REVIEW: 76910 Aston Martin Valkyrie AMR Pro and Aston Martin Vantage GT3

[Oky]

Lotus isn't the only new British car brand to join the Speed Champions theme this year. We also get a dual car pack from Aston Martin, with another set said to come out in August. While it's not the first Aston Martin set LEGO has released, it is the first minifigure-scale one. Despite only have 28 more parts than the Mercedes double pack, this set costs a whole $10 more in the US. Is it worth the price or should you stick with some of the other sets? Read on to find out!

Set Number: 76910
Name: Aston Martin Valkyrie AMR Pro and Aston Martin Vantage GT3
Theme: Speed Champions
Year of Release: 2022
Ages: 8+
Pieces: 592
Price: £34.99 / $39.99 / 39.99€
Online Shop description:

Quote

Here’s a winning combination for fans of superfast cars – the LEGO® Speed Champions Aston Martin Valkyrie AMR Pro and Aston Martin Vantage GT3 (76910) toy building set. Now available to collect, construct and explore, these accurately detailed LEGO models deliver a rewarding building experience, are great for display and awesome to race!

The Box

The front of the box shows the two Aston Martins racing each other down a straight race track. I'm not familiar enough with race tracks to know which one it is supposed to be, if any, so if you recognize it, let me know in the comments.

The back depicts a similar scene with the two cars driving off into the sunset together. How romantic! There are also close-ups of their noses as well as reference images of each car.

Like on the Mercedes set, the top of the box has various translations of the set's name (which is giving the Mercedes set a run for its money in terms of length), although they're a bit more justified here since they actually use the word "and" instead of an ampersand on this one for some reason.

The "official licensed product" mark from Aston Martin is printed on the box for this one instead of being a holographic sticker like on the other sets. There's not much to say about the bottom and the other side.

Contents

Inside the box there are two instruction booklets, two sticker sheets, and four numbered bags. One odd thing about this is that the little baggie with the hubcaps is inside one of the large numbered bags rather than separate like in the other sets. Another is that the numbers on the bags are all printed at random heights. I wonder why.

Instructions

The instructions are very "explosive" as we get more star explosions and sticker bombs. They are relatively easy to read, although the gray tones are still a bit hard to distinguish sometimes.

Notable Parts

This set comes with more of the new style of wheels and hubcaps in black, although after all these sets they are not that rare anymore. We get two printed windscreens in this set and one of them is even a new mold! The Valkyrie's windscreen is 6x7 studs and basically a longer version of windscreen 18973 with sloped sides which should become a useful part in the future. Other printed parts include a 1x2 plate with an Aston Martin logo printed on the side, 2x2 round tiles with dark silver rims, and the headlights. The headlight wedges come in two new colors, dark gray and lime green. Not only that, but we also finally get an unprinted pair of them in lime green, making this the only set so far to feature them without prints. There are also several parts in interesting new and rare colors including 1x2 plates with horizontal clip and 1x1 plates with horizontal tooth in translucent colors or a propeller blade in red.

Minifigs

This set comes with 2 minifigs as expected. The Vantage GT3 is driven by a nerdy guy with spikey brown hair while the Valkyrie is driven by what looks like Nya from Ninjago with dyed dark brown hair. They both have new Aston Martin AMR racing suits with the same print in different color schemes that continue onto their legs. Their design is similar to the one you can buy from Aston Martin's website for the "low" price of £4,385.59.  Interestingly, each of their suits has the color scheme of the other driver's car, which is kind of sweet when you think about it. I'm totally 'shipping these two. Sorry, Jay.

Both of them have the same kind of back printing too. What's a bit disappointing about these torsos is that the "Aston Martin" writing under the logo is not very well defined and quite hard to read, especially on Nya where it just looks like two solid lines. The torsos in the previous set had a lot more legible writing for the most part, so why not these?

The Build

The build of the Valkyrie AMR Pro is very unique. Like the Formula 1 car from the last set, it uses the Speed Champions wheel bearings part as the base, two of them even. The shaping of the front and back are also very different from any other car.

The Vantage GT3's build is a bit more standard, using the usual car base and similar shaping to that of other cars like the Evija and Project One, although there are some interesting SNOT techniques used in the tail section.

Spare Parts

The extra parts consist of the usual small bits and the 5-spoke hubcaps that you can use to customize the Vantage. Nothing exciting.

The Complete Set

Here are the two finished Astone Martins. The Valkyrie AMR Pro looks quite bizarre and almost more like a spaceship than a car. The Vantage GT3 looks similar to other Speed Champions cars of the 8-wide era and seems almost boring next to the wild Valkyrie, but I love its color scheme. Lime green is my favorite color, so it's great to see a set with not just one, but two cars that use this color. Both give the impression of a powerful, modern sports car. Why don't we ever see James Bond drive an Aston Martin like these?

