Review: 75899 LaFerrari
Posted by Huw,
Speed Champions sets are being found in shops across the world now, ahead of their official release on March 1st.
Today I'm taking a look at the second of the four small sets which are priced at £12.99/$14.99. 75899 LaFerrari is one of two Ferraris in the four. This 950bhp, €1.2 million hypercar has a top speed of 'above 217mph'. Is it faster than a McLaren P1? Who knows... Top Gear was not allowed to test them side-by-side in the latest show :-)
If you're interested in finding out more about the real cars and the squabble between McLaren and Ferrari over their so-called hypercars, you can read this Evo article. If you're more interested in the LEGO ABS versions, read on...
Box
The front shows the LaFerrari sprinting away from the start line as the light goes green.
The back shows more views, facts about the real car and the driver changing the wheel. The tyres on these hypercars are shockingly bad if the image in the corner of this box, and that on the McLaren's, are anything to go by...
Parts
One new part in this set that isn't in the McLaren is a curved 2x6 plate. It's perhaps a shame that LEGO didn't make a 2x2 curved plate instead and use two of them which would be far more useful.
The wheels and 'alloys' are flat silver and look excellent. Once again a choice of wheel insert is provided: 5 spoke or 12 spoke.
Minifig
A single minifig is provided: a driver in Ferrari race jacket.
The white detailing of the jacket around the shoulders and under the arms is printed on the back as well as the front.
Construction
There's not much to say about the construction although the sides are cleverly built using upside down 1x6 black tiles and plenty of both types of 1x2/1x2 brackets.
The finished model
For your viewing pleasure I have applied all the stickers to the vehicle and as a result it looks quite smart.
It looks good from the side and I think the designer has done a pretty good job of capturing the curves given the limitations of the media, as you can see by comparing it with the picture below.
(Image from Evo)
The back looks good too, mainly thanks to the myriad of stickers.
But, like the McLaren, it's too narrow. However for some reason it doesn't look quite so bad. The length is roughly the same but the wheelbase is actually 1 stud longer than the P1 so I can't quite put my finger on why it looks better.
I would still rather it was 8-wide with two seats in the cabin, though.
Here's everything in the set: the car, the driver and the starting light.
Verdict
Although this is by no means a perfect representation of a LaFarrari I think it's a pretty good attempt. I enjoyed building it more than the McLaren and I think the finished model looks much better even though the length:width proportions are way out.
Its appearance is greatly enhanced by the application of stickers. None are difficult to apply, or go over multiple pieces, although a couple are tricky to align exactly right because they need to be straight and centered on the part.
Side-by-side the two cars look great together and I suspect once you've bought one of the four you will want to collect them all, before moving on to the larger Speed Champions sets...
My McLaren, you will notice, is now fully stickered up and looks much better for it.
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31 comments on this article
Loving that you stickered this and the McLaren. Good on you!
I like the other one better if just for the color scheme. However: I am especially fond of that 2x6 plate.
EDIT: Is that a red 1x2 pinhole plate?! Me likey!
Stickers look awful, like cheap die-cast knock-offs of matchbox/hot wheels from back in the day. Stickers will be Lego's downfall ;/
@Dedgecko stickers have been around since the 70s, if they're going to be Lego's downfall they're sure taking their sweet time about causing it.
The off-ness of the proportions really does bother me on these, and despite $15 being a nice affordable price point I doubt I'll pick any of them up. I can accept the proportional weirdness of normal Lego vehicles because they have to be weird to accommodate minifigures' own proportional weirdness, but for some reason when they're basing them on real, specific cars it puts me off them.
Both of these, while cheap, look very little like the actual cars. I'll most likely pick them up but they aren't as essential as they were when first announced.
Slight correction to both this and the P1 review... the wheel hubcaps are 5 spoke and 10 spoke, not 12.
I'm sure I'm the only person in the world who doesn't really like 8-wide vehicles and so I'm perfectly happy with the widths as presented. I don't know a thing about cars, so it doesn't worry me how accurate these are to the source material, and I just think they're gorgeous.
i might pick this one up cos it looks the best among all the racers in this series. Not fond of the McC and Porsche. And the other Ferrari is so heavily stickered.
These Speed Champions would be so must-have if only there were no stickers...
But now I'll just easily forget them, and be concerned when real Ferrari or McLaren pieces are printed.
Great review! Glad that you put the stickers on!
Yikes. I appreciate the difficulty at approximating the shape of the original in such a small Lego model, but ouch, it barely resembles the real thing.
That, and the stickers just twist the knife. I'm lucky I couldn't care less about cars!
BTW: the picture quality is excellent! What kind of camera do you use? Special lense? Thanks!
"It's perhaps a shame that LEGO didn't make a 2x2 curved plate instead"
I agree! I wonder why they did that. It seems like a missed opportunity.
