If you're in the UK and you've been into The Entertainer or The Works recently, you may have spotted sets from a clone brand called Click Brick. They've been around for a while, I remember seeing one of their sets in a charity shop last year, but they seem to be everywhere at the moment.

This isn't a set review so much as a brand overview - I've bought several of the sets and I'm not going into them in detail, especially as I don't have a decent camera at the moment - so I'll let Peppermint Mecha decide whether to add this post to the Clone Review Index.

Click Brick are designed by FIA Toys, a UK company, and manufactured in China. I'd like to know where in China, so we could convince the other clone makers to use the same factory. Because these are quite simply the best quality clone bricks I've ever seen.

The plastic is maybe slightly less dense than Lego, but it's a hard proper ABS plastic and the moulding is sharp. The studs are embossed similarly to Lego studs, with the name 'STAR'. Injection marks on the studs are slightly more prominent than Lego, but not nearly as bad as Best-Lock or Mega Bloks. The colours are strong and consistent; the grey is similar to Lego Dark Blue-Grey, and the black, white, red, blue and yellow are identical to their Lego counterparts. However, you will have noticed that list only covers the classic Lego colours, and that's because with the exception of orange bodies for the Construction minifigs and the odd trans colour, the entire range is limited to those colours. Nothing exotic like tan, and not even any green. 95% of the parts are direct copies of Lego components, and the ones I didn't recognise as Lego are most likely Oxford designs, as I have seen them in other clone sets.

You know that satisfying click you get when assembling Lego, that none of the clone brands can match? These bricks have it. I was actually quite surprised, because the pictures on the boxes don't really do the quality justice, some of the models look like they're falling apart. But whoever put them together for the photoshoot must have done so in a hurry, the actual models were much more solid when assembled.

Speaking of the boxes, the packaging is quite good. Each box has a cardboard spacer to protect the contents, but the boxes aren't drastically oversized for what's in them. The components come in bags, and they're divided by model rather than by component type - for example, the Service Station has a car, tanker, forecourt and main building, and the parts for those are bags A,B,C and D respectively. These codes also carry through to the instructions, which are very pretty in full colour, but a bit confusing. There are too many parts added in some steps, and while the parts for each step and any sub-assemblies are called out in separate boxes, some bits of the construction are skimmed over or otherwise unclear.

Models I've seen so far are:

Four large sets (Service Station, Police Headquarters, Construction Vehicles and Ultimate Warfare) which each have 500-600 parts and four minifigs, currently selling for £12.50 each in The Entertainer.

Four minifig-scale vehicle sets (4x4 with Horse Box, Car with Caravan, Heavy Duty Wrecker and TelePorter 300 Crane). Not sure of the part count on these, and they don't appear to actually include a minifig. £5 each in The Entertainer.

A farm tractor and separate accessories. About 50 pieces each, the tractor comes with a minifig. £1.99 each in The Works.

Three Next Generation sets, futuristic vehicles in mostly red and grey which are smaller than minifig scale. All three are based on the same chassis, around 200 parts each, £3 each in The Entertainer.

Three micro-vehicles which match the Next Generation styling, probably 30-50 parts each, £1.25 each in The Entertainer.

I've bought the Service Station and two of the Next Generation sets, and here are some thoughts specific to them.

- The vehicles in the service station set are really poorly designed. The buildings are much better but still uninspired.

- The Next Generation sets are much better set designs and really feel like Lego designs. Shame they're not minifig scale.

- The service station comes with minifigs, and they are identical to Lego minifigs but slightly poorer quality. The legs don't sit as straight on the hips, and the faces are only a single-colour print, though the torsos have three-colour printing including metallic zips. The arms and hands click in firmly, and Lego accessories fit properly on the head and in the hands.

- The faces and torsos on the minifigs are the only printed components I've seen. Everything else is stickers, and not very good ones at that.

So, to summarise:

Pros:

- Parts are almost indistinguishable from real Lego in both design and quality

- Sensible packaging

- Ridiculously good value for money

Cons:

- Limited range of colours

- Limited range of themes and uninspired set design

- Stickers

- Instructions could be better

FIA have recently been taken over by another company, and I don't know whether they're pumping out all this stock to rekindle the brand or to get rid of it. I'm hoping it's the former and that they're planning to come out with some new set designs, but if so, I also hope they can afford to stick with the same factory.

Interesting brand......finding some images of their sets I must say CLONE !

There are some good ideas and a few bad in thoses sets.

