(Written by William)
Ever since I dipped my builder’s toes into the LEGO Icons (Formerly LEGO Expert) vehicles line, I’ve been hooked. Capturing the small details that define a given vehicle is interesting. And boy, are there details to capture when it comes to Formula 1 race cars!
It’s also nice that the LEGO Icons F-1 cars can be considered a new jumping-on point for fans of either hobby to join each other’s interests. There are currently two LEGO Icons F-1 cars available: the #10330 LEGO Icons McLaren MP4/4 & Ayrton Senna, and the #10353 LEGO Icons Williams Racing FW14B & Nigel Mancell.
In terms of size and price, they are somewhere between larger LEGO Icons cars for display and the smaller LEGO Speed Champions vehicles. Both sets include a minifigure driver, which is uncommon for LEGO Icons but standard for LEGO Speed Champions. And both sets are an affordable $79.99 each at the LEGO Icons section of the Online LEGO Shop.
What concerned me the most was whether the #10353 LEGO Icons Williams Racing FW14B would feel different enough from the #10330 LEGO Icons McLaren MP4/4 model I built previously? I figured the history behind the model and driver would be a good bit different. However, is this something that translates to the actual build? Well, let’s head to the starting line and check out what’s under the hood!
LEGO WILLIAMS RACING FW14B – HISTORY
Nigel Mancell is a British race car driver who has raced for several different teams. He’s raced for Lotus (which got sold back to Renault in 2015), Williams, Ferrari, and McLaren. His only World Championship win came in 1992 with Williams Racing and its FW14B car.
As a driver, most of Nigel’s career was plagued with unreliable cars that had trouble keeping up with his driving style. He was known for either driving fast or burning out. His 32 wins are overshadowed by his 32 crashes, which is a fairly high crash-to-win ratio for drivers.
So, what made the 1992 Williams Racing car an ideal fit for Nigel? In a word, suspension. For roughly 10 years, Williams worked on making an active suspension that could keep the car glued to the track. It wasn’t until 1992 that they saw real success.
The end result was a hydraulic-based system that was controlled by a computer. The computer would make adjustments to the height of the vehicle as well as how each wheel reacted. This meant it was an automatic transmission, leaving the driver only a few controls to worry about. This is why the car doesn’t feature any sort of gear shift for the driver, since the real vehicle never had one.
LEGO WILLIAMS RACING FW14B – DETAILED BUILD
Unlike the McLaren model, it seems like LEGO designers spent a bit more time on the detail work of the Williams car. Much of the body of the chassis uses more delicate connection points. I found the tail fins extremely fragile in the build process. However, the more obvious touchpoints of the model make the end product still fairly stable.
Speaking of detail work, LEGO designers wanted the engineering of this car to shine. So, you do get stickered elements calling out the car’s active suspension. They even have blue whips that act as the hydraulic hoses for the suspension and a black minifigure head to represent the reservoir that the hydraulics use.
When it comes to the graphics, prepare yourself for stickers. Apart from Goodyear appearing on the tires, every other graphic element on the vehicle is a sticker. This is probably not the building experience many hope for, but given the quantity of the graphics, it makes sense LEGO went in this direction to keep costs down.
LEGO WILLIAMS RACING FW14B – FINAL THOUGHTS
As mentioned before, you know I’m already a fan of this type of set. So, taking my word for it already comes with a lot of bias. So, I’ll try to cover why I think it’s as good as it is, and then maybe address reasons why it might not be for you.
Starting with the good side. It is a lower-priced model for a car of its size. Much of this comes from the fact that it doesn’t have a high profile like other LEGO Icons vehicles. However, it doesn’t lack functionality. The steering works, which many of the early vehicles can’t admit to having. Another big plus is that it takes extra effort to sculpt an extremely aerodynamic vehicle in such a tight manner. This keeps the building experience always interesting. Plus, you get a minifigure.
Moving on to why it might not be for you. You are just not into motor sports. This takes the rich history of what this set offers off the table. Also, you absolutely loathe stickers. This set would look rather odd without all the graphics. That, unfortunately, means not putting on the stickers will dramatically downgrade the model. And finally, it may be too delicate to play with. I did mention there are plenty of points to make this model easy to handle, but there are also some rather delicate spots as well. This puts this model more in the display category, even more so than other LEGO Icon vehicles. And this is a hard one not to play with since it is a race car that was designed to be one of the fastest land vehicles ever built. The lack of playability might just make you a little too sad.
Hopefully, this summary gives you a good feel for how this model handles. I find myself always intrigued with the F-1 series sets as they capture not just a cool car and a legendary driver, but an important moment in time. Learning about its history really adds depth to the building experience we don’t often get from an average model. And just maybe this will have you racing to your LEGO store or the LEGO Icons section of the Online LEGO Shop.
What do you think? How do you like the LEGO Icons F1 vehicles? Do you have either of them already? Feel free to share your thoughts and own reviews in the comment section below!
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