The LEGO Group have just announced the next car in the LEGO® Creator Expert series 10265 Ford Mustang, based on the 1967 Fastback and will be racing into LEGO stores and online from 1 March 2019. It has 1,471 elements and priced US $149.99/€129.99/£119.99. Jonas Kramm gets into gear to take a closer look under the hood of this 1960s American muscle car.
The LEGO Creator Expert theme’s new addition to your garage is a classic 1967 Ford Mustang. It’s a dark blue beast that comes with two play features and - even more importantly – includes two new moulds and more delicious recolours.
As someone who as near to no clue about cars the building was a great pleasure. It’s a very satisfying experience to see how the lines of the original get translated into brick form and how seamlessly the final product is. The Mustang really benefits from the edgy design of its big brother as the main shape is rather simple and the designers therefore could focus more on particular details.
In terms of building techniques there is nothing extremely unorthodox, but still a lot of details caught my attention and I had to admit how clever it was done. For example this SNOT connection at the bumper bar which makes unexpected use of the 1x1 Brick With Handle (Design ID 28917).
It also made me smile to see how designer Mike Psiaki showed his love for triangles once more with this simple use of the Pythagorean Theorem at the beams under the hood: 3² + 4² = 5².
Functions
Building the chassis of LEGO vehicles can get boring sometimes, but not with the Mustang as you implement the two functions of the set at the same time as constructing the chassis.It has steering in the front that can be used by turning the steering wheel. It’s a simple mechanism, but as far as I know it’s the first time we see it in a Creator Expert car and it works perfectly.
The back of the car can be lifted by turning a well-hidden wheel at the rear end.
Notable is also the good use of a Black flag (30292) to prevent you from looking through the gap when the rear suspension is adjusted.
Modifications
“Designed to be designed by you” was the Mustang’s first advertising slogan and correspondingly the set comes with six additions to customize the car according to the owner’s desire: The adjustable rear suspension, shorty exhaust headers, supercharger with scoop intake, front splitter, rear spoiler and a nitrous oxide tank in the trunk.
I have no clue what half of these are for, but it looks totally cool when you add them to the vehicle.
New moulds in 10265 Ford Mustang
Now to the two new moulds in this set. The expected one is the new 5-Spoke Wheels (Element ID 6250349|Design ID 42716) in Metallic Silver [TLG]/ Flat Silver [BL]. The shape of the spokes reminded me of the Plate 1X1 W/Tooth (Design ID 49668), but it’s a bit different.
The other new mould, which I didn’t expect at all, is a new addition to the curved slope family. It’s a 2x8 bow (Design ID 42918) that comes in two colours: Earth Blue [TLG]/ Dark Blue [BL] (Element ID 6250351) and White (6253935), but also in a printed racing stripe version (6258674).
The curve angles are not new as it has the same shape as Brick With Bow 1X10 (Element ID 13731) and Shell 3X10 (Design ID Left 50955 | Design ID Right 50956).
Interestingly both new moulds get pointed out at the beginning of the instructions.
Recolours
As expected for an Earth Blue car we get some recolours in that beautiful colour.
First are three rather small parts: Brick 1X1 W. Handle (6256616|28917) as mentioned before at the building techniques, Plate 1X1 Round W/3.2 Shaft (6251253|26047) and Roof Tile W. Lattice 1X2X2/3 (6251248|61409).
New in that colour is also the rather unfamiliar Right Brick 2X4 W/Bow/Angle (6251251|43720) and its counterpart Left Brick 2X4 W/Bow/Angle (6251250|43721).
The Shell 3X10 (Element ID Left 50955 | Element ID Right 50956) was never made in Earth Blue before and will stay unavailable for now as it comes only with a printing with the Mustang (Element ID Left 6258699 | Element ID Right 6258697).
Two more colour changes surprised me when I looked through the inventory for the first time: Plate 1X1, W/ 3.2 Shaft And 1.5 Hole (Element ID 6258831| Design ID 31561) in Medium Stone Grey [TLG]/ Light Bluish Gray [BL] was long overdue and Plate W/ Half Bow Inv. 1X2X2/3 (Element ID 6251252| Design ID 24201) in Brick Yellow [TLG]/ Tan [BL] will come in handy too.
Not new, but returned from the dead is Strap 12 M in Black (Element ID 6096303| Design ID 18390), which was used last 17 years ago.
Printed Elements
For a set of this price point you can expect some new printed elements and will get them. Prominent at the front is the 1x3 Tile with Mustang emblem (Element ID 6258156) in Medium Stone Grey.
For the White stripes on the sides there are two new decorated elements the simple stripe (Element ID 6258695) on Plate W. Bow 2X2X2/3 (Design ID 15068) and the GT emblem (Element ID 6258692) printed on Plate W. Bow 2X4X2/3 (Design ID 88930). Both in Earth Blue.
