LEGO Technic 42156 Peugeot 9×8 review part 2 – design, functions, 1:10 cars compared
Hi everyone, this is Balazs from RacingBrick! This is the second part of my Peugeot 9×8 Le Mans Hybrid Hypercar review, you can watch the first episode with all the building details by clicking on the link in the top right corner. Today I will show you all the features and functions of the build, analyze the design and compare it to the real car, suggest some minor improvements, compare the build to a number of different Technic cars you’ve requested, and then we’ll take a look at the 1/10th scale Technic lineup between the first 24 hours Race car
and the Peugeot. Let’s get started! First, let’s take a look at the build itself! The lines flow nicely everywhere, we have lots of angled panels all around, which you may not notice, but it’s quite a feat. Just look at this panel on the side, or the one above it that is fixed, then the lines continue seamlessly on the engine cover. I think the designers did a great job in that regard. Some areas might raise questions, such as the large gaps above the wheels, but those are present on the life-size version as well. I know their
size and shape don’t match perfectly, but here we’re still limited by the LEGO elements. The color scheme closely matches the original and I’m glad
they’d have had to be printed as well. There were 2 areas of concern I had previously, the first being the lack of a windshield. The hood looked weird from certain angles in some of the official photos. Well I’m happy to say that in reality it’s much less distracting. You really have to look for a perspective where the lack of windshield would be a problem, otherwise these surfaces fit together surprisingly well. The other area is the gap here at the rear, which just doesn’t exist on the real car. I can kind of understand why there’s nothing
here, because no LEGO parts could easily and seamlessly fill this gap under this panel fairing. I’ve been playing around with some parts of the model and this assembly kind of works, but is far from perfect. As far as I can see, the elements aren’t stressed, but this is just a rudimentary solution to fix the gap, and I’m sure the community will come up with something much better soon. You wanted to see what it looks like alongside some other Technic vehicles, so here they are! It’s not a big surprise considering it has very similar dimensions to
previous 1/10th scale cars like the Porsche 911 RSR or the Ferrari 488 GTE. And now let’s take a look at the features! To be honest, there aren’t too many, but the execution is quite interesting. First of all, we have a hand of God steering knob on the top, which can be easily removed when you want to display the set. Turning the little knob isn’t all that easy when the car is stationary, it’s much easier when you’re steering while pushing the car around. You can of course replace the gear with a bigger one, but then it
looks funny. The steering wheel is also connected, which is a nice technical aspect, although it doesn’t add much to the playability. I see 2 problems with the steering wheel. Due to the gearing used it’ll never be perfectly centered, but honestly it won’t be very noticeable thanks to the slack in the LEGO system. I made the same comment with the McLaren F1 car and dozens of people have tried to prove to me afterwards that their steering wheel and wheels are perfectly aligned, so let’s just ignore it. The other thing is that annoying gray gear, apparently there
was no room to hide it. But there is a possible solution that helps a bit: if we replace the two 16-tooth gears with this combination, we can have both in black and they’ll fit much better. We have doors that open and mimic the movement of the real ones pretty well. The hood opens to reveal the front suspension and the fake electric motor that drives the front wheels – or the other way around in LEGO form. The rear engine cover can be removed. I believe the original isn’t hinged either, it would be nice if someone from
Peugeot Sport could confirm this in the comments section. Here we see the V6 twin-turbo engine driven by the rear wheels through a differential. Despite the 4 wheel drive system the front and rear axles aren’t connected, but the real car also works like this: the petrol engine drives the rear wheels and the electric motor drives the front wheels. Then there is one more special feature, but it’s not mechanical – the lights. There are 6 glow in the dark bars on the front, which, as you’d expect, glow in the dark. I mean, you certainly won’t be able
to use the vehicle as a night light, but the effect is visible in the dark. But please don’t expect something you could see in the promotional photos, which can only be recreated with long exposure photography. This is more or less the effect you can expect in a dark room, and this is the look you can achieve with a long exposure and Photoshop, and just to show you something interesting, here is how the light is collected by the camera over time to make that photo. The last and probably most unique feature is the suspension, which I
talked about in detail in my first video. The real car has a push rod suspension in the front and a pull rod suspension in the rear, and we have a pretty authentic representation of that in LEGO form. I know it is simplified, in the real car there are more dampeners, torsion bars and so on, but a LEGO set always has to compromise between realism and a building block toy. I’ll come back to this topic later. In any case, the suspension works quite well. We have a shorter travel in the front and a slightly longer travel
in the rear. I think the gap between the front wheels and the wheel arches is perfectly acceptable, in the rear it’s a bit larger than I’d like. But to put it in perspective, the rear gaps are still significantly smaller than all gaps on the Ferrari 488 and the Porsche 911 RSR Dakar editions. It’s going to be a bit difficult to modify the suspension and still maintain it, because this system is pretty cleverly balanced. So it’s time to compare all the 1/10th scale Technic cars between the 24-hour race car and the new Peugeot 9×8. If you’re