Thanks 'Thrund' for bring this to our attention and I'm a conformist! !

After Googling it I can say that most of the sets look pretty badly designed and really basic.

A review of one of these sets would be interesting though.

EDIT: They have a good name though

Edited July 30, 201014 yr by BrickClick

After Googling it I can say that most of the sets look pretty badly designed and really basic.

The set design is definitely not their strong point. I only bought the Service Station because I managed to find an opened box on EBay and ended up paying the equivalent of 1p per piece including postage charges. Then when I saw the quality of the components, I went back for more. I'm not a purist and have bought Best-Lock sets for spares before, these work out at about the same price, but if Mega Bloks quality is an 8 to Lego's 10, then Best-Lock are about a 5 or 6 and Click Brick are at least a 9 if not 9.5. What I'd really like is one of the clones with more imaginative set designs to start using this factory for their components!

I googled some sets, and I actually like the designs. The look really basic, but that's not always a bad thing.

Edited July 30, 201014 yr by prateek

After Googling it I can say that most of the sets look pretty badly designed and really basic.

A review of one of these sets would be interesting though.

EDIT: They have a good name though

You summed up my post almost exact.

I ahd not heard of them beofre soa quick search led me to find something that personally I think is lesser quality than LEGO. But of course, that's mearly my point of view.

I would also love a review, maybe our Queen of the Clone brands will come through on this?>

Click Brick are a bootleg brand I am afraid. Set designs are taken from other manufacturers and made from cheaper plastic and sold cheaper.

Click Brick are a bootleg brand I am afraid. Set designs are taken from other manufacturers and made from cheaper plastic and sold cheaper.

Oh, that's bad news. You must have a sensor that goes off when someone mentions your name.

Thanks for the additional info though.

Click Brick are a bootleg brand I am afraid. Set designs are taken from other manufacturers and made from cheaper plastic and sold cheaper.

As far as I know, their only stolen design is the Oxford K1 tank in the Ultimate Warfare set. Don't believe what you see on EBay auctions, for some reason there are sellers on there pasting the Click Brick logo on Sluban boxes.

Well, All I have seen in my local The Works (I just love cheap books and ancient comic books) is some Duplo copies. I think they are another name Enlighten trades under. If I spot some regular scaled sets, I will make a review.

Well, All I have seen in my local The Works (I just love cheap books and ancient comic books) is some Duplo copies. I think they are another name Enlighten trades under. If I spot some regular scaled sets, I will make a review.

The Duplo scaled sets were the only ones I'd seen in The Works until very recently. I don't know if they're deliberate copies, or just that Duplo models are so simple that it's hard to vary them, but the figures are certainly exact copies of Duplo figures.

They are certainly a bootleg brand to some extent, in as much as their parts are very exact copies of Lego and Oxford designs, but I think most of their set designs are original. Between the quality of the plastic and the accuracy of the part reproduction, I do wonder if the factory they use is the same one that Lego outsourced to in China!

Maybe its just a shared name then. It seems that there is some Click Brick that is a design clone and another that is just a non Lego brand. I got some "Click Brick" once from Poundland and it was a copy of the police car. I will check next time I am in the Entertainer

Maybe its just a shared name then. It seems that there is some Click Brick that is a design clone and another that is just a non Lego brand. I got some "Click Brick" once from Poundland and it was a copy of the police car. I will check next time I am in the Entertainer

There was a BIONICLE clone brand that always fascinated me for being similar yet different. The parts were completely different from BIONICLE's parts-- not a single piece was a direct copy. But on the other hand, the larger sets used these completely different parts in completely different ways to blatantly imitate existing BIONICLE sets. It was baffling why a company with such obvious design talent in their parts and mid-size sets would stoop so low when it came to larger models.

This seems to be sort of the opposite-- somewhat innovative set designs, but with part designs blatantly copied from LEGO's own. I'm hoping that they'll get shut down for this, because really, LEGO doesn't in any way have a monopoly on good design choices, and there are countless other ways to make LEGO-style brick mathematics work effectively (Mega Bloks manages just fine with only the basic bricks being near-identical in proportions to LEGO ones). So there's no excuse for blatant theft like this.

Well some of there ideas are sound.....

Of course I prefer it in Lego not some knock-off !

I'm a conformist! !

This is the kind of Click Brick I meant. A clear and complete design ripoff...

That's one of the Sluban sets with the Click Brick logo pasted on top of it that I was talking about before. You can clearly see the Sluban-format set number, whereas real Click Brick set numbers all start with FIA.