All parts for the Earth Blue racing stripe are printed too. To visualize them on the hood, roof and boot lid it needs four different White elements: The new 2x8 Bow (Element ID 6258674) that was mentioned before, two Flat Tile 2X4 (Element ID 6258071), four Flat Tile 2X3 (Element ID 6258380) and two Plate W. Bow 2X2X2/3 (Element ID 6258166).
When you put two of these striped elements next to each other it can happen that the stripe doesn’t align perfectly, because some of the printings seem to be a tad off. This effect increases when you place two pieces contrary to each other, but just by turning one of the parts around you can negotiate the effect at all.
That won’t work in every situation (for example with slopes), but when I built the Mustang I had no problem to align all striped parts perfectly.
Unfortunately the 2x2 Tile on the rear end with the GT emblem is a sticker.
Conclusion
If I had to nit-pick it would be the interior. While the middle part with the shift lever is well done, everything around is rather boring. Paddles or more interesting seats would have made it better. You also don’t get a printed Mustang 1x1 Tile for the steering wheel, but luckily you get one extra at the engine, so you can add it yourself. While the doors looks great from the outside and open quite good the inner side looks a bit random to me.
Nonetheless I really like this set. Maybe it’s because of the colour or because, as LEGO always wishes, I had a great building experience. It’s just the perfect car to make in brick form with not too many curves the designers have to struggle with, and a lot of character.
READ MORE: Read our review of the previous LEGO® Creator Expert vehicle, 10262 James Bond™ Aston Martin DB5
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Products mentioned in this post were kindly supplied by the LEGO Group. All content represents the opinions of New Elementary authors and not the LEGO Group. All text and images are © New Elementary unless otherwise attributed.
When an engine runs, exhaust comes out expanded due to high temperature, and due to the addition of combustion gasses. The quicker that gas can be expelled, the more efficiently the engine runs. Long exhaust lines, pushing the gasses through an exhaust manifold that restricts the airflow, and from what I've heard even mismatching the length of the different exhaust lines can all contribute to reduced performance, so these short exhaust pipes are basically opening the floodgates on the exhaust and allowing it to expel the fumes as fast as possible.
ReplyDeleteThe supercharger with scoop is designed to feed as much oxygen-rich air into the engine block as possible. Can't burn gasoline without oxygen, so the blower can dramatically increase your horsepower.
The front splitter and rear spoiler are all about doing one thing, which is pressing the car down to the pavement at high speeds. Pretty much any car gets adequate traction when driving through a packed parking lot. For high performance cars on the open road (or race cars on a closed track), any loss of traction can be fatal at high speeds. These are like the opposite of airplane wings, basically loading up the suspension so the car won't slip in a turn. If you watch video of race-tuned cars hitting high speeds, the entire body of the car just sinks downward due to the dramatic increase in air pressure as these components take effect.
Nitrous oxide oxidizes more efficiently than actual oxygen, though you can destroy your engine if you're not careful with it.
The one that I'm not really sure about is the jacked suspension, but I _suspect_ it is meant to turn the entire car body into a source of down-pressure by tipping the entire thing up into the airflow.
In theory, increasing the 'rake' on the car (creating more space underneath at the back than at the front) will create a pressure difference from front to back, encouraging the airflow to speed up under the car and therefore 'pulling' it down into the road more. This is similar to the 'ground effects' of the early 80s F1 cars. Having a big gap at the sides of the car will seriously impact on that though, as the air will spill out the sides (hence the F1 cars had 'skirts' at the sides to seal the gap and keep the airflow inside).
DeleteIn summary, it could be to do that, but the effect wouldn't be too big, so it's possible they just jacked the back up to make it look more imposing.
As a former gear head, street racer in the 70's, street racing wasn't just about high speeds. Since you were racing relatively short distances (usually between street lights) your timing off the line was a critical factor. By jacking up the rear you could put super sized tires or 'slicks' on the rear to get better traction (surface area) during take off.
ReplyDeleteWow, amazing. ^^ I just bought this and add a LEGO light bricks kit
ReplyDeleteThat new 2x8 bow is a lovely surprise! It will certainly be easier to use in some contexts (both for MOCs and sets) than the 1x10 bow. And as far as future set designs are concerned, a bigger surface to apply prints or stickers to is often a nice strength of a 2 stud wide part compared to its 1 stud wide equivalents.
ReplyDeleteThe set design here is remarkably strong, but I'm not really much of a motorhead so I don't have any personal interest in it.
This may be the best set of 2019. <3
ReplyDeleteThese are good reviews. Can you do the 42083?
ReplyDeleteThanks! We did the Bugatti last year - in fact it's so awesome we did 3 posts about it, check them out! Technic Bugatti reviews on New Elementary
DeleteFor us it completely did not work we are amazing at legos in my entire life I’ve never seen such poor legos they just would stick!!!!!?????
ReplyDeleteNot quite sure what you mean, but you should contact Customer Services if the pieces are not holding together.
DeleteGood post, wan to buy one for my kid,but it fits for 16+, maybe some years later.
ReplyDeleteThis is good technic model. Lego just release new fast and furious model too
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