LEGO® Love

2 years ago Showcase

Literally everyone has played with LEGO®s in their life. Tell me you know someone who hasn’t, and I will tell your mother that she raised a liar. The folks at LEGO have found a way to take a “toy” that is easy enough for children to enjoy and play with, and make it appeal to the child in all of us adults. There is no denying that building something from LEGOs is fun! Depending on your personality type, LEGO adventures can be much more than just fun. It’s a means to be creative, to use your imagination, to design something in “real life” that you can’t design in the REAL real life. It’s the original real-life video game. Over the years, LEGO has dipped heavily into pop culture to find inspiration for new products that appeal to the masses. Luckily for us Dodge fans, we have some vehicles that are badass enough to be part of “pop culture” on a global scale.

LEGO teamed up with Dodge in 2019 to produce the Dodge Challenger SRT® Demon and 1970 Dodge Charger R/T kit for its Speed Champions product line. I like to say it’s Leah Pritchett (Stewart) and the SRT Demon she test-piloted during development. I happen to have two sets of these, and it was a blast to build. When the product first hit the shelves – well, they didn’t really hit the shelves – they kind of stayed sold out with the retail stores for a while. They were hard to come by. People loved them and the stores couldn’t keep them on the shelves. I mean, it was an SRT Demon, the most insane production car in American history, what were y’all expecting?

Believe it or not, it takes a large team to take a LEGO product from “idea” to reality, especially with those based on pop culture or real and recognizable objects. LEGO has a variety of team members involved in designing the product, building it all by hand, graphics and design. Every project and product that comes out has dedicated staff that hand-build every LEGO set to ensure it will be a hit. “When designing Speed Champions 2019, our goal was to include a new muscle car that we hadn’t created in LEGO before but was instantly recognizable. And when thinking of the most popular muscle cars ever, one that always comes to mind is the Dodge Charger. It had been a Speed Champions fan request for a long time, and as adults know it from when they were growing up and kids know it due to its vast history in movies and TV shows, it appeals to vehicle fans of all ages. Then, when we learned of the new Demon SRT, we felt we had the perfect pair to create a great drag race story.”

The Demon/Charger is still available today if you happened to miss out on it, although it may be a little harder to find in stock at your local retailer. The most recent Speed Champions concept came in 2020 with another pair-up with Dodge. LEGO whipped up the Mopar® Dodge SRT Top Fuel Dragster and 1970 Challenger T/A product. This new design marked several firsts for LEGO. The newest offering took advantage of LEGO’s first-ever car in their “8 Wide” scale, which allows for a more accurate scaling and representation of the real racecars. The dragster is also LEGO’s first-ever Top Fuel Dragster that they have ever designed and produced.

The folks at LEGO tell us that there are challenges when producing a LEGO version of these highly recognizable and historic cars. Certain design elements of the real cars require specialty bricks to be made to ensure the model looks accurate. Oftentimes, those signature designs – such as the lights and grills – end up being the longest part of the development process.

Unfortunately for me, and all of you, LEGO confirmed that they won’t take special requests. I was hoping to have Leah replaced in the next Dodge/Speed Champions set with a tiny yet charming LEGO version of myself. To my complete shock, they turned me down. However, anyone feeling extra creative is encouraged to check out LEGO’s “Pick A Brick” section of their website where you can piece together all the bricks you want to try to whip up your own creation. You can also design your own Mini Figure! No doubt these bad-to-the-bone horsepower monsters make a great holiday gift for any gearhead friend or family member. Both sets are available on LEGO’s website and various authorized LEGO retailers world-wide.

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