► Lego’s set 42083: a Technic Chiron
► Over 3600 pieces including working ‘box
► Costs £329.99 – a huge saving over real thing
Colin Chapman’s famous maxim was ‘simplify and add lightness’. By contrast modern Bugatti’s is surely ‘complicate and add speed’. The astonishing Chiron is an engineering powerhouse of bewildering complexity – yet it’s the car Lego’s chosen to model for its latest flagship Technic kit, a £329.99 monster that follows the runaway success of the 2016 Technic Porsche 911 GT3 RS.
Measuring 14cm high by 25cm wide and over half a metre in length, the Lego Chiron does a fine job of replicating the Bugatti’s elegant curves and complex, organic forms using humble plastic bricks.
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Being a Technic kit there’s some serious engineering under the surface too, with moving pistons in the quad-turbo W16 engine, a working eight-speed transmission with tiny paddleshifters in the cockpit and an active rear wing, whose angle of attack can be adjusted using the ‘speed key’ real Chiron owners use to access the car’s (electronically-limited) 261mph top speed.
The Chiron comes extravagantly packaged in a vast duotone blue box that continues the theme of Apple-esque standards of presentation previously seen on the 911 GT3 RS kit, the Bugatti’s stunning wheels displayed proudly beside the boxes containing the other 3596 pieces…
Technic kit 42083 is on sale now, and if the success of the GT3 RS is anything to go by, interested parties shouldn’t wait until Christmas.
Check out our review of the real thing