LEGO Speed Champions McLaren P1 set 75909 Review

Following on from our surprise purchase on Sunday, my partner went back to Smyths today and bought a couple more of the LEGO Speed Champions sets. Sadly our budget doesn't allow for the Ferrari Truck, but we did get the McLaren P1 hybrid supercar set 75909.

As with the other sets, the bricks are in 3 un-numbered bags, with 2 instruction booklets, a bag of interchangeable wheel trims and a full sheet of stickers.

A nice quick build, and our youngest attempted this one. At nearly 5 he was capable of following the instructions, but it's right the age suggestion is 7+ because it doesn't offer enough initial reward for a younger builder.

The builds are really incredibly intricate with loads of tiny detail that'd easily be overlooked. The use of coloured elements within the build is really striking - although often they're almost entirely hidden when the vehicle is complete. He took this picture himself....

As with the Ferrari and Porsche, the McLaren P1 has 2 full sets of wheel trims which you can change in only slightly more time than a genuine pit crew. They don't come off during rough play by 2 small boys either!

The McLaren P1 itself is very different to the LaFerrari which we reviewed the other day. This is a more streamlined vehicle, it's less clunky and has hardly any visible studs on the exterior of the vehicle. The underside isn't as nice though....

Again this is a LEGO model, but it's so sturdy that it can be played with as a car. I think this opens it up really well to a far greater variety of builders. For us we felt totally justified buying the 3 hybrid supercars as they're only £12.99 each, and our little boys can race with them now - we're just being nice and had no ulterior motive, see...

It's pretty gorgeous, and very yellow, with a nice use of the cockpit roof canopy and tiles to form the sweeping arched roof. 

And with the stickers....

The dash isn't quite as exciting as the LaFerrari, and it's going a lot slower, but the internal detail is special.

 As is the ingenius use of a snow board as a spoiler...

LEGO Speed Champions is a new range due for release in March 2015. There are 7 sets with 8 different fast cars, a truck and pit crew. Prices vary depending on the size of the set. The McLaren P1 set 75909 retails at £12.99 and we make it around 174 pieces.

We've also reviewed the Porsche 918 Spyder (our review is here...) and the Ferrari LaFerrari (our review is here...).

All of the Speed Champions sets have a recommended age of 7+ for builders, and it's our opinion that it's 3+ for drivers. Excellent value, excellent playability, great design and an interesting and clever build.