interested in numbers, I’ve listed a whole bunch of them for each car on the screen, but I’ll put them in perspective in a moment. First, I’d like to talk about the visible change of the concept in these 8 years. I could call it evolution from a certain point of view, but I know some of you’d disagree with that, so let’s call it change for now. We have 2 unbranded cars on this side, somewhat similar in design solutions. Don’t forget that these cars were created before the first mudguard panels were introduced on the Porsche 911 GT3
RS in 2016, and they didn’t exist on a smaller scale when the rally car came out. I had most of the parts for this set in my parts bin. I didn’t build it at the time because I didn’t like the light green color. I had to buy a sticker sheet and some parts to make it complete again. Some people said this model was much better because it had a gearbox, well I’d call it more of a function selector, because with this switch on the left side you can switch between controlling the doors or the engine
cover. There was also a pretty cool B model with some wacky functions. Here’s the rally car, which has a special place in my heart as it was the first set I motorized in about a half dozen ways. I may be a little biased, but I like it. It’s fun to build, has the basic features like hand-of-God steering, a suspension and fake engine, an opening hood, and a party trick that is the opening rear section along with those side flaps. It also has a pretty cool beach buggy B model. Then came the big change – the
Porsche 911 RSR. The first licensed 1:10 Technic car has a fair amount of details, but even fewer features. It has steering with a connected steering wheel, but no hand of God steering knob, so it is not really playable, it has a suspension, a fake engine, and an opening engine cover at the rear. As with most licensed Technic sets recently, there was no B model for this set. The next licensed version was the Ferrari 488 GTE, with the same feature set but without the opening engine cover. These two models suffered from the same design concept. They
got the new style mudguard panels for a more realistic look, but because of the conventional suspension setup and the required suspension travel, they both look like an off-road Dakar edition. After the Ferrari, there were models on a different scale, such as the McLaren F1, the Ford Raptor or the latest Ford GT. And now we have the Peugeot 9×8, and with this release I see again a shift in the design concept. The first two models here were unlicensed, with less emphasis on looks and more on playability and features, including the B models. Then came these two
licensed models, which were more for display and included a bare minimum of Technic car functionality. I know some people still like those models, and that’s not a problem, but they’re kind of in a limbo between functional and playable Technic sets and the detailed and impressive 1/8th scale Technic supercars. And now here’s the Peugeot. Strictly speaking, it doesn’t offer any more features – aside from the hand-god of God steering we got back, but from a build concept standpoint, it’s a huge leap after those two. Exciting and interesting suspension setup, a dense and occasionally challenging building process,
not necessarily functional but brick built representation of many original components, and a very faithful look at the end considering the theme and parts selection. I liked that old-school era when we didn’t have to compare LEGO sets to real-world counterparts and designers had more freedom to come up with fancy things and focus on mechanical functions. I wasn’t the biggest fan of this era. It felt like a lazy attempt to give us something cheaper than the 1:8 scale series, but big enough to match the price tag, with no special features and huge empty spaces inside. And now
I like this model very much. Yes, it’s still licensed, but let’s face it, licensed stuff sells a lot better these days, period. You can argue whether the Peugeot brand is well-known enough, especially overseas, but I’m sure it’ll sell like hotcakes in France. And inside it’s cool and interesting! You can clearly see how much effort has been put into recreating the various features of the real car in LEGO form. They’re not all functional or 100% authentic, but I think they offer a good balance between realism and a nice building experience. There are no big misses like
having a rear-wheel drive Ford F-150 Raptor, for example. There is no gearbox, but I don’t miss it and it wouldn’t really fit anywhere. All in all, I’m very happy with the direction LEGO has taken with this set. It’s not flawless, of course, but for the price we certainly get a lot. Speaking of price, the RRP is 200 EUR/USD, which as you said is too much, much higher than you could buy these two 1-2-3 years ago. Now, if you look on lego.com today, this model costs $180, but 200 EUR, and this one is exactly $200 and
EUR. Well the Peugeot has only slightly more parts, but trust me, it really doesn’t matter. What matters is the philosophy and complexity of the build. And if you still want to compare value for money, look at the weight difference: The Peugeot weighs about 20% more than these two! And honestly, the recommended retail price isn’t really relevant on lego.com. This is not a LEGO exclusive release and I’ve seen pre-order offers as low as 140 EUR, which is a day 1 discount of 30%, so it only can become better later on. If you want a cool licensed
LEGO Technic car for that money, look no further. Please let me know your thoughts folks in the comment section, if you liked this video, then please give it a thumbs up, and don’t forget to subscribe with notifications, as more exciting LEGO videos are coming soon! See you next time, bye bye!
