Here’s one great argument for LEGO stickers over prints

28/02/202428/02/2024 Chris Wharfe 2130 Views 1 Comment

It’s no secret that large chunks of the LEGO community loathe stickers, but here’s at least one very strong argument for choosing them over printed pieces.

There are some pretty solid reasons for not liking LEGO stickers. They can be fiddly to put on. They can peel over time. And they often just don’t look as good as prints (LEGO colour matching is not the greatest). But next time you’re cursing applying your 70th sticker to a LEGO Speed Champions car, just remember that there are benefits to stickers, too.

For example: clear-backed stickers are perfect for colour-swapping sets like 2022’s 76908 Lamborghini Countach. The LEGO Speed Champions set comes in white as standard, but as redditor Tokugawa proves, it’s entirely possible to rebuild it in red thanks to its clear-backed stickers. It’s worth nothing that this is a unique situation for a couple of reasons, though.

One of those is that all the pieces necessary for the model as it comes in the box already exist in red, too, so you can simply swap out all the visible white parts. The same can’t be said for the yellow version, for example, as the 2×4 wedge plates don’t come in yellow just yet. (Another builder has found a workaround so you can’t really tell the difference, if you’re interested.)

The other is that 76908 Lamborghini Countach’s windscreen is actually printed – a major source of ire for Speed Champions fans precisely because the shade of white used doesn’t match the rest of the car at all – which means you can’t just swap that piece over to an alternate colour scheme. Luckily, a suitable alternative already exists for the red Countach in 2020’s 76895 Ferrari F8 Tributo.

But there’s nothing of the sort readily available for yellow or any other colours, so you’ll probably have to resort to printing your own custom stickers for the blank version of the same element. In an ironic twist of fate, 76908 Lamborghini Countach not only champions the benefits of stickers (at least on clear backing), but also exposes the issues with printed elements.

This is relevant to LEGO Speed Champions in particular for a couple of reasons, not least because there’s a very active community for modifying each and every new car the LEGO Group churns out. Sometimes that’s just colour-swapping the base model, like with 76908 Lamborghini Countach, but other times it’s reusing the pieces in the set to build a different vehicle altogether.

And thanks in part to the few printed pieces scattered throughout these otherwise sticker-heavy sets, that approach works better for some sets than others. The relatively plain 76901 Toyota GR Supra can be reworked into myriad different cars that all look pretty distinct from one another, but every single rebuild of 76914 Ferrari 812 Competizione is going to have that yellow stripe down the windscreen.

So when you’re putting together the brand new wave of LEGO Speed Champions sets racing on to shelves March 1, just remember that there’s at least one good reason for all those stickers.

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Author Profile

Chris Wharfe

I like to think of myself as a journalist first, LEGO fan second, but we all know that’s not really the case. Journalism does run through my veins, though, like some kind of weird literary blood – the sort that will no doubt one day lead to a stress-induced heart malfunction. It’s like smoking, only worse. Thankfully, I get to write about LEGO until then.