Ordinary mortals might not be able to own a real Bugatti supercar but the new Lego version is just as much an engineering marvel.
Billund in Denmark has no business having an international airport. The tiny town has a population of just six thousand people and yet there are four flights a day to the UK alone. There is one reason, and one reason alone, for this: Lego. Billund has been dedicated to the manufacture and promotion of Lego bricks ever since they were first invented in 1949, and the town now houses not only the company’s headquarters and the majority of the world’s Lego factories but also the first Legoland theme park and the newer Lego House – a cross between an activity centre and a museum.
It’s there that the world’s press were invited late last week, to unveil the company’s latest collaboration with a fellow household name: car maker Bugatti.
Lego’s business may seem like child’s play but they last year regained the accolade of the world’s most powerful brand, denied to it by Disney in 2016 but taken from Ferrari in 2015.
Wherever Bugatti stands in that list it’s outside the top 10, which helps explain the earnestness with which the various execs praised Lego and the excitement with which they unveiled Lego product 42083 – a Bugatti Chiron made out of 3,599 pieces of Lego Technic.
As any parent (and many others besides) will know there are three main lines of Lego: the more familiar ‘System’ bricks, the Duplo toys for younger children, and the more complicated Technic. All the lines are cross-compatible, with the Chiron using a number of System pieces where necessary, but the Technic line specialises in moving parts, at the cost of a more impressionistic exterior.
And so it was that Bugatti’s president (a dapperly-dressed silver fox who looks exactly like how you would imagine) explained, with a mixture of awe and mild amusement, that the Lego Chiron has a working 8-speed gearbox, moving rear spoiler, and a recreation of the W16 engine where all 16 pistons move just as they should.
It’s an insanely impressive feat of engineering and while the whole press conference should have felt more than a touch absurd the fact that there was a real Bugatti Chrion sitting in the middle of the conference room floor almost went unnoticed as everyone admired the smaller, but just as perfectly formed, Lego version.
Of course, all this comes at a price, and Lego Chiron has a wallet-choking UK price point of £329.99. That’s a lot for a Technic model, and yet barely half that of the System model Millennium Falcon released last year, that is composed of a staggering 7,541 pieces and costs an almost inconceivable £649.99 (not to mention 33” by 22” of storage space). And yet it’s proven so popular Lego can barely keep it in stock on their online store, and the Chiron is likely to be the same.
After the official unveiling, we’re given a chance to talk to two Bugatti designers. They seem surprisingly amiable, for car design experts that have been drafted in to talk about a plastic toy for the day, and both admit to having played with Lego before now.
‘There are, of course, big differences between Bugatti and Lego, but the attention to detail, the passion for engineering and design… that is very similar’, says director of design Achim Anscheidt.
For it’s part, the Lego design team is composed of a multinational group, many of whom are ex-fans who were able to prove their love and expertise for interlocking bricks long before they attended any job interview. As it happens though the lead designer for Lego Technic is Briton Andy Woodman, who was able to enthuse about why Technic has always been his favourite kind of Lego.
‘It helps you learn about how real machines works’, he says.
‘As well as being able to build a functioning cool toy you actually learn to understand how it functions. Which in design and engineering terms really comes back to you later’.
After the interviews we’re invited on a guided tour of the Lego House, starting with the ‘Tree of Creativity’ whose branches and leaves are filled with examples of all the various themes and uses of Lego, from a space setting to the pastel-coloured Friends line. The tree itself is the world’s largest single Lego structure, with six million pieces that took three years to assemble.
Ascending the stairs that wrap around the tree you enter a room dominated by three life-size Tyrannosaurs Rex models, each created using a different Lego line: Duplo, System, and Technic. These were all suggested by fans and the incredibly complex designs that line the display cases around the room are also fan-made and include everything from recreations of scenes from famous video games, to impossibly realistic looking nature scenes, and surreal subject matter such as insects made from instrument parts.
You then move through other rooms filled with children furiously concentrating on their creations, as they build whatever comes into their mind or attempt to complete challenges such as building the best car for rolling down a jump ramp or designing a fish that is then scanned in to swim in a virtual fish tank.
As we all wander past a rainbow waterfall made of Duplo bricks, into a room filled with dioramas of impossibly detailed cityscapes, mountains, and sandy beaches, it’s impossible not to think of Willy Wonka and his fantastical factory.
And it’s at this point it becomes clear that, rather than having taken their leave as soon as their interviews were done, the Bugatti designers have actually elected to go on the tour themselves. Their faces plastered with the same guilty grin of indulgence that’s affixed to every other adult in the building.
The comparison to Willy Wonka would be almost literal if the actual Lego factories and offices, just a few streets away, weren’t very much closed to visitors. Lego is secretive by nature, but despite all their peculiarities it’s hard to argue with the level of success they’ve built for themselves.
As Bugatti’s Achim Anscheidt muses, ‘Lego is such a different world, such a different expertise, you can only admire how much passion the team has for their work and how much enjoyment it brings to others’.