Review: 40448 Vintage Car

Very nice very nice

@Samdefisher said:
"Yeah it’s on for UK tomorrow "

How do you know?

I'm gonna have to get a hold of one of these, that color would be absolutely epic for Speed Champions MOCs!

I never knew these US high school jackets have names. Huw, didn't you watch any high school movies? :)

I love classic cars! Like I’ve mentioned before, I don’t usually make orders just for GWPs, but I’ll have to pick up this one!

Wow those Chrome parts...

Such a missed opportunity :’(

I really hope the site does not crash tonight. Otherwise we are going to have to get to the Lego Store early tomorrow.

Do you have to be a lego.com vip to get this GWP?

Chromed parts would have been welcome, of course, but light blueish grey will do the trick. Very nice design, and I hope that my next order (in a few hours... ) will be eligible for this GWP!

The side-by-side seating is absolutely essential, at least that has been left alone for the official release

Call me crazy but the studs used for the headlights look frosted.

Just to make sure I will need two 2x2 and two 1x2 teal plates to lose the surfboards? Thanks!

The surfboards sitting lower and not at an angle takes this down several notches unfortunately. I’m probably going to end up with it regardless due to what I plan to purchase, but am no longer sure if I’ll keep it.

Not sure what they did to the windscreen. It seems to stand more upright than in the Ideas submission. The windscreen is the only thing I do not really like about both the original and this version. Looks like they had to swap out the binoculars as the new version of that piece (although much more system compatible) is two plates high and wouldn't fit in between two quite essential pieces (the fender for a grille and the 1 x 2 plate with Technic hole for the headlight). Aside from the old one no longer being in production, I think it doesn't fit in that 1 x 1 space legally either (I remember reading something about the dimensions of that piece somewhere).

Seems like they had to lower the SNOT piece for the surfboard because it would interfere with the clip and bar system for tilting the windscreen. I don't think there is a 1 x 2 x 2/3 SNOT piece that would still allow the surfboard the sit flush with the side of the car. There is a 1 x 2 bracket. but that would leave a half-plate gap between the side of the car and the surfboard.

"Just to make sure I will need two 2x2 and two 1x2 teal plates to lose the surfboards? Thanks!"

@Huw said:
"^ Yes."

There is no such color listed as "Teal" on Bricklink's site.....what is the actual color name of the pieces on this set ?

Wishing that Lego had included the chrome parts. I know that would have been expensive, but hey we have to spend $85 :) Looks cool none the less.

@PluffTed said:
"There is no such color listed as "Teal" on Bricklink's site.....what is the actual color name of the pieces on this set ?
"

I could be wrong but I think LEGO call it Bright Bluish Green.

Happy to get this as a gwp with the bonsai and flowers, but the threshold of AU $169 is ridiculous. But I guess that means that I easily cleared it with the both the AU $90 botanical sets.

@Efly24 said:
"Do you have to be a lego.com vip to get this GWP?"

No, it's just a standard $85 purchase.

Does anyone know if there will be the que to enter the website when new products are released?

@Strymon said:
" @PluffTed said:
"There is no such color listed as "Teal" on Bricklink's site.....what is the actual color name of the pieces on this set ?
"

I could be wrong but I think LEGO call it Bright Bluish Green. "

It is not :( would really love to find out what color these pieces actually are

^^^^ teal is bright blue green on Lego.com and dark turquoise on Bricklink

I don't understand the upside-down windscreen.

I feel like it's one of those design features that's there just for the sake of being there. It would look much better without it, but the designer wanted to show off.

Thanks for the excellent review Huw. I own a 1960 sage green Plymouth Valiant and I love how the designer of this little model has paid tribute to the lovely curves and classic lines of cars from that era. As others have said, it is a pity Lego decided to drop the chrome, it really was a defining characteristic of cars from that time. I am hopeful that my purchases (just after midnight this morning) will secure me one of these sets before they run out.

The original looks way better.

This will go nicely with my modular downtown diner!

I do think this looks really good. Obviously a bit of chrome bling would have been the icing on the cake, but it's OK without.

