Review: 42138 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500
Posted by Huw,LEGO has been producing Technic sets with pull-back motors for some years but the majority of them have prioritised playability over aesthetics and realism which has resulted in them having limited appeal to adults.
However, that's set to change next year with the release of two licensed vehicles, 42137 Porsche 99x Electric and 42138 Ford Mustang Shelby, the subject of this review, which both look great, and hopefully work well too.
The model is based on the 750bhp Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 in 'Grabber Green' which is a very close match to LEGO lime green.
Photo: Top Gear.
The model is certainly recognisable as one, and is a reasonable approximation given the scale of the model and the nature of Technic. Pedants will no doubt find fault, they always do!
The white stripes are a combination of white parts and stickers so if you wanted to leave them off you'd probably also want to replace the white pieces with lime ones.
The vehicle is equipped with two 12799 PULL-BACK 6x3x5, one on each rear wheel. There's a ratchet mechanism between them that allows you to pull the vehicle back, then control when it's launched by means of a lever which releases the ratchet.
The car can be built in two ways, which I'll call 'display mode' and 'play mode'. In display mode, the rear bodywork is complete, and the vehicle can be used as a normal pull-back car in that it'll launch as soon as you let go of it.
Two small sections of the bodywork are designed to be easily removed to allow a lever to be connected to the ratchet mechanism to convert it to 'play mode'. The tiled section comes off easily enough, but it can be trickier to put it back again.
Now, with the lever in the up position, the car can be reversed to wind it up, and it'll remain in position until the lever is pressed down, perhaps with your foot.
The two motors offer a fair amount of power and on a carpet they'll launch the vehicle a good 3-4 metres or so, depending on its pile. If you have a laminate or tiled floor it'll obviously go further.
Augmented reality app
To add interest to play, an accompanying augmented reality app will be available shortly. I've not had an opportunity to test it, but Brick Fanatics has, and I think the headline there probably sums up what we can expect, which will come as no surprise given LEGO's track record with AR: LEGO Technic’s new augmented-reality experience is a total dud.
In any case, I don't suppose the fact there is an app, or how good it is, will influence your buying decision.
Verdict
I quite like it: It's a pretty good display model that fits on 42098 Car Transporter and matches 42093 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1, which I don't have assembled otherwise I'd have put that on it too.
The ratchet and release mechanism work well to provide control whilst playing. The aesthetics have not been compromised fit that and the motors in, and neither has the price. Although £45/$50 is expensive for a 544-piece model, it's not much more than 42093 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 and if past precedence is anything to go by it'll be available at Amazon for closer to £30 before too long.
I can't see me whizzing up and down the hallway very often, but I'm sure kids of the target age will have fun doing so, and might even enjoy the AR app.
It'll be available at LEGO.com from 1st January
Thanks to LEGO for providing the set for review. All opinions expressed are my own.
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22 comments on this article
To me, pullbacks should only be on cheap impulse Technic sets, not $50 sets such as this one.
Those stickers look horrible. Will it be another lime green fiasco??
I did the BF reviews of the Mustang, the Porsche Formula E and the Augmented Reality App. It's pretty dire (though to be fair it is still in Beta).
Nice looking models. Though when they arrived, I assumed they'd be about £34.95 - I was a bit surprised at the £45 RRP.
As Im a huge Top Gear fan, after seeing that photo credit, I automatically read certain parts of this review in Jeremy Clarksons voice. I dont think thats normal...
It's a really great looking model, but as a car nerd I must wonder why LEGO calls it the Shelby Cobra GT500. I'm pretty sure Ford just calls it the Shelby GT500.
I don't really get who these sets are aimed at. As a direct result of being a pullback model, there's no other functionality whatsoever, which is disappointing for a Technic set. No biggie for the traditional pullback sets, which are much cheaper, aimed at younger kids and as such offer great play value. But which 9 year old kid still cares for a pullback toy? If I would give this to my nephew, he would probably think I've gone mad. He's not a little kid anymore!
(and I'm pretty sure his younger brother would take two Monster Jam sets over either the Mustang or Porsche any day of the week)
As for the looks, it's okay for a play set, but it's not exactly a display set. I feel the Porsche does a slightly better job at that, though still about as good as you can expect from a small car made from Technic pieces that also has to be a bit sturdy. En there comes my issue with licensed sets at this scale and price point: instead of making it look like a Mustang, they could have focused on just making it look good...
This review came out just right when I finished building 8649 ! Anyway This set is great and I am going to get it when it releases.
There’s pedantry, and then there’s “This barely resembles the source material.”
I’m in the second camp.
^ It's green, has stripes and four wheels... what more do you want? :-)
@Huw said:
"^ It's green, has stripes and four wheels... "
A striped frog in a wheelchair?
No? I give up....
The pull-back launch mechanism looks interesting and a lot of fun, but would need a 2nd car to race against and the Porsche 99x Electric looks a bit unfinished. I'm guessing it would be easier enough to remove and add steering, fake engine if that is what you need. But I'm forward to seeing videos of the first person who motorizes this to race against the various motorized versions of the ZR1.
I'm a bit torn on this one. I have all the other vehicles of this size & display them on the transporter. But they are more like traditional Technic sets with the steering & engine function.
The pull back adds a lot of unnecessary expense for a display model and a completely different function to its stablemates.
Time to wait for a heavy discount, I think.
It looks to me more like a Dodge Charger rather than Ford Mustang...
