A few of us kinda pressured another one of our friends to buy 8448, the red one that followed, just because we all wanted to see it in person (but nobody felt like buying it).

Been on a blue-box Technic kick lately huh

@ra226:
Ah, but financially, 8448 was available at MSRP if you walked into the local TRU. This set would have been retired at that point, and secondary market prices would be higher.

This one is special to me. It was the last one I bought just as I started high school, and just before my dark ages.

And then, almost 20 years later, R2D2 (10225).. Both sets I will never sell. :D

I wanted this one since I’ve seen it for the first time in a catalogue. Still on my wish list…

Was drooling over this one but it was too expensive back in the day (7500 whole Belgian francs!). Got it way later - but still over 10 years ago - at half that price (used). Still proudly displayed with the original 4 supercars (/chassis)... Technologically the most advanced of the 5 - although I did think 8448 looked a LOT nicer.

For a Super Car this is very bare bones, if you will.

This set includes an exclusive Technic gearbox piece that only ever appeared in this set. That piece alone can get quite expensive on Bricklink.

@sid3windr said:
"Was drooling over this one but it was too expensive back in the day (7500 whole Belgian francs!)."

Are you sure? I'm pretty sure I bought this being a kid for around 4000 francs.

Anyway, an absolute stunning piece, still in my collection on display. It will probably never leave!

To me as well, this was the ticket into my dark ages. A fantastic set. Thanks to the wealth of hinged plates it allowed organic shapes unusual for the time. Secondary model (Formula 1 car) was also much fun to build and drive. My set sits complete but disassembled in my wardrobe.

While the body is skeletal, there's actually some nice shaping here, there's not a lot of 90 degree angles on those beams.

I enjoy looking at the pictures of the recent supercars but it all ended for me after 8448.

Does this represent an actual car model or is it just a concept design type of thing?

Probably most famous Technic set ever.

@PurpleDave said:
"A few of us kinda pressured another one of our friends to buy 8448 , the red one that followed, just because we all wanted to see it in person (but nobody felt like buying it)."

Hey! I really want that one! The 8448 is a great base to build your own stuff on.

Huwbot prefers old-school technic instead of clikits now.

Just another technic car to me. I was never really into technic, either the studded, older version, or the newer beam and panel version.

But this one certainly has a Blacktron vibe to it.

This seems to come up as a random set quite often?.. I remember this before..

I recognise that people consider this as the best Technic set ever (owned it at a point and sold it) and as far as functionality goes, it is very hard to beat. While still "square" the shaping was also an order of magnitude (or more) better than 8865. Lego 8880 came at the time of the 4 wheel steering Honda Prelude (hence the 4-wheel steering). True enough, it had it all!

However, I still prefer 8448 because it is modular. I particularly appreciate how the steering system is done and leaves plenty of space to put the engine on top (at the front, like most car) - most vehicle sets nowadays build a very bulky armature around the steering system and it does not look anything like a real car (so much so that the engine has to be placed elsewhere or is now made of a fake cam apparatus). The same is true for the transmission (I do appreciate the fact that recent paddle shift transmissions take a lot more space) but the transmission for 8448 is a marvel of compactness for a 5 speed, 1 reverse all in a 6x16x4 block - try to remove any other transmission to study how it works - you will have to dismantle the whole set and be very careful about how you do that. 8448 weight is fairly light and has plenty of space left to install motors for steering and propulsion without changing the overall aspect of the car (mostly hidden). The main problem might be the shock absorbers which are a bit too soft but this can be fixed by putting the red ones.

If they(Lego) would want to reintroduce the 'flex system', we could get braking system; combined with the pneumatic spring of 8448, we could have latch controlled opening trunk. It would also be very easy to do pop-up lights (although these are not seen any more on new cars). But more importantly, a return of 'flex' would permit very accurate rendition of aircraft and helicopter controls - I am still waiting for a proper collective and cyclical helicopter. One can only dream...

One of the coolest sets in my collection.

That was the only set I bought during my dark ages, back when I thought I am the only 18+ person still interested in LEGO "toys" ... But the 8880 was more then just a toy, it was the best LEGO Technic set back then and maybe for ever!

This was the very first set that I mail-ordered from Lego, before the internet really existed. Shop @home was a thing, but only via catalog and phone (or snail-mail-order, imagine). I wanted this sooo much!

In that era, this was the biggest, baddest technic set there was. And I thought it was gorgeous. I still think so, even though younger afols may not appreciate it the same way.

