- LEGO has revealed the latest set in its Technic Ultimate Cars subtheme.
- The car chosen is the McLaren P1 in the familiar orange.
- This is one of the many sets releasing on 1st August.
After a couple of years of waiting, LEGO has finally revealed the next set in its Technic Ultimate Cars subtheme, a series of 1:8 scale models that the company has been releasing every two years since 2016. This latest model is the McLaren P1 in orange, and those with deep enough pockets will be able to purchase it soon.
Set 42172: McLaren P1 has 3 893 pieces and will sell for $449.99, €449.99 or £389.99 depending on where you live. South African pricing hasn’t been released yet but our pricing is usually the same as the EU after conversion.
The McLaren will be yet another set releasing on 1st August. As we warned recently, 1st August is looking to be one of the biggest release months of 2024. We don’t have a final count of how many sets will release next month but, with almost every theme seemingly receiving some sets, it wouldn’t surprise us if that number is above a hundred yet again.
As for the McLaren P1, those 3 893 assemble into a model that is 59 centimetres long, 25 centimetres wide and 14 centimetres tall.
LEGO has chosen a shade of orange for this set, which surprised many as a previous Technic Ultimate Car – the Porsche 911 – was also orange. That being said, McLaren uses “papaya” as its official colour, so this was almost inevitable. That being said we would have really loved yellow or even black for this one.
For us LEGO fans who pay attention to colours, this won’t be exactly the same as the 911. The Porsche used LEGO’s regular orange colour but, to our eyes, the McLaren P1 looks different. If we had to guess the colour is what LEGO calls “Bright Light Orange”. Older LEGO fans will know “Bright Light Orange” as “Keet orange”, due to the colour being introduced in 2005 for the beloved Bionicle set Keetongu.
So what else can buyers expect to get for their money, aside from an interesting colour choice and a large model? Firstly the set comes with two small accessories in the form of a piece of buildable luggage and a printed plaque with details of the real car.
Secondly the car is packed with features typical of the Technic theme. There’s a moving V8 piston engine, opening “dihedral” doors, a seven-speed gearbox, working suspension, adjustable rear wing and a few other surprises that will pop up during the building process.
Looking at this picture and it seems the back engine covering of the car can be removed so that you can see a lot of that mechanical detail once the build is finished.
Public reception to the set has been mixed in the past few hours. Some question why another orange car was chosen while others wonder why the McLaren P1 was the subject here at all, given the fact that the car has been discontinued for many years now.
We fall into the group of not really caring about the colour or car choice, but finding ourselves a bit underwhelmed by the final result. Don’t get us wrong: it’s a real feat of toy engineering, but it doesn’t illicit a huge wow factor from us or a strong desire to start saving up money to pick it up.
Funnily enough our real excitement for this car isn’t the stock model, but the potential for the community to use its pieces to make something else. We’d love to see the classic McLaren F1 made with these pieces instead or, hear us out, what about Han’s Mazda RX-7 from The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. The colours and curves of the McLaren P1 already remind us of the Mazda with its famous VeilSide bodykit, so we think it would work perfectly.
The Technic Ultimate Cars that came before
As mentioned at the top of this article, the Technic Ultimate Cars subtheme has been going from 2016 and has produced four sets so far, with the McLaren P1 being the fifth entry.
The four previous sets were:
- 42056: Porsche 911 GT3 RS in 2016
- 42083: Bugatti Chiron in 2018
- 42115: Lamborghini Sián FKP 37 in 2020
- 42143: Ferrari Daytona SP3 in 2022
Of those four, the three most recent are all still quite obtainable. The Daytona and Sián are still in production and readily on sale from many stores, and the Chiron can be had for close to retail price on the secondhand market.
The Porsche 911, on the other hand, has been increasingly in price steadily ever since its retirement. Right now the going price for it is more than double the other cars on this list. This price makes it difficult for collectors who haven’t been around since 2016, as they either need to miss out on the 911 or fork over a huge amount of money for it.
We can’t end without mentioning the Daytona and the amazing alt builds that the community have made for it on Rebrickable. The talented folks there have turned the set into the Ferrari F40, the Honda NSX, the McLaren Senna and a few others. It’s the existence of these alt builds that gives us hope that a McLaren F1 or VeilSide Mazda RX-7 could be made with the pieces of the new McLaren P1.