The only thing I find a bit odd is the Vintage Car title. For that I think of something older, like one of my childhood favourite sets, the 603-3 Vintage Car. I see this as the more generic 'Classic Car'

Now I want to get Downtown Diner to match this aaaaand would you look at that it's sold out. :( If I can somehow acquire the building under $200 I'll get this car and modify it to look like the original submission. I actually think they made the car much worse. Almost as if the official set WAS the original submission and the submission should have been the release. Oh well, still happy they made it but I really wish they had released it when the Diner was still available to match it! Come on, LeGo.

@Zordboy:
To make the sides work with the surfboards and the sideview mirrors, they went with a 4-wide windshield. This particular windshield has long tails that would hang out over the minifigs' legs if mounted normally. Other 4-wide windshields would have resulted in exposed studs on the top edge, which may have informed this design choice as well. I'd actually like to get two copies of this. One I'd keep as is, but the other I'd tweak extensively, both to undo as many of the design changes as possible, but also to make a few tweaks of my own (one being that I'd scrap the windshield design altogether).

@sjr60:
This car is clearly of a 1950's style, which in terms of car culture is old enough to qualify it as an antique twice over and well on its way towards a third time. In my life I know of two items that I've owned that were genuine antiques. One was a 1986 Mercury Grand Marquis "land yacht" that I owned during the year when it turned 30 (and would have been allowed in local classic car events), and the other is a set of the Complete Works of Shakespeare dating back to the late 1800's, which was apparently produced exclusively for a Shakespeare fan club in NYC. I still own the books...somewhere.

Tried to order police station and this for over an hour. PayPal kept failing, then the pay with gift card failed and took several tries and I think I got a purchase via credit card. Bank shows a pending payment, but Lego.com doesn't show my order anywhere... They really should not have major releases on holidays or when closed...

Oh, and now I've been refunded and the site has crashed...

Is there any other car to try get hold of after this one? I got the hot rod already but that's about it

Hmmm...to bad they could keep the darker azure, but it least they kept it close...Like the minifigs, esp. the 'NB' and leather jackets, very 'in keeping' w/the theme/design.
Gonna try to get this one, but it might be tough...not many sets I want, and don't know if BnP counts...

I get what they were going for but those surfboards really don't look good in my opinion.

Can someone please explain the reason for the licence plate 'AM 0937' what does it refer to ? Thanks.

Pity about the lowering of the surfboards as they look way better on the original, which I guess uses a teal 1x1 brick with studs on two adjecent sides, another recolour that would have been needed to avoid that change.

@Brodie said:
"Can someone please explain the reason for the licence plate 'AM 0937' what does it refer to ? Thanks."
From Lego.com: "A is for Arne (the German fan who won) M is for Mel (the LEGO designer) and 0937 is “LEGO” written with upside-down numbers."

@Brodie

"A is for Arne (the German fan who won) M is for Mel (the LEGO designer) and 0937 is “LEGO” written with upside-down numbers."

As from LEGO.com

@DisCode347 :
Nothing of this type. There will always be more cars. That's just a given. There aren't any more oldies like this (or 40409 , or the car from 10260 ) on the horizon, nor are there any forthcoming car GWPs that I know of, and I believe this is the only minifig-scale car that was even on tap for Ideas this year.

@brick_r :
Is it a different shade of azure? The original render is _very_ dark, to the point that the white parts don't really look white. It's entirely possible that it just reads like a darker azure than was originally used in the digital model.

And I once called up S @H to complain when tacking on a B&P order failed to trigger a GWP as I'd expected it to do. I was given the GWP at that time, but told that not only was B&P supposed to be excluded from all promotions, but it even extended so far as to be excluded from free shipping. You could buy the most expensive set available, add a single piece from either B&P or online PAB, and you'd get charged shipping for the whole order. And you could miss the promo threshold by a penny, order a bucket of B&P or online PAB, and still not qualify for the promo unless you actually added another retail item.

That said, I've seen some comments that suggest they haven't been enforcing this as strictly as they've claimed. So, sometimes you may get lucky, and it's important to keep in mind that it is those times that you did in fact get lucky. Call to protest, and you may trigger another crackdown.

@tfcrafter:
They looked good on the original submission. I design all my regular cars to include working doors, and even I had second thoughts when I saw how this originally looked with the surfboards.