Edit - Did this image come from www.xs-stock.co.uk? Their EBay store is where I saw them. All the sets listed as Click Brick are Sluban sets with either the Click Brick or FIA Toys logo pasted over the Sluban logo.

Edited July 30, 201014 yr by Thrund

Yep, that looks like a sticker over the top of another logo.

Anyway, they like chancing it don't they......not just with Lego, but MB and Disney too....man they are either brave or foolish who ever did that bootleg set !

I'm a conformist! !

Well some of there ideas are sound.....

Of course I prefer it in Lego not some knock-off !

I'm a conformist! !

Jeeze that is actually not a bad looking tractor.

Seeing both images , it does seem that they are two different companies (I mean bootleg set vs. cool tractor + the logo quality is much higher). Also the report of great quality in the OP.

Someone should consider contacting the blue "Click Brick" company about this.

Edit: Hmnn on second thought it appears that Thrund is right and as "click brick" seems to be a good quality company that is not well known, those guys at ebay are trying to use that name to sell bootlegs in disguise.

Edit: Hmnn their logo seems to change, it seems this "Click brick" is part of FIA toys

Edited July 31, 201014 yr by vexorian

Someone should consider contacting the blue "Click Brick" company about this.

I do have an email address for FIA toys, and I was considering dropping them a line. As I've said, FIA aren't exactly blameless, relying on Lego part designs, but they don't deserve to be associated with complete bootleg sets, especially as I know Sluban aren't as high quality.

On the other hand, very few people import Sluban into the UK - I wonder if they get stopped by Customs and that's why these ones have the sticker on them - so for selfish reasons I wouldn't want this seller to get shut down. Sluban are the only way to get some of the old Oxford designs.

Most imported brands I come across can be traced to Ackerman, they re-sticker many sets with an Ackerman logo. This includes both Little White Dragon and Sluban sets.

There is a generic brand known as MY which sells cheap toys, including some repackaged LWD sets.

There is Liago, which seems to trade alongside Sluban.

Another brand that Wilkinson stores sold at christmas last year which seems to have designs matching many of the other generic brands. There are some generic designs and brick manufacturers who sell to distributers who brand them up and price them low.

Just to be clear on one point: A Bootleg/Ripoff steals the unique designs of another brand/manufacturer. It uses similar branding as popular companies to cause confusion and is the kind often siezed by officials as the company is breaking the law. (Enlighten, the Click Brick that isn't FIA, Shifty and Kaize)They are trying to be the brand that they are not

Then there are Clone Brands. These brands use the same interlocking bricks that Lego has no legal claim on any longer (and in fact copied from a British toy maker with minor alterations in units of measurement) but have their own unique designs and figures. These brands (I dislike the term clone) are like Lego and fit with Lego, but are not quite Lego.

As for the Click Brick confusion. I have found Liago and Sluban sets with FIA logos stickered over the Sluban logo/Liago logo. They must be consolidating the brand into Click Brick, hence the Click Brick logo over the Sluban Logo (Just like how Ackerman re-lable LWD sets after import)they say that they are designed by thier British company, mayhaps they formerly imported from China and thus these Sluban sets are stickerd Click Brick. I do not think xs-stock is trying to cause confusion and they really are just selling excess stock. Maybe if FIA have designers "in house" I could send over a CV...

I have found Liago and Sluban sets with FIA logos stickered over the Sluban logo/Liago logo. They must be consolidating the brand into Click Brick, hence the Click Brick logo over the Sluban Logo

It is entirely possible. FIA Toys originally sold only their own designs, but FIA has been taken over by an import company, so they now own the brand name and may be using it to rebrand other sets. That would explain the confusion, and may also explain why they're clearing out stock of the 'real' Click Brick.

If that's the case, it will be worth picking some up while they're cheap as the 'real' brand may disappear. Even if the new owners keep the set designs, I can see them switching manufacture to a cheaper factory.

This was two christmases ago in Wilkinsons... It may just have been a mistake on my part (I do not have a photo and threw the box away a long time ago)

I got the Tractor today. An eye opening review shall follow soon...

This was two christmases ago in Wilkinsons... It may just have been a mistake on my part (I do not have a photo and threw the box away a long time ago)

I emailed FIA toys and actually got an answer on this. They started off importing Sluban sets, then decided they weren't happy with the quality and sourced a different factory to produce original designs. So the ones still being sold with the logo on Sluban boxes are very old stock, and the original designs and updated logos are more recent.