When I rebuilt it more recently, I was surprised how challenging it really was to assemble- much more so than today's sets with their comparatively easy instructions. Ah, those good old days. Lining up the steering of this one is tricky, and if you do it wrong, it's a major job to fix it later.

For me, this one is still a beauty and a true classic, as echoed by many other comments.

@HOBBES: that's my impression as well.
Back in the day we managed (as kids no less) to build sets like this with only black and grey axles and pins.
Nowadays, everything is dumbed down to the max. It's almost insulting that instructions today are centered not on a challenging build but on the lowest common denominator.
How on Earth did we as kids both manage to build sets that way AND have fun at the same time?

@AustinPowers said:
" @HOBBES: that's my impression as well.
Back in the day we managed (as kids no less) to build sets like this with only black and grey axles and pins.
Nowadays, everything is dumbed down to the max. It's almost insulting that instructions today are centered not on a challenging build but on the lowest common denominator.
How on Earth did we as kids both manage to build sets that way AND have fun at the same time? "

I hear you. My first ever set was 358 (which might explain why I am a freak with everything space) when I was 4 years old. Built this no problem - at one point, I was able to build it from memory. 15 Steps total. Today, that would require an encyclopedia to print the instructions for this.

Back to the pins: there are certainly a few good reasons to go back to black and grey. In no particular order there is the look of models - more cohesive - and also to develop attention and patience in young builders - you have to pay attention at what you are looking for if you want the model to function properly. Attention to details is a skill going the way of the dodo unfortunately.

There is but one advantage to modern pins, more specifically the black 1x2 pins. They still look basically the same, but anyone who built Technic sets back in the day will remember, once you stuck them in, you never got them out again (or only with massive teeth marks and a hurting jaw ;-)

That's the one thing that I don't miss about classic Technic. Then again, if you wanted really strong connections, those pins were the way to go.

52 hinge plates, that must be a record! I remember this as quite expensive at the time so never purchased, possibly the cost was the new pieces needed as the first vehicle with a proper gear box using 2 driving rings and 4 specialist gears which would lock or unlock. Although these parts have being discontinued, this method is still used today with the equivalent parts. There are lots more photos at https://www.toysperiod.com/lego-set-reference/technic/model/traffic/lego-8880-super-car/ including the racing car and underneath showing the mechanism for the front and rear steering.

I have this one! Got it when I was a little kid. I was so happy to get it. I built it many times throughout my childhood, both models. To this day I think this is still one of the best Technic supercars ever made. Someone already mentioned a list of features it has. No other supercar ever came close to it. Well maybe the new Porsche, Bugatti and Lamborghini, but that still took a while!

I have this one! Got it when I was a little kid. I was so happy to get it. I built it many times throughout my childhood, both models. To this day I think this is still one of the best Technic supercars ever made. Someone already mentioned a list of features it has. No other supercar ever came close to it. Well maybe the new Porsche, Bugatti and Lamborghini, but that still took a while!

@HOBBES:
Pop-up headlights were all the rage for a few minutes, but they were a terrible idea that was only necessary because headlights were always sealed affairs made out of glass, and typically not made in L/R versions. If you wanted a cleanly streamlined front end on your car, headlights really screwed things up until they were able to start molding them in contoured plastic and just swap out the actual lamp. The major problem with pop-ups is the wiring. At my last job, my boss' wife really wanted a sports car. I don't remember what she got (it wasn't anything super fancy like a Corvette), but it was a 2-door affair with pop-up headlights. And one day they stopped working. We ended up finding a broken wire, caused by the repeated stress of flipping up, and down, and up, and down, and up, and down, and so on. The only wiring in the car that gets more abuse than pop-up headlight wiring is the wiring in the driver's door (I just had my keyless entry pad disabled because it appears to have had a short that was periodically grounding out and could drain the battery in a matter of hours). So we figured out where the wire was broken, cut out the bad section, and spliced in a new piece with crimp connectors. It was cheaper than getting a new factory-spec wire, and as far as I know she never had any more problems with them for as long as she owned that car.

As for colored pins, and more compact instructions, they appear to have figured out that they were really only accessible to a small percentage of the population. To really open up the market, they needed to be able to appeal to less mechanically-inclined consumers, which meant the instructions, and the models themselves, had to be more accessible. I have a friend who really got into building the high-end sets over the last year, and was telling me that somehow he'd been able to understand the instructions in a way that he never was ever able to as a kid. I had to inform him that a large part of that was simply the fact that they've changed the instructions so much since then, specifically to make them easier to understand. Old-school AFOLs may chafe at that, but it really helped make LEGO sets accessible to a wider range of kids.

