Set Review ➟ 42110 Technic Land Rover Defender: Part 1
Land Rover announced its latest defender model at the Frankfurt Motor Show 2019. At the same time a LEGO collaboration was unveiled. LEGO features the newest defender model as a licensed set in the Technic theme and it promises to be full of interesting details.
HispaBrick Magazine has been offered a review copy of the LEGO model and we look forward to starting our review soon. Unfortunately, there have been a lot of leaks and (unintentional?) mistakes with sets being sold and revealed to early. When LEGO released the 42083 Bugatti Chiron in June last year the set had already been built the backroom of a LEGO store and pictures posted online! In this case, however, LEGO have managed to keep things reasonably under wraps. A few watermarked images of the final model box art surfaced some time ago but so far, the set hasn’t been spotted in any stores, let alone built by its employees.
The cost of achieving this leak-free reveal is that reputable fan media have also had to wait for the set to be shipped until the say before the official announcement and so, at the time of writing, we are still waiting for the set to arrive.
In anticipation of getting our hands on the “real deal”, we do have an interesting collection of images available so there is nothing stopping us from starting our review with what we can learn from those!
Let’s start by comparing the LEGO model to the original:
LEGO has a tendency to be flatter and squarer than the models it represents and this is also true in this case. Even so, there are a number of similarities that have been well resolved. The first thing that caught my eyes were the new mudguards. These are squarer compared to the ones that were first released with the 42056 LEGO Technic Porsche 911 GT3 RS. The colour choice is also curious. There is no LEGO colour that comes close to the one sued in the original Land Rover Defender in the image and Olive Green seems like a reasonable choice as it reminds me of the old Land Rover Defender that have been in service for decades. It does mean that there is a new colour available for creating MOCs, but unless LEGO releases more Technic sets that use this colour the usefulness of parts in this colour will be limited.
Taking a closer look, the typical bulge in the hood to me also looks more similar to the older models than to this latest version. I do like it though, so its fine as far as I am concerned.
However, a 1:1 comparison to the original is probably not the best way to evaluate this set, so lets have a closer look at the LEGO model… out in the wild:
Looking at it like this, the level of detail is really nice. The roof rack and ladder to the side make the model look extra rugged. And this setting really brings out the best in the Olive Green colour of the set.
Looking at the set from a different angle we can see more interesting details. The Hand-Of-God (HOG) steering wheel on the roof is placed to one side (as opposed to the traditional centre position). You can also see how stickers are used to recreated the rubbery surface you can see on either side of the hood of the original model.
This view of the front shows the grille and winch hook. You can also see a number of additional stickers for the lights and the car name and brand. It also provides a good first impression of the independent suspension on all 4 wheels.
Moving on to external functions:
The opening doors have handles on the outside, but no mechanism to lock them when closed. There are storage boxes on the roof rack and on the right-side rear window. The rear door also opens and you can see a hint of a locking mechanism.
There are even some spare parts to store in the box on top of the roof rack:
On the other side of the car, the ladder unfolds to easily climb to the roof.
The rear door we saw before has a locking mechanism that is operated by turning the spare wheel!
It is actually easier to see in the product video:
Moving to the interior of the car, we find Medium Nougat coloured seats and dashboard trimming. You can also see a number of stickers, including on in the door, on the instep and on the steering wheel.
The other side of the cabin reveals a few more stickers for air conditioning, GPS and dual gear selector
The car also has back seats. Opening the rear door reveals part of the gearbox. There are also a few more stickers here for lights and reflectors.
A look under the hood reveals a 6 cylinder in-line engine. It bears a striking resemblance to the V8 engine in the 42093 Chevrolet Corvet and no doubt uses a very similar mechanism:
The pistons come through a pair of new Connector Beams 1x3x3 which we first saw in the still unreleased SPIKE Prime set. The engine is nicely detailed
A frequent gripe that car fans have had with LEGO models is the fact that the rear suspension tends to be much stiffer than the front suspension or that the front suspension makes the model sag. In this model LEGO have tried a novel approach by using mixed springs in the shock absorbers. Notice how the springs in the rear are both the same, but in the front there is a red (same as in the rear) and a white shock absorber. A single red shock absorber likely would have been too weak. Adding a second shock absorber with a weaker spring should make both front and rear suspension react similarly.
An even closer inspection also shows the mechanism of the winch which appears to be reeled in by turning the carter and has an easy release using a rubber element.
The really interesting part of this model remains to be investigated. LEGO announced the model as having the “LEGO Technic’s most sophisticated gearbox yet”. The following image shows how the car is basically built around this gearbox, but it is as yet unclear how it works.
What does stand out is that there is at least one new element in the gearbox.
Balazs Kiss (Racingbricks) has pointed out that in fact this is the old style differential in red, Thanks!
Want to know more? Stay tuned for the next part of our review!
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