Random set of the day: Go-Kart
Posted by Huwbot,
Today's random set is 854 Go-Kart, released during 1978. It's one of 9 Technic sets produced that year. It contains 206 pieces.
It's owned by 2,420 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you might find it for sale at BrickLink or eBay.
97 likes
52 comments on this article
Ancestor of the Nitro Pulverizer.
I think I got a much later version of this set, just to get the Technic fig, so I could put him in the driverless hovercraft.
Pretty cool-looking set, except for the STAMP. Bike alternate model's pretty neat, too.
Official Technic 3-in-1 and that was 1978.
I had a much later go kart 8815 , which had instructions for a sort of Le Mans supercar build if combined with 8820 and 8024 (which I didn't have)
https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?B=120270
I like how in the shot of the kart’s back, the double tire treads were set so that they would be staggered in uniform. Those kind of details are warm and fuzzy to me and I see it only ever so often.
Got the US version - 948
I have such fond memories of this set as a kid. While it was my brother's, he let me play with this one, whereas set 8860 was "hands off" for me.
Does anyone know how long sets were on the market in the late 70s? I have this set (or possibly 948) but my parents surely wouldn’t have bought a technic set for a baby (born in 78). Where did it come from?? One of life’s great mysteries I guess.
Still have my 948 Go-Kart in original box with all the inserts. The best part about the model's of years prior were all the other models on the front, side, inside the lid, and the back of the box. Just enough pictures for you to piece together any alternative build, unless it was one featured in the instruction manual. Not bad for a 44 year old set!
@PurpleDave said:
"I think I got a much later version of this set, just to get the Technic fig, so I could put him in the driverless hovercraft."
Has there ever been a satisfying reason given as to why they don’t sell at least one Technic fig? Is it because there are so many different scales across Technic vehicles?
A friend lent me his directions so I could build this, but as the only Expert Builder (that's what Technic was called in the U.S. for the first few years) sets I had were 961 Parts Pack and 951 Bulldozer, my go-kart was yellow.
I liked the alternate motorcycle- easy to build from just the picture.
That, and the production costs for the Technic figure were a lot higher.
Still one of my all time favorite sets
Go, kart! Go!
Oh JOY...My first Technics set, and one I specifically wanted for my birthday...on the 9th of Nov., so that front-plate (with the '9') was always one of my faves. Well that, and the engine design.:)
Back when Expert / Technic sets were new and they only released one or two sets a year, each one was quite special.
Found this at an antique store recently.
I didn't have this set, but I liked it very much. I made it several times with the parts of my other sets, just by looking at a few pictures from sales catalogs. And I don't think I was very much of of the original build.
I recently found this set at a collector's fair and gifted it to my brother. It's lego of his youth and I know he is very slowly collecting some of those sets.
Back in the days - during Lugnet times - there was a guy who was collecting this set in as many colours as possible. When Lego was producing Technic beams in new colours, he would build a 854/948 in that colours. Unfortunately I cannot find the picture any more. He had quite a few of them.
Love this set, still rebuild it from time to time. Such memories.
It was 8225 that supplied a Technic fit to 8824.
@Edwin_Danielson:
Such matters get tricky, as the range of sets was small enough in those days that they probably weren’t always clearanced to make room for the next wave, especially if the store in question didn’t carry many sets to begin with. Even as late as 20 years ago, I remember running across sets that had been produced 5-10 years before. I tried to get one TRU to clearance 8480 in the early 2000’s. They were clearancing retired sets, but it was apparently too old to be flagged for clearance.
@VintageDude:
That probably depends on if you get some stripped-down model they sell with lawn equipment, or the beefier ones you can pay to drive at go-kart tracks. In my experience, 42048 looks more like a track version, which usually have fiberglass shells.
