See all Motoring News
What's new?
Fancy building a kit-car version of the original Mini? Then you're in luck - although bear in mind this is a Lego model, so you're unlikely to be able to fit inside it unless you're only a few centimetres tall, have a permanent grin on your nose-less face and are possessed of fixed, semi-circular hands.
The 1,077-part Mini is the latest product in Lego's Creator Expert range, which sees the end product of a few hours of swearing at little bits of plastic ('is this a 4x2 black? Or a dark grey, dammit?!') result in a replica of something real - the company already does an epic Type 2 Volkswagen Camper van, for instance.
Lego's designers took the last generation of Mini Cooper, built until 2000, as the inspiration. When assembled, the car is 25cm long, 14cm wide and 11cm high, which Lego says maintains the real car's proportions. In the sort of cheerfully stereotypical way the BMW-owned MINI brand currently works, the Lego model is oh-so-frightfully British - right-hand drive, with a picnic basket and checked blanket in the boot and finished in British Racing Green with a white roof, mirror caps and bonnet stripes. It even has the correct driving lamps in the front grille.
All the relevant apertures open (the bonnet revealing the four-cylinder engine transversely mounted, naturally) and emblems on the side of the Lego Mini reveal it to be a 40th Anniversary edition, made between August 1997 and July 1998.
And finally...
The Creator Expert Mini set from Lego will go on sale in August. And we'll be in the queue to buy one...
For more images and up to date news check out CompleteCar.ie