LEGO® Technic review: 42110 Land Rover Defender - the elements

Victor Pruvost (Flickr) returns today to examine the thrilling colour and new moulds found in LEGO® Technic 42110 Land Rover Defender, which retails at £159.99 / 179,99€ / US$199.99.

The last decade saw a massive increase in the size of LEGO® Technic sets. In 2011 the first set with over 2000 parts was released, 8110 Mercedes-Benz Unimog U400, and in 2019 three sets with more than 2000 parts were released, including the biggest Technic set so far, 42100 Liebherr R 9800. Today we’ll be taking a look at another of them, 42110 Land Rover Defender, which is made of 2573 elements.

Elements in new colours

The most striking aspect of the Land Rover Defender is its Olive Green bodywork. It is actually the very first Technic set with Olive Green elements, although it is not the first time we’ve seen Technic parts in this hue: a Legends of Chima set from 2015, 70227 King Crominus’ Rescue, came with eight Double Angular Beam 3X7 45° (6106483 | 32009) which were used for the legs.

Now, back to the Defender. While it does not bring back element 6106483, it comes with a lot of new recolours. Let’s start with the liftarms:

• 8 x Technic 15M Beam (6278074 | 64871)
• 10 x Technic 13M Beam (6278041 | 41239)
• 10 x Technic 7M Beam (6278042 | 32524)
• 12 x Technic 5M Beam (6278029 | 32316)
• 21 x Beam 1x2 W/Cross And Hole (6278043 | 74695)
• 9 x Beam 1x1 (6278105 | 18654)
• 8 x Technic Ang. Beam 4x2 90 Deg (6071197 | 32140)
• 2 x Technic Ang. Beam 3x5 90 Deg. (6278093 | 32526)
• 6 x Halfbeam Curve 3x5 (6278107 | 32250)

Now onto the panels:

• 1 x Panel Curved 11x3x2 (6278109 | 62531)
• 4 x Flat Panel 5x11x1 (6278109 | 62531)
• 2 x Left Panel 2x5 (6278078 | 11947)
• 2 x Right Panel 2x5 (6278079 | 11946)

More surprisingly, we also see some System elements in Olive Green for the first time:

• 10 x Slope Curved 2x2 (6046904 | 15068)
• 1 x Flat Tile 1x8 (6278091 | 4162)
• 5 x Plate 1x8 (6278034 | 3460)
• 6 x Plate 1x6 (6278089 | 3666)
• 1 x Plate 1x3 (6278088 | 3623)
• 2 x Wedge Plate 2x2 Cut Corner (6278087 | 26601)

In addition to that, the set contains a few more recolours not in Olive Green.

• 1 x Frame 7x11 in Black (6265643 | 39794)
• 1 x Technic 9M Beam in Sand Yellow/ Dark Tan (6284142 | 64289)
• 2 x Technic Connector #4 – 135 Degrees in Sand Yellow (6296696 | 42156)

New elements in 42110 Land Rover Defender

Back in 2016, LEGO launched a line of “Ultimate Collector Series” Technic Supercars with 42056 Porsche 911 GT3 RS. It introduced a bunch of new elements, including new rims and wheel arches. The Land Rover Defender also comes with specific rim and wheel arch elements.

There are four Olive Green Technic Panel Car Mudguard 15 x 2 x 7 (6278032 | 46882) in the set. Two other wheel arches have been introduced in 2019, but they were mostly variations in size of the mudguard introduced in the Porsche. The Defender’s wheel arch is more unique in shape, to match the original vehicle as closely as possible.

Another aspect of the Defender’s mudguard is that all the holes point in the same direction, while most other mudguards also have holes going sideways at 90°.

However a prototype of the Defender mudguard with a similar positioning of holes to other mudguards can be spotted in a video about the design process of the model.

We can also see that this prototype of the set features slightly different wheels and, more noticeably, a Sand Blue bodywork. Would you have preferred this shade over the Olive Green that was chosen instead ?

The final version has holes which are positioned in a similar way to the wheel arches of 42096 Porsche 911 RSR (Design ID 42545). More importantly, they are three studs apart horizontally, and four studs apart vertically (measuring from the axis), meaning they are part of a Pythagorean triangle and so diagonally there are exactly five studs between them.

As for the rims (6257076 | 49294), five of them appear in the set: there are four “regular” wheels and a spare wheel attached to the rear door. They have the same dimensions as the rim 15038 (which can be found, for example, in 42099 X-Treme Off-Roader) so they’re compatible with the same tyres, from the slick race tyres (44771) to the huge tractor tyres (23798).

The biggest difference is that, like the Porsche rims (23800), the pin and axle holes aren’t centred: they are offset by one module, to bring the pivot point closer to the centre of the wheel.

They have a slightly smaller diameter than the Porsche rims, but the tyres (6241908 | 56907) have the same diameter as the tyres from the Porsche.

READ MORE: Continue to Part 2 to see unusual techniques and lots of GIFs!

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