There is only one thing to say about this lego set - brilliant. I love this set, although I didn't have it in my childhood (90s) I bought it at the end of 2005, back then he made a huge impression not only in 1994, even now no set can match him.

@PurpleDave said:
" @HOBBES:
Pop-up headlights were all the rage for a few minutes, but they were a terrible idea that was only necessary because headlights were always sealed affairs made out of glass, and typically not made in L/R versions. If you wanted a cleanly streamlined front end on your car, headlights really screwed things up until they were able to start molding them in contoured plastic and just swap out the actual lamp. The major problem with pop-ups is the wiring. At my last job, my boss' wife really wanted a sports car. I don't remember what she got (it wasn't anything super fancy like a Corvette), but it was a 2-door affair with pop-up headlights. And one day they stopped working. We ended up finding a broken wire, caused by the repeated stress of flipping up, and down, and up, and down, and up, and down, and so on. The only wiring in the car that gets more abuse than pop-up headlight wiring is the wiring in the driver's door (I just had my keyless entry pad disabled because it appears to have had a short that was periodically grounding out and could drain the battery in a matter of hours). So we figured out where the wire was broken, cut out the bad section, and spliced in a new piece with crimp connectors. It was cheaper than getting a new factory-spec wire, and as far as I know she never had any more problems with them for as long as she owned that car.

As for colored pins, and more compact instructions, they appear to have figured out that they were really only accessible to a small percentage of the population. To really open up the market, they needed to be able to appeal to less mechanically-inclined consumers, which meant the instructions, and the models themselves, had to be more accessible. I have a friend who really got into building the high-end sets over the last year, and was telling me that somehow he'd been able to understand the instructions in a way that he never was ever able to as a kid. I had to inform him that a large part of that was simply the fact that they've changed the instructions so much since then, specifically to make them easier to understand. Old-school AFOLs may chafe at that, but it really helped make LEGO sets accessible to a wider range of kids."

The 853 Technic Chassis (at least the first version), has a fold-out leaflet that shows how to build the whole car. I think that two instructions should be included: one easy, and one challenging. The challenging would just be a few pages anyway. Can't be that of an environmental disaster compared to the current practice :-)

Concerning pop-up headlights: My first car had them, and I thought they were pretty neat, and one of the few things on the car that didn't break... Often the pop-up headlights were necessary to comply with US regulations on the height of the headlights. Nowadays it's a safety issue to not include them, for pedestrians and cyclists.

Classic technic at it's best. Better than what we get now, with lots of panels but little or invisible functionality . 8880 was the second best set ever released. Airtech Claw Rig ( 8868 ) was the best: highest ratio of functionality to parts, and a great B model.

LEGO: we want functions, not prettified models that sit on the shelf.

Still a prized part of my collection, having bought new in the 90s. Great features and still good styling for studded beams.

This came out during a tough year for me as a kid. My F1 hero Ayrton Senna died in a crash and I struggled with bullying for the whole of my final year of primary school, such that I basically refused to go for the last three months - this was before any sort of mental illness or action against bullies was a recognised thing.

But this 8880 set shone as a beacon for me; a promise and a goal to save enough pocket money to be able to contribute towards its cost as a Christmas present. I even held off getting any presents at all so that we could wait until the end-of-year sales, and we got it at a reasonable discount just before New Years by pooling my saved up money, gifted Christmas money from relatives, and my parents’ Christmas gift budget. I still remember walking out of the shop with it, the happiest kid in the whole world. I built the set and put that horrible year behind me.

I still have it and the box. The white pieces are all very badly yellowed and the studs filled with years of accumulated dust, and it creaks whenever you move it as the parts ever so slightly fuse together due to age. The box is very haggard but has held its shape well - it’s fun to open the lid as if you are examining it longingly in the toy shop once again. Very now and then I’ll disassemble it and build the other model, swapping between A and B (I prefer B). It’s one of my most treasured objects, and holds a lot of dear memories for me.

This still stands as the best Christmas present I ever got! I took this apart and rebuilt it so many times I almost didn't even need the directions anymore... Then I entered my dark ages and didn't come back to LEGO until a couple years ago. This now sits proudly on my shelf along side 42056 and 42083.