LEGO Speed Champions 76908 Lamborghini Countach review

The ‘Italian Wedge’, the car that embodies the spirit of a supercar like no other, joins the

line up in .

The United States might have put a man on the moon in 1969, but just five short years later, Italy entered the space age too. Okay, this particular vehicle may not have made it to the moon, but to people (small boys in particular) who were used to seeing the likes of the Morris Marina or the Ford Escort on the road, the Lamborghini Countach, launched in 1974, looked like it had come from another planet, rather than a small town in northern Italy.

The iconic wedge is one of the latest cars to become immortalised in

as it becomes a part of the family. For a car that seems to be made up of nothing but straight lines, this feels like a perfect fit for the medium. Is it? We shall see…

— Set details —

Theme: 

 Set name:  Release: March 1, 2022

Price: £17.99 / $19.99 / €19.99 Pieces: 262 Minifigures: 1

: 

— Build —

Like many

sets, begins with the standard chassis plate. This variant appears to be the LP500S, launched in 1982, and so it has a none-more-’80s bright red interior and then the white bodywork reminiscent of a million posters on bedroom walls. It’s not long before the designer’s ingenuity starts to come to the fore, as while the car may have a lot of straight lines, it also has a lot of angles.

Clever use of parts allows those massive air scoops on the rear three-quarters to lean over and, turning the car around, reveals that it has also, in combination with trans-red cones, created the perfect triangular rear light.

Meanwhile, at the front of the car, some more clever thinking is represented with the headlamp cluster. The

team is focusing on headlights in 2022, partly to move away from the plethora of stickers that are par for the course with a set, and partly to avoid the complex brick-built solutions.

The Lambo uses a combination of printed pieces, brick-built ingenuity and stickers to create a headlamp cluster like nothing we’ve seen before, with a stickered brick situated underneath a clear brick. You’ll keep picking the car up to admire them.

Inevitably there are stickers. Not too many – 13 in this case – and they finish the car off with lights, air vents, the rear badges and the famous prancing bull on the nose. Unfortunately, their colour-matching makes the white printing on the canopy, which is several shades lighter than the rest of the car, stick out like a proverbial sore thumb – a real sticking point, if you will.

— Characters —

A driver/mechanic minifigure is included with the set. He comes with a spanner, a black helmet (or alternatively a hairpiece), black zip-up jacket with the Lamborghini badge, some designer stubble and the sort of beaming grin that says: “I get paid to drive a Lamborghini.”

— Price —

Many of those who had Lambo posters on their walls will also have been of an age where they collected Matchbox or Hot Wheels cars. They were fun, often represented the more exotic side of motoring and were sufficiently affordable to mean that collecting them wasn’t an expensive hobby. 

seems to be a modern-day equivalent.

At £17.99 / $19.99 / €19.99,

is an impulse purchase for many, and not unreachable for younger fans. It provides a fun and interesting build and is as at home on a display shelf as it is being zoomed around the floor, and therefore represents excellent value for money.

— Pictures —

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— Summary —

Many of the cars in the

range are the sort of rarified exotica that even the most hardened of car enthusiasts will never see in the metal. While the Countach was undoubtedly rare – fewer than 2,000 were ever built, despite a 16-year production run – it has become the de facto supercar for many. Give a child (or a grown man) a piece of paper and a pencil and ask them to draw a supercar and chances are the result will look something like .

Is it perfect? No. The pedantic might point out that the wheels are flat rather than the archetypal concave rims. Moreover, given that this was the first production car to have scissor doors, it’s a shame that this model doesn’t have opening doors at all, scissor or otherwise. These are minor niggles though and the list of what’s wrong is tiny compared with the list of what the

Group got right with this set.

Over their seven years (and counting)

sets have, particularly since their move to eight studs wide, developed a reputation for offering remarkably detailed sets with innovative build techniques at an affordable price. continues that tradition. Fun to build, great to look at and instantly recognisable, it warrants a place in any collection.

This set was provided for review by the

Group.

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— FAQs —