allanp

Agreed. Absolutely why not have the superficial eye candy on the outside while still having great mechanisms on the inside? They could make yet another car set, this time aimed at girls in all pink for all I care, and still make a mechanically great set out of it. Superficial looks and mechanics aren't mutually exclusive. But even just focusing on the looks, mechanics that are true to life that you can build yourself can look as cool to a small boy as a sleek car exterior. I don't think building real true to life mechanical things is really THAT niche among their target age group. Sure some young boys today just want a screen to play with, but any young boy that's still into cars in general will still get a buzz from a cool and authentic looking gearbox. Technic cars of the late 80 and 90s looked good without being covered up because the internal mechanics also looked cool. Technic cars can be covered in fancy paneled exteriors but as you can always see the mechanisms as you are building them, they should also still look just as cool. Mechanics in a Technic set should be treated like minifigures in a star wars set. They should look cool and good enough to be eye candy in and of themselves, and shown proudly somewhere on the box. You couldn't really do that with any modern technic gearbox, even with the fantastic new parts in an 18+ set, they are seriously cool parts, but they are still presented, arranged and colored to look like an uncool toddlers incomprehensible mess. It's like taking a beautifully tender and juicy roast chicken and smothering it in fluorescent green/yellow paint (presumably so your 18+ customers can find it on the dinner plate) and then wondering why your perfectly cooked chicken is so niche!

I can live with the multitude of cars and a bunch of other stuff that's not for me so long as there are a few alternatives to keep me interested. The 1:5 Yamaha, the airbus, the John Deere skidder, the pneumatic tow truck, these are all very good sets. There are some other lesser talked about but surprisingly good sets also, like the 42174 racing yacht. These sets that still carry the soul of Technic are few and far between, and the flagships have been mechanically rather dull and/or inauthentic. But I've been a fan over 30 years, I've been here before with Technic, and every now and then they release an Arocs of a set, an absolute beast of a flagship that will wipe all the tears away. The technic team may be overseen by cooperate marketing focus group worshipping penny pinchers, but I think they them selves are still fans. In terms of a truly great flagship, I have a feeling, maybe this year maybe not, but something is coming. At least, I still hope!

And forklift and a telehandler at that price? I would agree. But a backhoe? I wouldn't want to tie the designers hands by limiting them to a price point, not for a proper, flagship of flagships, fully pneumatic JCB backhoe. Make is as big and as costly as it needs to be. The bucket wheel excavator had to be quite big t do what it does, and I think a properly good backhoe would be the same. While 8455 is a legend, it does miss out many functions of a JCB, such as an opening/closing front bucket, rear side shift, rear telescoping boom, pendular front axle and 4 wheel drive. A super powerful motorized compressor would also be very nice (one farty little motor pump ain't gonna cut it! It's functions need speed and POWAH to replicate the real thing) At a price of 250, I think they'd have to leave out too much potential.

On please no! No more forcing screens on kiddies please TLG!

Love the dark blue. Looking at the parts list it also looks to have the proper engine, not the cam style engine (which the 1:5 ducati has).

I mean, the gearbox of the Yamaha was a legendary improvement in gearboxes for sure (the gearbox being the most mechanically interesting part, so that's wonderful!), but if this Ducati doesn't improve on the gearbox in some way (like adding more speeds), and it uses the newer, less realistic cam style engine, then it's a step backwards overall.

Unfortunately I think you're right. One step forwards (gearboxes are getting better) but one step back (unrealistic engine, less realistic than what we already had for decades).

This looks fantastic! I'd also like to see an underside shot.

Nice work, looks very cartoonish in its proportions but you're limited to the parts of the set and it ends up looking kinda cute!

By "pump" I assume you mean pneumatic cylinder/piston/actuator? Only one pump (in this case aquarium pump) would be required. But yes, this would work. The pumps supply is fed to both valves. Valve A controls pneumatic piston B. Piston B is then mechanically linked to valve Bs lever, so that also moves. Valve B controls Piston A so now piston A moves. Piston A is mechanically linked to valve As lever so now that moves, and the cycle repeats over and over again (this is the same as the b-model of 8868). Then you just link the wall to the movement of the pistons.

Excellent work! Looks very playable.

Quick question, has anyone tried engaging the rear diff lock and then driving it round in circles? I was wondering what would give in this model. Do the large tyres actually slip as one wheel tries to cover more distance than the other?

I'm not sure what you are trying to say with this. I didn't say our gripes were shared by everyone, or that there aren't people raving about the set. I'm saying that if they had much more mechanically authentic mechanisms, that both looked more like the real thing and that also functioned and played really well, then all these people would still rave about it! But maybe they would also have some beauty shots of a gorgeous gearbox to post in their article for all the piston and gear heads to swoon over, as opposed to a picture of a barely understandable, overly colourful garbled mess that looks as though it's aimed for a much younger audience despite being too overly complex. While some people are not bothered by the colours and the current "it's only a display model" attitude to the steering and whatnot, there are some people that are bothered those things, and the people that aren't bothered still won't be bothered, though might be pleasantly surprised when these things are improved. Sometimes it's hard to know what we want from something that were only a passing casual fan of. The writers of articles like the one you posted, sure they like what they see and that's great, but I think we have a better understanding of how good it could be! I know it's easy for me to sit and imagine the truly ultimate Technic car, and that the difficult part is making it into reality. But I have faith in the Technic design team. I truly believe that if I can I imagine it, they can do it! I think that if and when they get to the pinnacle of how good it can be through years of continuous improvement then these same article writers and their readers will swoon even more over it, and the rest of us will love it too!