United States schools still allow students to “letter” in an activity such as football, band, art, academic quiz, etc. the school sets an arbitrary rule, like participating in band for four semesters, and after that, the student receives the jacket. I believe there was previously also letter sweaters, although the school where I teach does letter sweaters exclusively for students who meet high academic grade standards.

@rjpeterson82:
In my high school, the path for sports was if you played at Freshman level, you got your graduation numbers for one shoulder (or you could just buy those along with your first name when you go the jacket). The next stage was a Ram's head for the other shoulder, if you played JV and already had your graduation numbers (which, again, you could buy, which is the only reason I ever qualified for a Ram's head). Finally there was the letter, which required playing at the Varsity level. We had one student in my class who went straight to Varsity Basketball his first semester, so I'm not sure how they handled the graduation numbers and Ram's head (though he would have picked up at least one from playing Freshman Football the same semester). Once you had earned your Varsity Letter, you'd add gold bars to it to show how many years you were on the team.

Outside of sports, being in band or choir earned you a full-size letter your first year, and gold bars to add to the letter in subsequent years. And if you hit a 3.5 GPA in your first three years, or 3.8 in your senior year, you could get a smaller academic letter that was a little over half the size of the big letters (I used to point out that it had a genie lamp for "genie-us"), which again earned you gold bars to add for additional years. I don't recall if there were any other non-sports available through my school, but I got the band letter on the back (the only place it would fit), and squeezed the academic letter in on the front (between the buttons, the arm, the pocket, and the collar, there was just barely enough room to accommodate it, but it took on a permanent wrinkle because of the way the jacket would hang when not buttoned up). I got three gold bars on each letter, bought the class numbers, and "earned" the Ram's head for being so truly terrible at golf that I really should have been cut from the team (I think the best I shot was a 90...on nine holes). Funny thing was, I was actually halfway decent at volleyball, but we didn't have a boy's volleyball team. I doubt I would have made a Varsity team (probably even JV would be a long shot), but the bar would have been low enough for a Freshman team that I probably could have qualified.

However, one thing that does not happen is free jackets, at least not where I'm from. Those jackets cost a few hundred dollars, and you have to buy your own if you want one (whether or not you have anything to put on it). The stuff that gets sewn on the jacket is given to you for free if you earn them, and the store that sold the jackets would sew them on for free if you'd purchased your jacket there. Unfortunately, sometime in the last 15 years they seem to have gone out of business, as I was just there 1.5 years ago and the place was empty. My tiny little resort town was the biggest community for miles in any direction, so there were several other school districts besides mine that relied on that store as their source for varsity jackets, so I have no idea how they get them now, or get stuff sewn on in a way that doesn't look like someone's first attempt at sewing.

However, I have never once laid on an actual letterman's sweater from my school district. If they were ever a thing in my school district, they were over and done with by the time I was growing up. You could buy the two styles of varsity jackets (I got one with a hood when I was in school and lived just a little too close to ride the bus, and years later picked up one in the other style). You could also by quilted nylon windbreakers from the same store. I _think_ they had sweatshirts, but can't remember, but sweaters (especially V-neck button-up sweaters) weren't commonly worn.

@PurpleDave I wouldnt say retro is something that looks old and is new. How would you define the Matchbox Models of Yesteryear collectable cars then? They were made in the 1970s and 80s and depict cars from roughly the 1910s and 1920s. Something can be retro styled such as SMEG fridges but an original 1930s fridge would be vintage not 'retro'

If you search up retro stuff or go in a retro shop its 50s 60s 70s stuff. Vintage is pre 1950s. Unfortunately dumb social media obsessed people go around calling anything whatever they want including cheap 'crappy' stuff from the 1970s 'antique'. Please remember that the idiots who go around calling anything they like antique or retro or vintage are the kind of people who would refer to any music written before 2020 as 'ancient'

I dont see how eras of history or items can be defined by ones age or opinion. You cant call an early Victorian chair 'Baroque'. With that philosophy, stuff from the 1990s would be called 'vintage' or 'antique' by young kids now.

Watch Antiques Roadshow they dont turn up with 1980s computers or cheap 1970s coloured glasses and call them antiques.