The Valkyrie AMR Pro seems to be based on an early concept art (which you can see below) with the larger headlights and wavy spoiler, but uses the color scheme of the car that Aston Martin actually ended up producing. I think the designers recreated the unusual shape of this concept car about as well as they could.

The Vantage GT3 is pretty spot-on at first glance when compared to the real car.

I really like how they created the lime outline around the Vantage's grill using brackets and fangs, although the studs that are left exposed under the bumper are a bit unsightly. The use of car doors to represent the two thin walls in the grill of the Valkyrie is clever as well. It's a bit sad, though, how these parts which were very common in the 80's and 90's are rarely used as actual car doors anymore.

The designers recreated the wavy spoiler of the Valkyrie nicely using curved slopes and boat studs. I also really like how they did the taillights on the Vantage the way they are sticking out by half a plate and are topped off by a sideways panel and upside down cheese slopes, although the trans-black 1x2 plates that they used to hold those cheese slopes in place look odd and shouldn't be there.

The Valkyrie looks very cool and aerodynamic from the side. It has a neat fin in the back like the Mercedes-AMG ONE from the last review which happens to be one of the Valkyrie's main competitors. Perhaps it's not a coincidence both of these concept cars appear in the same wave.

The Vantage on the other hand looks more angular than it should and I don't like that half-plate gap that is left between the front bumper and fenders.

As you can see in this top view, the Valkyrie is a whole 3 studs longer than the Vantage and other Speed Champions cars like it. Its long spearhead shape and the angled gaps behind the front wheels have been recreated quite well. The printing of the windscreens on both of them is quite good as well, so they don't look out of place. While I like the use of a propeller blade for the Valkyrie's fin, I wish they would have filled in the gaps next to the blade like they did on the Project One.

Both car interiors can be accessed by removing the windscreen and look pretty decent. However, the light gray parts on the Vantage and the Technic connector that holds the fin on the Valkyrie look out of place, and the steering wheel of the Vantage is off-center. The stickers on the center consoles add some nice detail though.

Ratings

Design: 8/10
The Valkyrie looks very cool and unique while the Vantage is a bit boxy and generic.

Build: 6/10
Starts out very interesting with the unusual build of the Valkyrie, but becomes more and more standard with the Vantage.

Playability: 7/10
You can seat the minifigs, customize the rims, and race them against each other.

Figures: 8/10
Despite the usual generic heads, both figs have nicely printed new torsos and legs.

Parts: 9/10
Several new and rare parts, including new prints, unprinted new wedges, and a new windscreen mold.

Price: 8/10
While it's not as good of a value as the other double pack in the US, it's still good price for 592 parts.

Overall: 8/10
This one is a bit of a mixed bag. While the Valkyrie is a very cool and different addition to the theme, the set is bogged down a bit by the Vantage which is kind of just okay. However, the detailed, exclusive racing suits, the new/rare parts, and the very reasonable price still make this a good buy. It may not be the best Speed Champions set, but you definitely won't regret getting it.

Thanks for reading and thanks to TLG for sending me this set for review. What do you think of the set? Let me know in the comments and in the poll above. The set will release on March 1, 2022: https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/aston-martin-valkyrie-amr-pro-and-aston-martin-vantage-gt3-76910

By the way, did you know that the Valkyrie is the product of a collaboration between Aston Martin and Red Bull Racing?

Speed Champions March 2022 Wave: Final Thoughts

Overall, I think this is a very strong wave! Speed Champions just keeps getting better and better and they really took it up a notch with this batch. Aside from some printing issues and minor design flaws, these are all very good and accurate looking. I'm hard-pressed to even pick a favorite (although it's probably not the Lambo). LEGO is clearly trying to compete with the die cast market, and for the most part I think they are getting pretty close to that level of detail. The only downside to these for me is the lack of any scenery or extra builds that were so common in Speed Champions' early years. Those always added a lot more playability to the sets, but with the cars taking up more and more parts now, I'm afraid we won't see something like an entire Formula One pit again any time soon. I guess we can't have everything. Still, these are great sets and I recommend you go and pick some up. I hope you enjoyed this review series. See ya, and drive safe.

 

[BrickMonkeyMOCs]

Thanks for another great review. I thought the Vantage was the best car of the entire wave, while I found the Valkyrie to be absurdly long for its width.

For anyone who feels the same way, my review for HispaBrick Magazine includes instructions for rebuilding the Valkyrie two studs shorter.

Edited March 12, 2024 by BrickMonkeyMOCs

[Oky]

32 minutes ago, BrickMonkeyMOCs said:

Thanks for another great review. I thought the Vantage was the best car of the entire wave, while I found the Valkyrie to be absurdly long for its width.