@B_Space_Man:
Without having a Technic fig in front of me to check, I can identify at least 20 different components (feet, shins, thighs, hips, chest, shoulders, upper arms, elbows, forearms, hands, head, hair), all of which are permanently combined into a single figure. It greatly reduced the versatility of the design when you can’t swap legs, torsos, heads, and hair. The design is also prone to breaking, I believe, and renders all but the helmet, footwear, and handheld accessories unusable.
The complexity was such that there’s barely any variety of design, so the Technic figs rarely fit the design of the sets designed to accommodate them (except the Competition subtheme), and they took a huge toll on the size of any set they could accompany. They also restricted the scale that such sets could be designed to. If they weren’t banned due to complaints about broken arms and legs, they were probably abandoned because they were such a drain on resources. Certainly by the time the Technic brand was stripped from packaging, there was no use for them in any of the Bionicle or Star Wars sets that remained.
The American version of this set, 948, was the first Lego set I ever owned.
I can’t now be certain but I think this was my first technic set, but it may have been the red tractor. Hours of enjoyment.
@HOBBES dang but I wish I’d thought that way back in the day. Could certainly have done red and yellow. Might just have to make that a weekend project now.
@CCC:
Three years too early for “Jumpman”, 18 years too early for Crash, and I’m guessing the last one is Vanellope (34 years too early!).
Oh hey my dad had this set. He had it on a shelf being driven around by a Batman figure, from when Batman wore similar blue and greys to the set
@TeriXeri said:
"Official Technic 3-in-1 and that was 1978.
I had a much later go kart 8815 , which had instructions for a sort of Le Mans supercar build if combined with 8820 and 8024 (which I didn't have)
https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?B=120270 "
I've had that one built up for the last 20 years! With the 9V engine inside even :D
According to danish catalogues, set 850, 851, 852 and 853 was released on 9. September 1977, and 854 was already at that time announced to come out in 1978 (see https://images.brickset.com/library/view/?f=catalogues/c77det1&p=18), even though it only was released a year later, on 5. September 1978.
I probably had to wait a few more months - until Christmas - to get it.
@Edwin_Danielson said:
"Does anyone know how long sets were on the market in the late 70s? I have this set (or possibly 948) but my parents surely wouldn’t have bought a technic set for a baby (born in 78). Where did it come from?? One of life’s great mysteries I guess. "
854 had a longer life than most sets, it's still in this UK catalogue from 1985: https://images.brickset.com/library/view/?f=catalogues/c85uk&p=33
I remember Blue used to be a rather special/rare color for Technic sets those days. Or was it just me? White Technic bricks were introduced with the Arctic sets.
What the X-Wing and the Snowspeeder are for Star Wars, Go-Karts are for technic. There has always to be a Go-Kart!
This could have been my first Technic set, but I chose the forklift https://brickset.com/sets/950-1/Forklift instead.
My first Technic set - I loved it!
My dog ate the box. Boo! Silly dog.
I've since bought a copy with box and tray from Bricklink and love it as much as I did in 1978 :)
My very first technic set, at about 7 years old. I still remember how amazed I was, especially with the gear rack and bricks with holes!
There is something very charming about these studded Technic sets.
As a kid always wanted to convert this to a 6 wheeled enclosed space buggy for my mini-figs, but never had enough pieces for the bodywork.
I feel like I saw this one, with a few other similarly old technic sets - used but still with their original boxes - for sale in a charity shop several months back. Never having been big on technic vehicles, I didn't get any of them; but it was kinda neat to see them, anyway ^^
Might not have been this *exact* one; I didn't really look super closely at them, just enough to register that they were vintage technic. But they were definitely from this era, they had the same kind of box design as this.
Hey my 1st Expert Builder set! Christmas when I was 7, so 1978.
I was so proud of myself because the age range started at 9.
I had one of these back in the day. I re-used the blocky steering technique a lot in MOCs back then. I think mainly though I made Classic Space monster-truck moon buggies out of it!
@zyberteq said: "I recently found this set at a collector's fair and gifted it to my brother. It's lego of his youth and I know he is very slowly collecting some of those sets."
That's really sweet of you.