@PurpleDave said:
" @rjpeterson82:
In my high school, the path for sports was if you played at Freshman level, you got your graduation numbers for one shoulder (or you could just buy those along with your first name when you go the jacket). The next stage was a Ram's head for the other shoulder, if you played JV and already had your graduation numbers (which, again, you could buy, which is the only reason I ever qualified for a Ram's head). Finally there was the letter, which required playing at the Varsity level. We had one student in my class who went straight to Varsity Basketball his first semester, so I'm not sure how they handled the graduation numbers and Ram's head (though he would have picked up at least one from playing Freshman Football the same semester). Once you had earned your Varsity Letter, you'd add gold bars to it to show how many years you were on the team.

Outside of sports, being in band or choir earned you a full-size letter your first year, and gold bars to add to the letter in subsequent years. And if you hit a 3.5 GPA in your first three years, or 3.8 in your senior year, you could get a smaller academic letter that was a little over half the size of the big letters (I used to point out that it had a genie lamp for "genie-us"), which again earned you gold bars to add for additional years. I don't recall if there were any other non-sports available through my school, but I got the band letter on the back (the only place it would fit), and squeezed the academic letter in on the front (between the buttons, the arm, the pocket, and the collar, there was just barely enough room to accommodate it, but it took on a permanent wrinkle because of the way the jacket would hang when not buttoned up). I got three gold bars on each letter, bought the class numbers, and "earned" the Ram's head for being so truly terrible at golf that I really should have been cut from the team (I think the best I shot was a 90...on nine holes). Funny thing was, I was actually halfway decent at volleyball, but we didn't have a boy's volleyball team. I doubt I would have made a Varsity team (probably even JV would be a long shot), but the bar would have been low enough for a Freshman team that I probably could have qualified.

However, one thing that does not happen is free jackets, at least not where I'm from. Those jackets cost a few hundred dollars, and you have to buy your own if you want one (whether or not you have anything to put on it). The stuff that gets sewn on the jacket is given to you for free if you earn them, and the store that sold the jackets would sew them on for free if you'd purchased your jacket there. Unfortunately, sometime in the last 15 years they seem to have gone out of business, as I was just there 1.5 years ago and the place was empty. My tiny little resort town was the biggest community for miles in any direction, so there were several other school districts besides mine that relied on that store as their source for varsity jackets, so I have no idea how they get them now, or get stuff sewn on in a way that doesn't look like someone's first attempt at sewing.

However, I have never once laid on an actual letterman's sweater from my school district. If they were ever a thing in my school district, they were over and done with by the time I was growing up. You could buy the two styles of varsity jackets (I got one with a hood when I was in school and lived just a little too close to ride the bus, and years later picked up one in the other style). You could also by quilted nylon windbreakers from the same store. I _think_ they had sweatshirts, but can't remember, but sweaters (especially V-neck button-up sweaters) weren't commonly worn."

That’s cool. Thanks for the perspective. I think every school must have a different algorithm. At my school, it was the other way around. The jacket was free - the school paid for it. If you wanted patches, you had to buy those. My high school didn’t have sweaters, but I think in the middle part of the 20th century, they did.

Is there a spare silver skate (for pair)?

For our HS, the letter and any bars/pins/medals were "free"... graduation numerals, name/any embroidery text, and school name patch were on your dime. If the store you purchased the jacket from was nice, they'd sew everything on for free, but a nominal fee was usually charged.

Initially, our athletic letters were larger than academic letters, but that changed after numerous complaints and likely a cost-cutting measure. (My brother is still a little ticked about that change.)

"Just to make sure I will need two 2x2 and two 1x2 teal plates to lose the surfboards? Thanks!"

@Huw said:
"^ Yes."

There is no such color listed as "Teal" on Bricklink's site.....what is the actual color name of the pieces on this set ?

@meesajarjar72 said:
"^^^^ teal is bright blue green on Lego.com and dark turquoise on Bricklink "

THANK YOUUU :)

@PurpleDave another difference is that the original submission has a lever as a gear shifter while the final released set merely has a 1x2 curved slope.

