Review: LEGO Icons McLaren MP4/4 & Ayrton Senna

LEGO Icons McLaren MP4-4 & Ayrton Senna 10330 - Brick Banter

Speeding to success or off to a bad start? LEGO try cars at a new scale

LEGO always seem to try to appeal to many different audiences across their ranges, but also varying price points too. Let’s be honest, we can’t all afford Avenger’s Tower and LEGO Technic Audi’s. So I’m always a fan of medium-range brand-overlapping sets.

Why limit these exclusive and fancier cars to those large price points when you can make something smaller that still works, and appeals to better budgets? Well, that’s what this new McLaren MP4/4 seems to do.

It feels like Speed Champions but feels more special at this larger scale. But initial looks aside, how does it hold up to scrutiny? Read on.

LEGO Icons McLaren MP4/4 & Ayrton Senna (10330)
RRP AUD $99.99 – CA $99.99 – EUR €79.99 – UK £69.99 – USA $79.99
693 pieces
Available from LEGO.com and LEGO Stores from 1st March 2023. PRE ORDER NOW.

The Car

The MP4/4 is one of the most successful Formula 1 cars of all time, and rightfully so has quite the mantle to live up to. The design is as about as a faithful recreation as you can get with this size. With detailing spanning almost every inch of the model. There are curvatures and small slopes in places I would not have noticed if I wasn’t looking at the set before looking at the car itself.

The being said, there is one difference big car enthusiasts will point out. One of the big changes is the removal of one of the brands across the car. The omission of “Malboro” from the main body, as well as the rear replaced with “McLaren“.

It’s not all super fantastic bells and whistles, as on a bit more of the super-critique side of things. We still see the occasional blue technic pin, of the clear use of mixel joints in grey on the rear. Not huge gripes, but really highlights how some of these parts would benefit from another colour.

One of the bigger problems I do have with the car is the front of the body. Where the white bricks taper up into a printed white on red slope. This is a seamless transition of the original vehicle, but once you notice it, you can’t un-see it. It’s not noticeable when viewed front or side on, but the final model is posed in an angle where this part of it is easy to see.

LEGO have put as much detail into the model as possible to make it as accurate as they can. With small sticker details on the main window and just behind the driver’s seat, but some of these details I even miss from time to time.

The Stand

Moving away from black base stands, LEGOs UCS-like stand is all grey with the McLaren details over it. Which is reminiscent of the racetracks these cars were used on. It’s a new and comfortable change.

Minifigure – Ayrton Senna

One of the more surprising additions to the set was the stand and Minifigure for the driver Ayrton Senna from Brazil. Minfigures are always welcome, but the decision to place him upon a stand with a quote from the driver himself is welcome touch. If you have any other Speed Champions sets, the Minifigure torso detailing is nothing new, but always appreciated. Top notch.

Verdict

The MP4/4 is definitely a good step forward for LEGO to start making a line of vehicles with medium-range financial audiences in mind. The set is on the upper side of the price-per-piece ratio, with other sets of the same price value being anywhere from 60 to 150 parts more in the ICONS range. But this is to be expected for models such as this that have licencing attached.

Regardless, I like this newer format of having iconic cars that aren’t a higher price point to appeal to smaller budgets. It’s an odd middle ground between Speed Champions and the $200+ cars, so I can only hope that it does well to make others sets in a similar fashion.

The colour printing of the white at the front of the model is always going to be a gripe that I have with how these models are done. Not just something like this, but white and yellow printing in general. I wish there was a way for LEGO to ‘dip’ the piece in the colour to ensure that the transition of that colour wasn’t so janky.

I’ve said before, I’m not a huge car guy, but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate it for what it is. This is a set that I think would look good up on a shelf and not take up too much room. If it looks good to you, grab it!