Lego introduced Set 76898 earlier this in year in January as one of the few Speed Champions sets with multiple vehicles, along with the Dodge Challenger/Charger and Lamborghini sets that had previously released. The Jaguar edition takes the race from the streets to the track with a Formula E style racecar and, a first of its kind, ETROPHY Pace Car. All in the set includes 565 pieces with a high color concentration, unique build structures, maximum playability, some nice brixx, and STICKERS!
The first car you’ll spend time building will be the Formula E racer with the driver decked out in Jaguar and Panasonic sponsorships head to toe, he fits snug in the drivers seat and ready to race. The base of the racer is piece #6287679, a black base with obvious room for the steering wheel and driver to be low to the ground while racing. It’s a great start to get you moving towards completion. The build here is pretty straightforward but lacks some technique along the way. The front bumper area is connected from above without any base stability and you might see those pieces disconnect from the main body. Otherwise, it’s an easy build. The ETROPHY pace car on the other hand had some complexities to the build that helped add some weight and uniqueness to it. Check out the front bumper below, another use of quadrilateral wings to create a dynamic look and the pieces are held together freely compressed against other bricks. Lego should take a victory lap on the tires. They chose to use tires to scale and offered to sets of rims for each vehicle so you’ll have some extra design choices to make.
While building the start/finish gantry I felt like this was merely a throw in portion to match what Lego has done with other racing style Speed Champion sets. A unique call out is the red/yellow/green portion of the set. The box in the middle hides the lights and makes the set even more playable as you can actually drop each light individually, using the axle, to get your race going!
If you like sets that offer a large amount of one color, this could be the set for you. There are over 100 Lego Azure (I think) color pieces ranging in variety of shape, length, and height. Almost bright enough to blind you, especially the pace car. The amount of stickers does a nice job balancing out the color brightness but they were extremely challenging to place with precision. I do appreciate the authenticity of the set attempting to replicate the actual vehicles but you can barely hold some of the stickers and place them with a good amount of accuracy. One detail to applaud is the creation of the jaguar on the pace car using three stickers on different. It’s a great touch of detail. All told, there are 45+ stickers you’ll have to add to the two vehicles to get them ready for the track. In a previous post, we highlighted the ease of the International Space Station and how Lego embedded the design and graphics into the bricks. That would’ve been a nice addition here.
I was excited and please to see Lego utilize a woman minifigure regardless of her role in the set. It’s a great addition to show kids that women can be a part of the racing culture, whether as a driver, or in this case, the pace car driver. Kudos to Lego for taking another positive step forward in making sets non-gender specific.
There a ton of NICE BRIXX in this set and I’ll highlight only a few. First and foremost are the bases for both vehicles, pieces #6287679 and #4656764. Both are perfect for any MOC vehicle, plane, or spaceship. They make construction easy and use the new axle approach for tires. Piece #6296909 is a new window design which gives you full windshield coverage and, again, makes it an easy addition to any MOC. #6118829 are unique 2X8 bricks which offer front facing studs to add exterior lights, flat bricks or any other details you’d want to add as you build. The piece that differentiated itself was #6287680. Easily put, it’s a great starter piece to a vehicle build as it’s 1×2 on both sides with 2×4 in the middle. The piece also adds axle connections for wheels or gear connections for more custom builds.
This set isn’t for everyone but makes a great addition if you’re a lover of the detail Lego puts in all of its Speed Champion sets. The cars are extremely playable and both have some weight to them which makes for better, more sturdy construction. At a retail price of $29.99 you definitely get a great value of piece to price ratio and with the azure blue color, you can create some interesting builds. On the NICE BRIXX scale I give this a 6/10 brixx for build and construction, 9/10 for color and brick shape variation, 9/10 for authenticity. Overall, I rate this a 7/10 on the NICE BRIXX scale. We’d recommend purchasing this set if you like Lego race cars, Speed Champions or really value color variation. This set hasn’t been on sale, that we’ve seen, so expect to pay the retail price but with a good price to brick ratio, there is still a good amount of value in picking this set up for your collection.