The pullback motor is fine with me, but the lack of functions is disappointing. At half price I'd still buy it for the looks.
My son and I have eleven of the smaller Technic pull-backs, which are £18 in the UK and frequently widely reduced to about £13. This new set and it's companion are in an entirely different price bracket compared with the usual smaller offerings, but there's no doubt they look a lot better than the often freakish combiner models we're used to.
Most of ours except the Monster Jam trucks have been combined into their double pull-back variants which are a lot of fun outside and inside, over small obstacles, racing each other, crashing into each other, jumping our Ninjago spinners ramp etc.
I expect I'll get this one on heavy discount, but I'm not so sure it'll be robust enough to withstand the usual abuse we give ours... and that low ground clearance could be an issue. It also looks a bit too nice to be getting scuffed, bashed and mucky.
It might be in an uncomfortable middle ground between being a toy that's a little too expensive for the typical pull-back enthusiast, and a Technic model that lacks most of the functions expected at that price point.
As much as I like the vehicle overall, and as much as I love mustangs, the grill is very inaccurate and I think that’s the most important thing to get right.
I'm sorry, but it doesn't look very much like the car it was crafted from. From the side, that fender curve into the back bumper almost says Porsche, and the front is nearly a Camaro. I know this is a smaller set, but still. When I look over at the MOC cars people are creating by the hundreds, and then back to this, its becoming really apparent how much Lego is falling behind.
@strangewayes said:
"I'm sorry, but it doesn't look very much like the car it was crafted from. From the side, that fender curve into the back bumper almost says Porsche, and the front is nearly a Camaro. I know this is a smaller set, but still. When I look over at the MOC cars people are creating by the hundreds, and then back to this, its becoming really apparent how much Lego is falling behind."
I didn't realize some people still didn't understand why officially released sets are often less detailed than MOCs. It almost feels like encountering a flat-earther
@fakespacesquid said:
" @strangewayes said:
"I'm sorry, but it doesn't look very much like the car it was crafted from. From the side, that fender curve into the back bumper almost says Porsche, and the front is nearly a Camaro. I know this is a smaller set, but still. When I look over at the MOC cars people are creating by the hundreds, and then back to this, its becoming really apparent how much Lego is falling behind."
I didn't realize some people still didn't understand why officially released sets are often less detailed than MOCs. It almost feels like encountering a flat-earther"
There are MOCs out there with just as few parts, which look much better. I don't understand how a person is willing to sit there and say the design is just fine because it has X number of parts. Sorry, it simply isn't good enough. And frankly, your negative comments aren't useful on here. Clean up your act.
@strangewayes said:
" @fakespacesquid said:
" @strangewayes said:
"I'm sorry, but it doesn't look very much like the car it was crafted from. From the side, that fender curve into the back bumper almost says Porsche, and the front is nearly a Camaro. I know this is a smaller set, but still. When I look over at the MOC cars people are creating by the hundreds, and then back to this, its becoming really apparent how much Lego is falling behind."
I didn't realize some people still didn't understand why officially released sets are often less detailed than MOCs. It almost feels like encountering a flat-earther"
There are MOCs out there with just as few parts, which look much better. I don't understand how a person is willing to sit there and say the design is just fine because it has X number of parts. Sorry, it simply isn't good enough. And frankly, your negative comments aren't useful on here. Clean up your act."
MOCs don't have to worry about structural integrity, rebuildability, difficulty level, cost, part availability, the list goes on. No one is stress-testing MOCs or trying to make hundreds of thousands of copies. They don't have to be viable products. Comparing sets to MOCs just isn't reasonable
I mean, it *is* just fine. It's not groundbreaking or great, but it's totally passable.
"I mean, it *is* just fine. It's not groundbreaking or great, but it's totally passable."
You're making statements about your opinion like they're fact, when 4 other people besides myself don't like the front end. When you look at the headlights, which have a massive gap above them, they look absolutely nothing like the source car. They're mounted next to the grill, instead of above, and they're pressed up against the marker lights. Those are facts. My opinion is that the front quarter panels are designed in a way that actually make the car look like it got into a front-end collision. The rear end, despite inaccuracies, a person would be hard pressed to mistake for another car. That is what I'd classify as passable.
@strangewayes said:
""I mean, it *is* just fine. It's not groundbreaking or great, but it's totally passable."
You're making statements about your opinion like they're fact, when 4 other people besides myself don't like the front end. When you look at the headlights, which have a massive gap above them, they look absolutely nothing like the source car. They're mounted next to the grill, instead of above, and they're pressed up against the marker lights. Those are facts. My opinion is that the front quarter panels are designed in a way that actually make the car look like it got into a front-end collision. The rear end, despite inaccuracies, a person would be hard pressed to mistake for another car. That is what I'd classify as passable. "
6 people here said that it looked good to great, so if the comments matter then you're outnumbered.
Some areas of the car have shortcomings. Some areas of the car look great. Taken as a whole, it's passable. You can nitpick all you want but usually one small area of failure isn't enough to tank an entire set (and it usually shouldn't be). I've looked around for MOC versions of this car, and there's nothing near this scale in Technic. This set automatically outranks the MOCs because the MOCs don't exist. If there was a spot-on, or even more passable, MOC version out there then it might be different, but you can't say that it doesn't stack up to something that doesn't exist.
Also, weren't you complaining about negative comments just a bit ago?