LEGO Speed Champions 76920 Ford Mustang Dark Horse review

Will 76920 Ford Mustang Dark Horse live up to its name and prove to be the dark horse of the LEGO Speed Champions 2024 line-up? Let’s put it in gear and find out…

The only one of the five new LEGO Speed Champions cars joining the garage on March 1 to be inspired by a road-ready vehicle, 76920 Ford Mustang Dark Horse recreates Ford’s first new performance series car since 2001’s Mustang Bullitt. The real thing starts at roughly £63,000, which isn’t quite as out of reach as, say, the one-of-a-kind Audi S1 e-tron quattro, but you’re still not likely to see it on many driveways.

Picking up a LEGO Speed Champions version is basically the next best thing for most of us pining after a dream car we’ll never get the chance to actually drive, but only if it’s a convincing adaptation. With its confident curves and aggressively low body, the Dark Horse is all about making a statement – so can the LEGO version do the same?

— LEGO Speed Champions 76920 Ford Mustang Dark Horse set details —

Theme: Speed Champions Set name: 76920 Ford Mustang Dark Horse Release date: March 1, 2024

Price: £20.99 / $26.99 / €26.99 Pieces: 344 Minifigures: 1

LEGO: Order now

— Where to buy LEGO Speed Champions 76920 Ford Mustang Dark Horse —

LEGO Speed Champions 76920 Ford Mustang Dark Horse races on to shelves on March 1, and is already available to pre-order from LEGO.com in selected regions.

— LEGO Speed Champions 76920 Ford Mustang Dark Horse build —

At first glance, 76920 Ford Mustang Dark Horse feels like the most understated of the five LEGO Speed Champions cars joining the theme in March. That’s not only thanks to its muted dark blue, black and grey colour scheme, or the fact that it only(!) has 13 stickers, but also due to its relatively mundane proportions next to the rest of the sets in this latest line-up.

To look at the real-life Mustang Dark Horse is not to look at a car you’d call ‘mundane’, but in a wave otherwise defined by unusual angles or boisterous paint jobs, 76920 flies in under the radar. And that’s partly also a consequence of the difficulty in translating the real thing’s subtle curves into LEGO bricks: the smoothly tapering lines are lost at this scale, replaced by harsh, rigid dimensions. It results in a chunky car that drills down into the essence of the Mustang – a bold and aggressive motor – without necessarily recreating its finer details.

The Dark Horse sits unique in Ford’s 2024 range as a souped-up version of the GT, and it’s beefier for it too. That gives the LEGO Speed Champions team some leeway in boosting the ride height of its brick-built version, making room for the all-important front grill and the depth around the doors, while still incorporating its low-slung base. (The 1×8 tiles affixed upside-down are maybe a touch too low.)

There are some nifty approaches squirrelled away under this mostly-robust exterior, too. The angles of the car’s rear are achieved using printed tiles clipped into place, while clips and bars also come in handy for slotting in the patchwork-grey bonnet design. The Dark Horse dives deep into LEGO geometry almost to a fault, closing every gap around the hood with a carefully-considered assembly of bricks, brackets and plates. The result is impressive if not especially attractive – using so many pieces creates a lot of lines.

You’ll spot one more fun – if less successful – technique when adding the front headlights, which combine stickered 1×2 tiles, trans-clear 1×2 semi-circle tiles, headlight bricks and the trans-clear minifigure stands included with (for example) 71039 Marvel Series 2. It’s a novel way to build in the 45-degree angles, but good luck never knocking them out of place. (Hence ‘mostly-robust’.)

Beyond those scattered highlights, this is a more straightforward build than you’d expect from LEGO Speed Champions, with plenty of brick stacking and simple studs-not-on-top construction. But it makes sense for a no-nonsense car like the Dark Horse, and even the most basic Speed Champions cars are still streets ahead of anything else you’d find at this price point.

— LEGO Speed Champions 76920 Ford Mustang Dark Horse characters —

76920 Ford Mustang Dark Horse includes just a single driver, as per all Speed Champions cars, but the LEGO Group has at least taken the opportunity here to give us something a little different (check out that hairpiece). The logo hoodie torso print is also exclusive to this set. Nobody’s coming to these cars for the minifigures, but this is a pretty compelling one.

— LEGO Speed Champions 76920 Ford Mustang Dark Horse price —

The LEGO Group has quietly raised the price of all its LEGO Speed Champions sets for 2024, pushing its single cars up from £19.99 / $24.99 / €24.99 to £20.99 / $26.99 / €26.99. That’s the second price hike since 2020, when the eight-wide cars originally retailed for £17.99 / $19.99 / €19.99. Given you’re not getting anything more substantial here than four years ago, the new price is increasingly difficult to swallow.

As mentioned in our 76919 2023 McLaren Formula 1 Car review, though, this theme hasn’t quite crossed the line just yet – the value from a build experience perspective is still unmatched. You could wait for a sale to save a couple of pounds, especially if you’re eyeing up the entire wave – those incremental increases add up – but if 76920 Ford Mustang Dark Horse is your one and only LEGO Speed Champions set for 2024, you might as well take the plunge at full price. For now…

— LEGO Speed Champions 76920 Ford Mustang Dark Horse pictures —

— LEGO Speed Champions 76920 Ford Mustang Dark Horse pros and cons —

76920 Ford Mustang Dark Horse makes up for its relative simplicity among the rest of the LEGO Speed Champions March 2024 releases by oozing character. It might not match its inspiration beat for beat in the same way that other cars in this range manage, but its understated design and still-intriguing build make it one not to miss – even if it isn’t the first to grab your attention. Which feels like the dictionary definition of a dark horse…

76920 Ford Mustang Dark Horse pros	76920 Ford Mustang Dark Horse cons
Surprisingly attractive finished model	Front headlights are a little flimsy
Imbued with all the character of the real thing	The curves haven’t translated perfectly
A sprinkling of inventive build techniques – and relatively few stickers	Generally more straightforward to assemble than other LEGO Speed Champions 2024 sets

This set was provided for review by the LEGO Group.

Support the work that Brick Fanatics does by purchasing your LEGO sets using our affiliate links.

— Alternatives to LEGO Speed Champions 76920 Ford Mustang Dark Horse —

Whether you’re after other LEGO Speed Champions sets or other Fords, the LEGO Group has you covered at the moment. For a more detailed Speed Champions experience, there’s always 76918 McLaren Solus GT & McLaren F1 LM or the upcoming 76919 2023 McLaren Formula 1 Car; for something from the same manufacturer, consider 42154 2022 Ford GT. That will be a very different build experience, though. (It’s a Technic set.)

— LEGO Speed Champions 76920 Ford Mustang Dark Horse FAQs —