I'm likely to get it too! It's not a bad set, I'm just saying that as a fan of authentic mechanisms, I like the improvements over the Ferrari but there's still a lot more they could do. I am glad to see these improvements coming out over many years and I do feel like fan feedback is helping to drive and maybe even inspire these improvements. I greatly appreciate that, but I'm also not going to stop giving my own feedback. The fact that they have at least appeared to listen to and react to feedback makes me feel listened to as a fan, makes me want to continue giving feedback and also try to give more thoughtful and considered opinions, which is why I waited a while before posting. Yes I can modify it. If I could modify a Vauxhall/Opel into being a Lamborghini, would that make a Vauxhall as good as a Lamborghini and therefore worth the price of a Lamborghini? Yes I can modify it but that's not the point. It's better than the Ferrari but if they want some options for making the next one even better from this fans perspective, well I have presented some in this thread. To be clear, I don't want to even try to spoil anyone's enjoyment of this set, not that I even could, I'm likely to get it myself. I'm just also of the opinion that the next UCS car can improve things even further.

@nerdsforprez but I am not saying to target ONLY a narrow segment of the market, this is the false dichotomy that you appear to be presenting. I'm saying to cast their nets even wider to cater to not only to current fans of display models but also to fans of mechanically authentic models. And I do want to repeat that they are getting better, make no mistake, I can see their improvement in this regard. I mean, when you think about it, just how big is the market for "beautiful" display models that have a bunch of huge panel gaps and is only a Lego approximation? It also seems like a niche thing to want TBH. Is it right to just assume that also niche market is many times bigger than the market of buyers looking for mechanically accurate models? I don't think you need to be super mechanically skilled or knowledgeable to look at two different gearboxes, see one has two shafts with a bunch of tastefully coloured gears of different sizes and neatly arranged in pairs, see the other has something like 14 shafts with as many different clown colours for the gears and think, one looks like a cool scale model which I could learn from and the other looks like a clown coloured toy that's not aimed at me because I'm an adult, and I'll never understand because I'm not an engineer. When I look at the new Technic sets, I'm not thinking "oh boy oh gee oh wow, I'm a smarty pants engineer that's knows how everything works and I belong to this right upper part of this market group thingy so therefore I want this and I want that....". No. I see something and think, I like it, or I don't like it. I see this P1 and I see where I think it improves on things, and where it could have been better. A company that strives for only bigger profits in the short term at the expense of continual improvement in the long term will not last while it has competition. Thankfully for TLG, it's competition is rather lacking, but they are also getting better.

I'm not sure that it necessarily follows that a car this size has to be fully Technic. The largest and heaviest sets are not sold under the Technic theme but are like the AT-AT, which kinda feels like a Technic set in disguise but is not sold as Technic. If they want a display model then bring out a new theme (speed champions ultra, which would spell UCS backwards?) with Technic inner structures but brick built exteriors. But I don't think this is the solution we want is it? I don't want to buy an illusion either. Like I said to @nerdsforprez, there's no reason why we can't have the same great, display model quality looks while at the same time improving on all the more "Technic" aspects to make it much more than only a display model. "These are only display models" you say, but why? They don't have to be! If you get all you want from these things being only a display model well that's great, I would never want or try to deny you that. But why deny all the other great values they could bring like "build for real" authentic mechanisms and good playability when there's no reason to? Having said all this, I still say the P1 is an improvement over what came before. It has, as far as I can see, one singular 7 speed gearbox using 4 different sizes of clutch gear. It's still far too overly complex with too many shafts, but that is still better than the Chiron, Sian and Ferrari having two 4 speed gearboxes mangled together to make a 16 speed gearbox but where the ratios are duplicated giving us an 8 speed 16 position gearbox when the original car it was based on had a 7 speed! So I do want to give Lego props for that.

