Featured set of the day: Air Tech Claw Rig
Posted by Huw,
Today kari has selected a classic Technic set:
I grew up in a small town in Hungary and loved to play with LEGO throughout my childhood. The economic situation was really tough in my country during the 80s / 90s but my parents managed to purchase some truly exceptional sets for me and my brother.
We spent countless days and nights together playing with the wonderful Basic, Castle, and Town sets and also stared at the dioramas in the LEGO catalogues imagining to create similar scenes at home.
Out of our LEGO sets Technic 8868 Air Tech Claw Rig has a special place in my heart. Not just because in my opinion it is still the best Technic set to date. It was also the last LEGO set for me as a child.
Like some of you, I saw this set for the first time in the annual LEGO catalogue in 1992. It was shocking: not only it had several manual functions and impressive look, but there was the new and mysterious compressor and pneumatic system driven by a 9v motor to produce air pressure constantly. All you have to do is controlling functions by the valves settled on both sides of the truck.
My desire for getting this set was growing by the time as I saw a very similar real truck with claws intensively working next to my father's office (it was loading scrap iron into an old wagon) and also because one of my fortunate classmates received it as a Christmas gift in the same year and said ode about it.
I begged a lot for this set but it was very expensive so there was little hope. Somehow my blessed father put up the money for this and finally I was gifted with the dream set on the snowy Christmas Eve of 1994.
(Image from Technpedia)
It was the perfect night with the perfect present for me, accompanied by my lovely family. We spent hours under the Christmas-tree with my elder brother, who helped me in the building process, and nearly midnight it was completed. Words can not describe the feeling when we turned on the truck's compressor and pneumatic system for the first time, it was simply magical to the 12 year old of me.
We grabbed and lifted special Hungarian Christmas-tree candies from one side with the crane, turned it to the other side, and dropped them. It seemed that joy never ends with this set. It looked like the real thing, worked like the real thing, even sounded like the real thing. Probably, I was the happiest child on earth with this set in my hands.
I did hope to get 8880 Super Car the next year but it never happened as things turned bad soon. My parents lost their job and our moderate income was not enough to spend on such luxuries like LEGO for a long time. I entered my dark ages which lasted more than 10 years.
The turning point happened when I had a glimpse at 8455 Back-Hoe in the 2005 LEGO catalogue as an adult and I thought I had to purchase it by any means. This was the set that ended my dark period and I started collecting all the LEGO sets I wanted as a child and more. I was honoured to build most of the LEGO Technic supersets since then, including 8880 Super Car, 8480 Space Shuttle, 8043 Motorized Excavator and 42043 Mercedes-Benz Arocs 3245, but in my nostalgic retrospect 8868 Air Tech Claw Rig is still the one on top.
In my opinion it was revolutionary for its time. It has a clear and robust setup. You can always see the functions in work as there are no covering panels. Some say the main function of the truck is rather authentic, because LEGO's pneumatic design comes closest to real one's hydraulic system, and I tend to agree with them.
The turning of the crane is executed ingeniously by using two counter moving pneumatic cylinders and all the crane arm functions are accomplished by an army of pneumatic cylinders, tubes and valves with an effective help of a little compressor in the background. It has a V6 fake engine with cooling fan driven by 2 (!) rear differentials and, of course, the standard steering function is also implemented in the model.
Building the set is quite challenging but lasts not too long. It is very playable due to the marvellously elaborated functions and due to its size, which is just perfect: not too big, nor too small. And if these are not enough, it has a unique B-model.
Last year I decided to cherish my set a bit after being assembled for 25 years. I washed all the pieces except the electrical, the pneumatic and the stickered ones (fortunately there was no yellowing at all as I kept it away from direct sunlight), put new original bands into it from the spares and played with the rig again for hours. Now it shines and works as if it were new. Needless to say, I still have the original box and instructions in mint condition.
8868 Air Tech Claw Rig is definitely the crown jewel of my entire LEGO collection and the first one I would pick to demonstrate how wonderful the world of LEGO Technic is.