Oh and I think the Maclaren looks longer because of the two exposed studs infront of the windscreen, the sticker on the windscreen and the two raised yellow sections either side of the windscreen. Maybe...
While I like the car in and of itself it doesn't much resemble the real thing. I suppose it's the best they could do given the medium and size. The yellow one also looks like something I would have been all over as a young boy.
@copperwonder96, A Nikon D610 with 60mm macro lens, but it's the lighting and setup that's more important than the camera.
I think this looks great! Much better than the McLaren. It's a definite member of my want-list for this year. Now, I only hope the Porsche looks reasonable as well...
@Huw, is it time for an article about your lighting setup? Or have you already done one?
This type of models only work for me on a larger scale (like the Mini).
Hope that the spoken off F40 will be a creator set and not Technics .....
^^ There's a picture on flickr somewhere to accompany an article I wrote some time ago but I could do another one I suppose.
I would only want this for the coolness of having a minifig-scale Ferrari racecar. Honestly, I'm not enough of a fan to be bothered by inaccuracies (but if the DC SH line does something wrong, that's where I'll complain).
I bought all four of these last week, and was impressed with complex curves of the builds, but just couldn't get myself to put the stickers on. I'll be modding these sometime to actually use real transparent headlights and taillights.
@Huw, ok, thanks. I scanned your flickr stream and found some :-)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/brickset/8622005988/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/brickset/8490281640/
And the article here:
http://brickset.com/article/6180/how-i-take-the-photos-for-reviews
But I see you've updated your setup since then, saying as you often use colour backgrounds and also a D610 with 60mm macro rather than the 105mm macro.
Just bought the the full trio myself, P1, 918 & LaFerrari and I agree that this LaFerrari is the best one of them. Love the building techniqe and it looks more acurrate than the other two... Kinda dissapointed at the 918 acctually, wanted the roof-piece as well, feels like its missing when the set is done... But other than that - I love that LEGO started with real cars again, just hope they bring back the bigger ones as well!
Thank you! It's changed a bit since then but not much. I now use the Nikon D610 and 60mm which gives a wider field of view and thus closer working distances.
This model does an impressive job of capturing the vents on the side of the car; most of the details in its stickers are IMO obviously too small for Lego to duplicate more accurately at this scale. Ths side stickers on the McLaren feel like a cop-out in comparison--and, yes, for whatever reason the McLaren looks much longer and thinner; the LaFerrari doesn't exactly match the original but it comes much closer to capturing its feel. Still might buy the McLaren for its generally beautiful shape. Will wait to see how the Porches look "in the plastic" before committing to them. What I've seen of them so far doesn't impress, I'm sad to say.
Funny thing, Huw, but I preferred the McLaren half-stickered, the way you first showed it to us! But stickers are a matter of personal taste, I suppose.... :)
It's the 3 stud front overhang and tall sides that ruin the McLaren P1. I am going to get one just so I can make it better. Beautiful car in reality, and I get that LEGO bricks are a blocky medium, but in this case fewer details in favor of more accurate proportions would help the car.
The LaFerrari is the best-looking one in my opinion. It always has been since the first images were released.
On a related note, Fenwicks in Canterbury has all 7 sets in stock, so anyone in East Kent who wants the sets knows where to go c:
I'm about to build the LaFerrari as I type.
I just have to add, that on another related note - I just got the Ferrari 458 GT2 as well, or as it shall now be known henceforth, the "458 GTStickers"... Jesus! Its literally stickers on every flat tile pointed outwards. Madness! - Putting them on takes twice as long as the building itself...
- Though, it is beautiful when its done... :P
Sooo... I still agree - this LaFerrari is still my favourite too!
(And yes, all 7 sets are already available in Sweden as well, like, in every store that sell LEGO®...)
The first time I saw pictures of the Speed Champions sets I couldn't guess what cars were represented. It's really hard to make good cars representations with only 6 stud wide models, but I think they could have done better. In fact, based on the pictures that were available at that time, I easily managed to build the Laferrari in LDD (even though the canopy, wheels, wheel archs and the 6x2 round plate aren't available in the software's part list), and after that I made some subtle changes with decent results. In the end I know that: proportions will always be a bit off; replicating the curves of this supercars is a hard (but not impossible) task; and I also totally understand that this cars must maintain the Lego City sets scale. I do like them all, a lot, because they are great looking Lego sports cars, but they are far from being good replicas. I think that the Porsches 911 are the only vehicules that maintain the most resemblance with their real life counterparts and that the Laferrari, 478 italia, P1 and the 918 Spyder have a lot of room for improvement.
I agree with Zordboy, 6 wide is where it's at. Minifigs look like small children next to an 8 wide vehicle and its a decent challenge to get a good representation in 6 wide.
I'm tempted by these.