First "real" set in two decades
So, I picked up the Ford Mustang (model number 10265) and built it a couple of weekends ago. Man has Lego come far. Below are some of my observations/thoughts about this set and lego as a whole given my absence from the hobby for so many years. - Part Selection - There are so many new pieces and a lot of them solve problems that I remember having and being frustrated with. So many instances of “if I only had this or that piece it would be so much easier.” Honestly, some of it felt like cheating! On the flip side, the level of detail and accuracy some of the pieces provide is clearly visible in this model. I’m curious how the lego team makes the decision to create an entirely new piece. It can’t be a cheap endeavor as the process to design and make molds are probably expensive in regards to time and money. - Design/Engineering - The door! The door hinge one the Mustang is amazing. It seems so simple but there’s a huge amount of complexity in this seemingly little aspect of it. To have the door close at just the right angle, the design requires a sort of double-hinge that not only had I not seen before but also utilizes a creative technique: the hinge uses a strategically placed empty void that allows for the corner of a square piece (that’s part of an actual hinge) to rotate (it’s hard to explain but amazing). I also can’t help but think about how any given set is designed. When you think about the scale that the designer is aiming to achieve, I can’t imagine how often they have to re-work a section of a design to accommodate adjustments made to fit another area of the model. For instance, if you build the engine to fit a given space and achieve a certain scale, but then the door hinge takes up more space than anticipated, how do you now go back and adjust the engine? It’s not like a lego design can be parametrically modeled given the specifics of the pieces available. I’d love to read about/hear how the designers deal with this. Really like the seat design in this particular model too. It is a creative use of pieces and looks great. But the door hinge!!! I can’t get over that technique. The extras like the additional license plates, supercharger, exhaust pipes were also cool. I liked that these were legit add-ons that added interesting context to the set. - Instructions - I noticed there are now some “aides” in the book that I don’t recall when I was younger. Namely the red outline of the parts that change in a given step, the rotate symbol (not sure if it is new or more pronounced), and then the numbered bags that align to each section. I have mixed feelings about these things. I feel like in the past the red outline was possibly replaced by parts where the opacity had been changed? Not sure but this was much more clear and I didn’t feel like I had to pay attention to as much detail and, for better or worse, could move through the steps faster. The numbered bags are interesting. They definitely speed up the process of finding parts but that was half the fun…. The hunt for that one piece out of the 1000+ (for a set like this) was both agonizing and rewarding. You swore that they forgot the piece but then they never forget the piece. I also love the story/context included in the manual of this set. I'm not sure if that is now typical but I love that kind of stuff and it was fun to read about the history of the car, the design of this set, and new pieces created. I hope this is more common than not for sets that lend themselves to it. - Nostalgia - A few things jumped out at me as things I missed. Notably the plastic bags w/ holes in them. I’m not sure when they made the change and it is inconsequential to the build as a whole, but I did enjoy those. As mentioned above, the searching for pieces amongst hundreds or thousands was greatly minimized. This sped up the building process but was always part of building a set. While the Mustang set isn’t at minifig scale, it was a little disappointing that there wasn’t any figurine. I’m not sure the lego technic figurines that came with a few sets I had in the past are still a thing but something would’ve been fun. Great set. Read more