@rjpeterson82:
If you bought the jacket off the rack, the store had probably already added the mascot to the back. If you custom-ordered it, or bought one that had just arrived, you could get one without the mascot, if you just wanted one in that color. Most people got their first name sewn on (there was a term for the process used, but I don't think it was embroidery). The mascot name was just flat cloth cut in the shape of letters. Everything else that you could get added started out as flat cloth, had the letters (or shapes) added in a manner that looked somewhat like a berber carpet, and then the flat cloth was cut to match the profile. These patches were then bonded to the jacket, and the edge was sewn on.

I can't recall for sure, but the name may have been thrown in free (likely rolled into the cost of the jacket, so you were paying for it even if you didn't get one). The school numbers were definitely something you had to buy (or earn). The Ram's head and school letters were produced exclusively for the school, so you couldn't buy them, at least not through that store.

@DaBigE:
As I've already said, there was a store in my town that was the only source of varsity jackets for several surrounding communities (it was a little weird to go in to buy one in my hometown only to see jackets with several other schools' colors hanging on the rack next to them). They always sewed school awards on for free, but they were a multi-generational family-owned store, not a big chain. The only letter I know of offhand that was smaller than varsity letters was the academic one, but there may have been a few other "minor" letters.

@Brickchap:
I've read what you wrote a few times, and I still can't make a lot of sense of it. Much of what you say contradicts other stuff in the same post. What I'm about to say might twist your brain into a pretzel Regardless:

Antique, vintage (except when referring to wine), and retro are all defined by _now_. In the US, Customs laws define antiques as being anything that was 100 years old when purchased. Car clubs consider any motor vehicles to be antiques once they are at least 25 years old (most cars end up in the scrapyard long before this point). Sometimes these are referred to as "classic cars" because there's also a more restrictive classification that includes an "antique era" (this gets really messy, is largely ignored or simply unknown by the general public, and as of this year will start to exclude cars that are old enough to qualify as antiques by US Customs law). Excluding cars and wine, vintage manmade goods would be anything that's old enough to be considered old, but not old enough to qualify as an antique. Retro can be something that's brand-new, but styled to look like something that's from a previous era. If you want to dress in a retro style, you could either buy vintage clothes, or get new clothes that are styled after that same era.

As time passes, these definitions will shift in relation to _this_ time, because this time will no longer be the present that they are defined by. In the case of this set, it is brand-new right now. At some point, it will no longer be considered new, and maybe 10-20 years from now will become old enough to qualify as a vintage set. In 2101, it will legally qualify as an antique set (this one will get messy because it depends on how you define a LEGO set, unless it's a sealed copy). The set itself is _NOT_ retro, because it is not designed to look like a set that was produced in an earlier time. This looks very much like a set that would only have been designed in the last 10 years, at most. In fact, once you really dig into the parts used, it's clear that it can't be more than a couple years old.

The model itself is also brand-new right now, and will hit vintage and antique status at the same pace as the entire set. The model, on the other hand, _is_ retro, because it's styled after a car from several decades ago.

The subject matter of the model, on the other hand, is also not retro. Probably. If it's depicting a scene from the 1950's, then at that time the car (and the clothing) was modern. If the scene is from today, then the car is an antique (over 25 years old), while the clothing is either vintage (not new, but less than 100 years old) or retro (new, but designed to look like it's from a previous era).

Legally, these definitions do vary somewhat by nation. Practically, you can open up a store and call anything "antique", "vintage", or "retro", no matter how old it is. But you'll have a lot of confused customers if you don't at least try to adhere to the commonly accepted definitions. And clothing made in the 1950's is only 30 years away from starting to be regulated as antiques.

This is going to look great with my downtown diner hopefully

In my opinion, the original version of the idea is better because it has good colors. The only thing that I think has improved in this promotional set is just that there are minifigures in it (I haven't seen them in the original). This shade of turquoise and gray is not a very good combination. In addition, the great turn signals were replaced with an ordinary, primitive brick. Great car as a LEGO CITY set.

@PurpleDave:
I was only providing another data point and not trying to say one system is better than another. When I was in high school, we had at least three local stores to choose from. Most if not all of them also handled schools from the neighboring towns as well. None were chain-type stores (I don't ever recall seeing letter jackets available in any chain store, although I do see you can get class rings at Walmart)-- one was a formalwear & alterations shop, one a local athleticwear/supply store, and the other an outdoor clothing store which made a lot of other school spiritwear. I think only the last store remains today.

