8265 Wheel Loader

Blakbird published a detailed review about the 8265 Wheel Loader on Eurobricks. As an appetizer a video about the set:

8865 video

I have managed to upload the video about the 8865:

8865 Test Car

The risky purchase project has finished successfully. I admit that this was my biggest gamble evere, I only hoped that it has all the pieces. Although the set has many fragile parts all of them are in excellent shape: nothing is broken or sunburnt, they have not even been covered in dust. From the traces I suspect that the previous owner has built it together once or twice and then all the pieces ended up in a bag, for my luck. This is the oldest set I have bought so far and the one in the best condition - I will make a comparison of all my purchases sometime.


Like its age suggest, the car is built almost entirely from bricks and only a few special parts. The chassis and the bodywork is made of bricks and so is the rear suspension (excluding the springs and some links). Only the front suspension makes heavy use of special parts.


Interestingly, this car is almost a perfect representation of the developments that have happened in the car industry in the last 20 years. This car feels much more raw than its predecessors. It only has 4 pistons but they are brutally large - the block itself is bigger than a later V10. It runs very smoothly though. The gearbox has 3 gears and no synchronization at all. It happens frequently that it does not take a gear because the cogs are not in position. It also happens that the gearbox drops out of a previously selected gear. It is not very sophisticated and makes the owner feel the technology behind it unlike its successors. (Ok, the 8880 is at least hard to push forward but the 8448 is really very soft.)

I am very happy that I have bought it, it was well worth the 47 Euros it cost (about $85). Even more so if we count the remaining pieces (I will write about it later).

Let the images tell the rest of the story. And here comes the video:

8258 Crane Truck video

TechnicBRICKs has published the first video about the 8258 Crane Truck:

Any plans to move to England?

Top Gear star James May plans to build a full scale house made of Lego bricks as part of the now running tv series Toy Stories. The house will have two floors, a shower and everything to live a "normal" life. He plans to spend a weekend in the house - who knows, maybe it will be open for ordinary people after that?


One of the helpers takes delivery of three and a half million bricks arriving from the Czech Republic.

Moon landing

How else could one pay tribute to the successful Apollo-11 mission and the first Moon landing than with this photo? There is more of course.

Quick report

I report that the 8865 set that was purchased the risky way got in my physical proximity during the summer vacation. The bricks are in surprisingly good condition, nothing broken, not even dusty, which is not bad from a set that was first marketed in 1988. What I have found:

• there are four large wheels, promsing
  
• I have found all the parts so far, even more promising
  
• there are many parts from other sets, I did not find out yet which ones

I do not promise to make a video like the one about the 8448, but something is definitely coming.

Lego 8448 Super Car II.

The supercar project reached its first stage of completion - it is complete. The replacement for the missing parts has not arrived yet, so I have built the convertible.

Instead of telling more let us look at the pictures:



And the video:


More pictures in the album.

Lego 8258 Crane Truck commercial

This ad appeared on YouTube:

(TechnicBRICKs.)

Lego 8448 Super Car I.

Let's take a look at the super car from 1999 as promised. As usual, I have bought the set second hand on the net for CHF 89 (approx. $80). It came assembled and was a little bit dusty. A bit disappointing that contrary to the description some parts were missing like the damped springs. I took it apart completely just to be able to build it and clean it. (I normally use an old toothbrush to do this.)

Most Lego models come with instructions to build two or three different models, but this one is different. There is only one chassis only but we get instructions to built 6 different shells: it can be a sports car with gullwing doors, a coupe-convertible, a concept car, a racer, a hot rod or a buggy.

This model resembles a real car the most from all the super cars I have seen so far. It has exactly the same mechanical features as a real car: differential, gearbox, engine, suspension and steering. The 8880 is more complex but also makes a less credible impression. The four wheel drive is still ok, but the four wheel steering has not really gained adoption amongst real cars. Unlike the 8880 this car is exactly like a real one: engine in the front, rear wheel drive and a drivetrain between. No overcomplicated chain drives, in exchange easy to push and easy to steer.

Another specialty is that each main piece is built separately to be assembled later, like the suspensions and the engine.

Let's see a video about how it is built:



As usual, images in the album. To be continued!

Overwhelmed

These days I am overwhelmed with Lego sets. I have already covered the ones I got for my birthday and the 8865 Test Car is not forgotten about either. (However it is many kilometers away from me right now, it takes some time before I can take it in my hands - I promise it will come soon.)

But this is not the end of the story yet. Meanwhile I have managed to get a 8448 Sports Car too. I have already mentioned my ambitions to get all the pieces of the Big Car series and this is a new item in the row. This is where I stand now: 853 (1977), 8860 (1980), 8865 (1988)?, 8880 (1994), 8448 (1999).


I have started to put it together but documenting everything appropriately takes some time - I promise I will get there in days.

But even this is not the end of the whole story. Somehow I got a 8422 motorbike too, waiting to be re-assembled. I think was the biggest surprise of all my deals so far. I have bought second-hand sets with full warranty, missing bricks shipped after me. I have bought sets assembled and disassembled but I did not expect what has happened with this bike. It came in assembled in a bag. When I opened the bag I already got suspicious because some parts that should have been white according to my memories looked pretty yellowish. And besides that... it stinked! The previous owner must have been a chain smoker and the smell was so strong that I had to put it to the balcony to make sure the family sleeps well. I always learn something new :)

I hope I can make it enjoyable soon so that I can cover it.

Birthday surprise

I happened to have a birthday recently. I planned enough carefully and selected something that has nothing to do with Lego. Well, I have failed :) This is what happens if a caring mother prepares the children and makes sure they have something to give to their father :)

So I got an 8270 Crane:

Ab 8259 Mini Bulldozer:

And an 8165 Monster Jumper:

They are all very nice :) And how do they look like in motion? Click on the video:



More images in the album.

New NXT!

Besides the lot of other new stuff appearing it seems that there will be new Mindstorms NXT 2.0 soon. The brick contains a 32-bit processor, Bluetooth and USB ports. The set includes 3 servos, an ultrasonic sensor, two touch sensors and a brand new color sensor as well. The price is $280 in the US and between EUR 290 and 325 in Europe.

A short video from Toys'R'Us:

TechnicBRICKs provides more details as usual.

New Star Wars sets

Life goes on outside the Technic world as well, the Star Wars series got new members. You may know 7749 Echo Base from The empire strikes back and 8038 The Battle of Endor from the Return of the Jedi.