Buying this set is my strongest childhood memory. Bought with my own money (a from a premium bond win that my Granddad bought me only a few years earlier) when I was 7 and took only a minor tantrum to persuade my parents I could build it even though it said 9 years and up on the box.
In case anyone built the Boutique Hotel and thought 3-4-5 triangles were a new innovation, note how steering wheel and dashboard are supported. In Lego, Pythagorean triangles have been a thing for at least 48 years. Longer in other media... 2500 years or so.
My first and only(?) technic set. I really enjoyed rebuilding this kart over and over. Thumbs up!
i still have it. : )
My first technic set, rebuilt a few years ago and now has pride of place next to a couple of hobby sets ( 390 & 395 )
I loved seeing the piston move up and down as you roll the go-kart around. This is a classic!
Oooh, I loved this one. This (or the alternate US version, 948 ) was I think my first Technic set, pre-dark ages, and one of a number of sets I let slip away during that time that I now dearly wish I still had.
As a kid I was very into building, disassembling, and rebuilding sets, and the STAMP here vexed me a bit. I remember actually peeling off the applied sticker a few times and resticking it onto the decal sheet so I could fully disassemble the bricks, then reapplying it when rebuilding the model. Eventually I had to stop doing that, of course.
Got this in 1979 age 7 - all the bits got scattered throughout everything else so I bought a mint boxed version a few years back, then my partners work colleague asked if I would like a Lego go cart they had laying around from childhood - enter boxed set 2! I loved the steering action - I was obsessed with steering wheels at the time for maximum realism and followed this up with the red tractor for my 8th birthday in late 1980 which I took to school to show off! I also now have the yellow forklift...
Have it and lovin' it. There is no equal...
Got this set as a kid and loved it even though it was a real struggle to assemble.
@haytor:
Nothing like a tantrum to prove you’re mature enough to do something beyond your age group, eh?
@BrickTeller:
Except Pythagorean triangles in the LEGO world work a bit differently. Instead of a 3-4-5 triangle, it needs to be 4-5-6 because the connections are centered on the studs or Technic pin holes, so there’s always 1/2 extra at each end. While 5-12-13 works in the math world, it needs to be 6-13-14 to work with LEGO elements.
There’s another geometry trick that’s a little more useful. Pythagorean triangles quickly exceed the size of most builds, unless you just scale up the 3-4-5 (7-9-11, 10-13-16, etc). Squares are much more versatile. Take any size square plate. Using four round 1x1 and plates, make a cockeyed square pattern (think how a Knight moves in chess). You can now take another square plate of the same size and counter rotate it the same amount, and it will attach to those studs. You can change the size and angle of the square formed by these round plates to achieve a much greater degree of angles than you can reasonably achieve with Pythagorean triangles in a MOC.
I had the US version 948 of this set as my first Technic set, along with 960 to add wired power to the main model. The power cord in that set was a bit short, the gearing made it pretty fast, and alas controlling the steering was not considered in the powered option. That made for a challenge keeping up with it while it was traversing across the floor with me in tow attempting micro adjustments to the steering by hand.
I still have the model built (last rebuilt it in 1982, been put together and stored away for 40 years!). Should take a look again at revisiting powering this with modern PF and see if I can add steering control. Hmm...
@VintageDude:
Exactly. Stripped down go karts for the home market. Looks exactly like the one in this B/W ad:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/334392341066427476/
Back in the day, most lawn equipment stores carried a few go-karts and minibikes to help diversify their product line, and this looks exactly like what they would have sold. Now for a modern track kart, an actual body is expected rather than just exposed frame:
https://www.capitalkarts.com
For one thing, it dramatically increases the safety for the driver if they can’t poke their hands through parts of the car and touch the ground while driving around a go-kart track full of other karts being driven by people who think it’s a bumper car race. This is especially true for 2-seaters that allow young kids to ride shotgun even if they’re not big enough to drive their own kart. Open frame is a good way to lose some fingers, and that makes it hard to insure the business.