Another modification to the original Ideas submission is that the windscreen is somehow moved back one stud, which is why its sides/corners stick out inside the passenger compartment - they don't on the original. Also, the 2x2 tile and the coupling plate on the bonnet are moved back 1/2 stud.

As for the lowered position of the surfboards, I realised that the 1x1 brick with stud on 1 side that the panels connect to actually appears in teal for the first time in this set. If 1x1 brick with studs on 2 adjecent sides had been been recoloured instead, the surfboards could have been positioned as on the original. I can only assume the connection wasn't deemed strong enough, even though the current one apparently is rather weak too.

The 40448 Vintage Car GWP has now disappeared from the online Lego store in the UK (as at mid-afternoon on Mon 4 Jan). If that’s a permanent disappearance, they didn’t last long!

@Lightbrick said:
"The 40448 Vintage Car GWP has now disappeared from the online Lego store in the UK (as at mid-afternoon on Mon 4 Jan). If that’s a permanent disappearance, they didn’t last long!"

Still, compared to the Monster Book, it feels like a lifetime to me :-S

I wonder why they didn't go with the binoculars and the teal grille. That would have made it look a lot better. Now, without the chrome, it looks a bit dull. But I'll wait judging till I've built mine.

I was lucky enough to stop by my LEGO store and they had the Police Station in stock so I got this car and the ice skating set. Both are lovely. My surfboards fall off if I brush my teeth in the wrong direction so I will probably do a redesign to get more studs on the side or just add a white stripey swoosh with plates and eliminate the doors as they are currently. Might go for more of a Speed Champions type door. This is such a cool car and great minifigs and worth grabbing a larger set.

The reason for the windscreen being moved back one stud probably is because the steering wheel is moved back as well - I just noticed that on the Ideas submission there is an awkward one stud gap between the steering wheel and the minifigs. An alternative would possibly be to move the seats towards the front, but I don't think that would work very well.

Yet another difference is that the Ideas submission uses old style panels without side supports, which create more room for the arms of the minifigs. Those panels haven't been in production for about 10 years and obviously never will be again.

As for the windscreen not being clear that part has apparently not been made in clear since 2015 - I guess all the teal recolours were deemed enough for this rather small set.

Dang it; it's off the Canadian site...should done an order yesterday...maybe we'll 'luck out' and it'll get VIPed like other GWP sets have in the past...

Was lucky to get one on day 1. I see it sold out already. Wow! It's a cool car, and definitely old school and vintage. Is it a 1950's Bel Air? Let me guess the minifigures could be Travolta and ONJ? Just kidding. I like the car but I can't stand the way the surfboards are attached. That door part was mainly okay, but the part to attach the surfboard holds it on so cheaply, in other words falls off too easily. It's a great display piece, but I wouldn't recommend play, unless you find a better way to attach the side boards. Glad I got it tho.

The license plates intials stand for the designer first name intials (Arne and Mel Caddick). The numbers if you look upside down, spell LEGO.

Seems sold out in The Netherlands as well. Come on Lego, how can a set that was supposed to be available until the 17th already be sold out before the 5th?

It's odd that the 1x1 bracket used for the rear bumper is light grey, seeing as it appears in teal in 80105 Chinese New Year Temple Fair.

As for the piece used for side mirrors in the Ideas submission that has only ever appeared in dark grey, which would have looked very much out of place. It's actually used as side mirrors in 70903 The Riddler Riddle Racer.

@Bowler4Lyfe:
I don't believe so. Certainly the 55 Bel Air had small, vertical fins, and the famous 57 Bel Air had somewhat larger vertical fins. I did find one picture of a 59 Bel Air that had gull-winged fins similar to those seen here, but only the top surface of those fins was white. There was no white trim on the sides. I also found a few sites that claim the car was named the "Aedelsten Deluxe" by the AFOL designer who won the contest.

Was really looking forward to placing a Lego order in January - primarily for the opportunity to get this and the HP GWP. But with both being sold out by Jan 5th and my entire basket being on Back Order until Feb 10th at the earliest there seems little point in spending the money this month - especially as for my custom they want to give me the same GWP I received last month, the ice skating set. I guess there are a lot of factors at play here but I am still left deflated.

The surfboards fall off every time you look at them.