Goodwood, West Sussex - It took a team of dedicated Lego fanatics (Legotists?) 2000 man-hours to build this full-sized replica of a McLaren 720S, which was on display at the recent Goodwood Festival of Speed.
Starting from a solid platform with a welded metal frame to fix the wheelbase and support the weight of the 280 000 Lego bricks - about 1600 kilograms, a quarter of a ton more than the actual car - McLaren's six modelmakers built an intricate spaceframe, using only the little plastic bricks, to support the body panels - echoing the ‘superleggera’ technique used by top Italian coachbuilders to create unique cars.
The final 12 700 bricks were assembled while the model was on display at the festival, with members of the public allowed to help place the bricks for a small donation to the official Goodwood charity.
Raising the bar
Their efforts raised £2700 (R47 200) for the fund - as well as raising the bar as to just what can be achieved with the little Danish mouldings that have taught generations of children the principles of engineering design without them even realising they were in school.
To give us some idea of just what went into it, McLaren used time-lapse photography to compress the whole project into 59 seconds. You’ll want to watch this video at least twice, to catch all the details.