64 likes
17 comments on this article
The best studded LEGO Technic model. One of the most iconic sets ever made. This set...namasté
I remember being so fascinated by this set and the whole pneumatic system and I had no choice but to save up and buy it. It seemed so advanced at the time, but looks unfinished by todays standard. Still no regret purchasing it.
This was one of my first Technic sets as a kid! Unfortunately I was too young for such a complex set so my parents built it for me. Later I never got to building it myself because some pieces went missing which I have to order first. Would still love to build it one day though! Even though I never build it myself I think it’s still one of the best and nicest Technic sets I’ve seen!
It would seem this set has a grail like aura about it. Mine like many that any child was lucky to get survived intact from all those years ago.
Still fun almost 30 years later and I can't wait to play with it with my son when he's old enough.
Most righteous indeed.
Fabulous set. . Still got it built up after I bought it in 1993. I decided I needed to treat myself after I spent 2 days in Gloucester with a broken-down van, so I got lots of overtime so I could pay for it. Managed to get it cheap from Argos -still got the instructions but my mam threw the box away, unfortunately. I do remember all the pneumatic hose was supplied in 2 big bundles, so you had to (very carefully) cut all the hose to length.......
Hey, editors of brickset! I have an interesting feature that I think you guys should add. People should be able to have multiple wanted lists (sort of like Bricklink’s feature). This way I could keep track of sets I want to get in the short-term and ones that take some saving for, without bogging down the single wanted list and having to scroll through a jumble of sets to find one. If you guys do this, that’s amazing! But if not, no big deal. Just an idea I wanted to propose.
Great story! It might even make me slightly more interested in Technic.
Stunning article - well done. Many of the same feelings as you, I also think this was my last LEGO set as a child
This set is on my "someday when I have a lot of money" wanted list. It would go very well with the Arocs from 2015: the subjects and feature sets are very similar, but the sets use entirely different building styles and are separated by 23 years.
Now this is a real Technic set. None of that candy coating BS!
It was very interesting to read vehicles like this actually exist. To me, at always looked like the love-child of an American semi and an excavator, something the Technic designer came up with. Still, epic set.
I too have fond memories of this set, receiving it for Christmas when I was about 6-8 years old. I started building it immediately, but soon had to enlist my father's help, as the pneumatic hoses needed to be cut fairly precisely, and then a bunch of them had to be threaded through the turntable, while not losing track of any of them. We were building until late night and still weren't finished, so I had to go to sleep.
The next morning the completed set greeted me on the living room table, and I was absolutely grateful for my father for staying up so late and working tirelessly for me. Years later it occurred to me that he probably enjoyed the process quite much, but it didn't matter by then.
And yes, I can attest that the claw is just the perfect size for lifting Hungarian Christmas candies :D
This is a great set with great historic value.
Sadly, because of this value it makes more sense to get Unimog or Arocs, unless you are determined to pay the premium or get it in bad condition.
But yeah, this and 8880 are probably the Top2 techic sets ever in terms of what "Lego Technic" means to me
@rslotb: I think it was something like this, not exactly the same, but still: https://www.agroinform.hu/data/aprohirdetes/apro_6923237/kraz-darus-kikozelito-000_fitmax_800x600_2.jpg
Found one of these a couple years ago for $50 with box. Set was mint...maybe put together once. It was a great build and I love the construction of the older Technic sets.
@Cbl - You might be looking for the collection checkbox preferences: https://brickset.com/profile/flagpreferences They're not quite precisely what you describe; but you can set them up to be four separate flags, which work the same way as the standard owned and wanted ones, giving you four additional lists to work with. Hope that helps! ^^
On topic... I never even realised old technic had so many features. I only ever had a few small technic sets though - never being hugely vehicle-driven, if it didn't represent a character then I wasn't much interested in it as a kid - so it's fascinating to me to hear about all the functions these much bigger ones had. Thanks for sharing! :D
I lucked out a few years ago. Somebody put mint one on eBay, all bags sealed but missing the battery box, for $100. I happened to be browsing eBay at just about the very moment it was put on the site and bought it right away.