This is indeed a strong argument however, to me it appears like a false dichotomy (correct me if I'm wrong) where we have to choose between sets that appeal to one type of audience (it has to look great, which this set does) or it has to appeal to another type of audience that like authentic mechanisms that perform and play well. But I don't think we have to choose, why not have both? I don't see any reason why the gearbox couldn't be laid out more realistically or why the steering wheel couldn't be angled up towards the driver and why the steering couldn't work well while still keeping the outward appearance the same? We have a removable knob for the rear wing but not for the steering? In fact, imagine we have an authentic working and authentic LOOKING gearbox! The clutch gears would be on one shaft with the opposing gears one another shaft. They would all be gun metal grey with a discreet ring of colour printed on them to aid building. I mean, minifigs get dual moulding, prints and so on, these gearbox parts are our minifigs! So you make this much more authentic, absolutely not multicoloured and great looking gearbox, well now you can slap a picture of that somewhere on the box and now the overall package looks even cooler, and the gearheads are also happy! There is beauty in a cars looks for sure, but there is also beauty in miniature mechanisms that both work and look like the real thing. Actually working breaks would not only add to the functionality, but if done right would actually be a much more pleasing thing to look at than something that is fake. So I do think it's possible to appeal more to both sides. Whilst I may be one one side, I can still appreciate the spending power of the other! Also, I kinda view the different themes as being like different forms of music. Speed champions, star wars and whatever, they are like different pop bands, and Technic is like ACDC, which is a rock band. Pop might sell better than rock, but rock still sells amazingly well and be around for much longer than pop in it's current form. So should ACDC make a pop album? Heck no! It would suck and all the ACDC fans would say they have lost it? They should stick to what they can do better than the rest. Technic can do fully customisable mechanisms based on generic components better than any other brand or company, let alone any other Lego theme. Although it's of course important to branch out to as wide of an audience as possible, I understand that, but they shouldn't forget what it's best at.

I am late to comment but still not sure what to say. It's better than the Ferrari because it actually improves on the internal mechanics, mostly the gearbox but also the larger wishbones, and I think it looks better to. It's also great to see the new 12t clutch gear, fantastic! But now the bad. Why does the gearbox still look like a jumbled mess of gears on far to many axles? We're getting some good gearbox parts now, and we're slowly getting to a good number of different sized clutch gears. But it seems they're not there yet. Also, why is the steering wheel still not angled up towards the driver and why is the stepper mechanism still stuffed behind the steering wheel? Why is the steering wheel geared to be so hard to turn and why no hand of God? It seems they are still stuck between two different goals, one is to be a display model where all of the above is more excusable, because the functions won't be played with anyway, and the other goal is to be a good Technic set, as in not a display model. If anyone sees this as a display model then they should have made it from Lego bricks, not Lego Technic. Technic sets are sets that move, that do stuff, that have working mechanisms like the real thing. That's why it has a gearbox and why it absolutely should have a gearbox, it's that simple. You should be able to drive and steer it around the floor easily, and see the engine turn at different speeds (I do like the removable cover btw). But some people seem to think this is some impossible dream, but it wasn't in 1988 with the test car, 1994 with 8880 daytona vx4 supercar or in 1998 with the super street sensation. It is better than the Ferrari, overall it is an improvement to the line of UCS cars, and I'm really happy to see these new gearbox parts. But this car still gives too much weight to @kbalage argument that these cars are for display only. I obviously disagree with that argument but it's not entirely unreasonable to hold to that argument when playability remains so poor, especially when it comes to steering and being able to drive the car and see the engine turning at different speeds. These new and improved gearbox parts are supposed to allow for much more accurate, low friction gearboxes to be made. This allows for the engine to be geared to spin faster (so speed changes are more noticeable when manually driving it), or if Lego still had decently fast motors, to enable jacking the rear wheels off the ground (like 8448) so we can really see the wheels spin fast, and hear the satisfying brrrRRRR click brrrrRRRR of the gear changes. I'm still hopeful that they will get there eventually. But they need to make one of these cars such that it lays the "display model" argument to rest. Technic absolutely should never be a home to display models.

Buggy motors be like....

I'd have preferred less pistons, like an inline 4 over this. This is a step backwards in authenticity. I don't buy the "If the licencing partner wants" argument. So the licensing partners might have preferred one thing over another, so what? Let them buy Legos entire production run then. If the fans want something else then screw what the licencing partner wants, they ain't paying for it .

Maybe it's number 2b, or maybe it's not 2b, that is the question!

I'm not sold on this so far. I really don't like the Kawasaki style engine, especially in a full sized car, would have preferred less pistons to less mechanical realism. Also, the way the locking diff is controlled directly on the rear axle is not up to the level of a Technic flagship IMHO. But we haven't seen the gearbox yet, so maybe there is some good stuff happening there? So far it's a pass from me.

It looks quite real to me. If it is based on a 10 year old car then I'd say that's a good thing! I never really cared what it was, only if the mechanics are good and worth the price. Limiting yourself to only doing the latest model of car doesn't allow you to pick whatever would make for a great Technic set. Would we not have preferred the classic defender with full live axles rather than the newer one? Heck, I still don't see why the UCS cars have to all be supercars! Why not a classic defender or a Ram pickup, or even a family hot hatch (something far more people could relate to), or anything with a stick shift?! Anyway, being another supercar, it is what it is. Time will tell if there's anything worth the price on the inside. I know many fans here would say that it's another car, there can't be any novelty left. But to me there's still lots of room for improvement. Same functions, just done much better.

There are 2 valves, they are connected the red levers on the stand.

Well this looks better than expected!