman.
These two make the point better than anything else we have. Both are 1:8 scale cars. One is 3,893 pieces and the other is 834. You could not ask for a clearer illustration of why the same scale can mean two completely different fortnights.
McLaren P1 (42172)
The P1 is a project rather than a build. The seven-speed gearbox, the V8, the suspension and the steering all go into a dense central chassis, and you spend most of the first week looking at a black skeleton with no obvious car in it.
Then the orange starts going on and it turns into a McLaren over about two sessions. The dihedral doors are a proper linkage rather than a hinge, and they are the bit everybody plays with once it is done.
At 59 cm it needs a table you are not using for anything else. This is not a set you pack away between sessions without regretting it.
See the P1 →
Porsche GT4 e-Performance (42176)
834 pieces and still a full 1:8 car with a working gearbox, independent suspension all round, a flat-four with moving pistons, and doors and bonnet that open. That is a serious amount of function for a set you can finish across two evenings.
What makes it interesting is the subject. It is Porsche’s all-electric race car, so the model carries a flat-four for the sake of the Technic rather than the real thing, and the finished shape is a proper motorsport livery rather than a road car.
This is the one I would put in front of somebody who thinks a small set means a compromised set. It is not a scaled-down anything. It is a complete car that happens to be quick.
See the Porsche →Why a library needs both
Nobody picks their kit here, so the mix I buy is doing the choosing on everybody’s behalf. That makes the balance my problem rather than yours, and it is the part of this job I think about most.
If the library were all flagships, the rotation would slow to a crawl and half the members would have a half-built car sitting under a sheet. If it were all short builds, the people who joined precisely because they wanted to attempt a 4,000-piece machine would never get one.
So the aim is that over a year you get both. A couple of long ones that take over the table, and several that fit into a week when the table is needed for eating off.
Before the P1 goes out I run every gear selector and turn the engine under light hand pressure, because on a set that size a fault is buried under three hours of work by the time you would find it.
On the Porsche I pay more attention to panel alignment and the steering, because there is far less bodywork to hide a slightly crooked join and the finished car is small enough that you see the whole thing at once.
Different projects, different failure modes. That is the honest reason both belong here.
Piece counts and dimensions come from LEGO’s own pages for 42172 and 42176.
If either of these has been through your hands, send me the photograph. The Brick Club Facebook group or garreth@brickclub.uk.
Six or twelve kits a year, and you never know which
Every box is a Technic set worth over 100 pounds, chosen at random, and you never get the same kit twice. Postage both ways, a pre-paid return label, a brick separator and the official instructions come with all of them.
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