For anyone who feels the same way, my review for HispaBrick Magazine includes instructions for rebuilding the Valkyrie two studs shorter.

Interesting how our opinions differ. The Vantage isn't bad by any means, but I just felt that it doesn't really capture the organic shape of the real car and that aside from the taillight and grill it doesn't have any interesting building techniques compared to other sets like the Evija or the ONE.

As for the Valkyrie, I think it should be longer. The proportions look right and it is about 28 inches longer than the Vantage IRL.

[BrickMonkeyMOCs]

57 minutes ago, Oky said:

As for the Valkyrie, I think it should be longer. The proportions look right and it is about 28 inches longer than the Vantage IRL.

The issue is length vs width. Take a look at this plan view and then compare with the Lego car.

[Oky]

1 hour ago, BrickMonkeyMOCs said:

The issue is length vs width. Take a look at this plan view and then compare with the Lego car.

Perhaps you're right, but I think the solution in that case should be making it wider, not shorter. Also, keep in mind that that image is of the newer design which might be different width-wise to the one TLG was basing theirs on.

[BrickMonkeyMOCs]

1 hour ago, Oky said:

Perhaps you're right, but I think the solution in that case should be making it wider, not shorter. Also, keep in mind that that image is of the newer design which might be different width-wise to the one TLG was basing theirs on.

I hope they don't ever go wider than 8-wide! They're already pushing it for minifig-scale. I think you're probably right that they were basing the design on the early dark green reference images you've shown. There's no denying though that the final Lego model is badly out of proportion in comparison with the physical prototypes now available in the lime color scheme - which is a pity as I think everything else about the Lego version is really great.

[MKJoshA]

Thanks for al the car reviews! The Valkyrie is the star of the show in this set for sure. Love the angles and new windscreen piece.

[Carbohydrates]

I agree entirely with your opinions on this one. The Valkyrie is fascinating and well-built, and I like its proportions relative to the source material (the prototype, specifically) a lot - it SHOULD be longer than the others. The Vantage is okay. It has some nice techniques with the taillights and the grill, but I'm reeeeaaallly missing that roundness. The real car is all curves, while the LEGO model is all angles. I understand the limitations of the medium, but other LEGO models have done a better job of realizing that curvature. It's especially noticeable on the rear quarter, from the C pillars to the rear fenders. This transition is fully smooth curvature on the real car, and a stepped series of hard angles on the model. I'd put the Valkyrie near the very top of this wave, and the Vantage might be at the very bottom - not as harsh a condemnation as it sounds since all the models this year are SO good. It's just got really tough competition, and I think it fails to stand out.

[Pato Sentado]

I love the Valkyrie, but the Vantage seems a B-model for the Corvette C8R

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

In my opinion apart from Ferrari, the cars of this new group of speed champion are one more beautiful than the other!

[whitepen]

@Oky You are making me want to buy all of the new speed champions sets! I am going to be left bankrupt!

[BrickMonkeyMOCs]

6 hours ago, Carbohydrates said:

The Valkyrie is fascinating and well-built, and I like its proportions relative to the source material (the prototype, specifically) a lot - it SHOULD be longer than the others.

I've researched this a bit further and have found a few things of interest. The lime green real-car pictures are of the initial 2018 prototype, while the dark green images show the more recent development of the car for 2022, which was in fact lengthened in wheelbase. So this explains why the Lego model looks so much longer compared to reference images of the real prototype in lime green.

Yet even so, the Lego model remains objectively out of proportion. Oky's side-by-side comparison makes the set look pretty good (from the side) until you compare the wheels. Resizing the images so that the wheels match in size shows the Lego version to be too long and too tall for its wheels and width. You're absolutely right that the Valkyrie should be longer than other cars, but even after shortening the model by two studs, this shortened model is still a full two studs longer than the Vantage!

Using Sariel's scale converter and length data for both real cars I found that the Valkyrie should be at most 3 studs longer than the Vantage. But given that the Valkyrie is also going to be a bit wider than the Vantage in real life (while the Lego models are both equal in width), I think shortening the Valkyrie by two studs does a better job of retaining the correct length vs width for the larger car.

[Pato Sentado]

Just finished building both. The Vanquish is quite nice, sturdy and playable. My kid will love it. Maybe I try to make a dark green colour change in the future.

[Withacee]

Cheers for the review!
These look great.
The Vantage is still my favourite. Maybe partly because I do not really love the colour of the Valkyrie.

[Johnny1360]

Very much enjoyed the review, sadly we seem to see less of these as video reviews seem to be what most want, so thanks for that. I am also impressed with the fun of building all the Speed Champions sets, they were very well done this year, dare I say my favorites since the theme has been around. So I am sure to be disappointed in the future, lol.