C’est Un LEGO

My kids love building LEGO sets—the intricate models, LEGO Technic and so forth. It’s the build process, the puzzle-solving aspect. The assembled sets? They don’t get played with. Eventually they get broken down into their component pieces, thrown in a big bin, and then we build whatever we want together. That’s the part I like. Even though this Renault 5 Turbo 3E EV LEGO model isn’t an official Lego set, hope it will be someday. I want to help the kids build it, if they’ll let me. And I’m seeing lots of parts to make cool spaceships and robots out of after they tire of it.

Or, maybe—just maybe—this would be a set to keep assembled. To put on a shelf. I’m torn. I don’t have to decide yet, because at the moment it has something like 6,100 supporters and more than 700 days left to garner the other 4,000 or so for the LEGO Ideas Review Board to consider it. Consider doesn’t mean approve; there are plenty of interesting LEGO Ideas submissions that got to review but no further, for whatever reason. “So you’re saying there’s a chance,” in the words of a co-protagonist of a very dumb movie.

This Idea has been popping up on my feed a fair bit, my primary vector being the keen eye of Brendan McAleer. There’s good alignment between the neo-retro 5 revival, the retro-futuristic EV aspect, and the middle age car person media nexus of sentimentality. It is also a foreign job, distinctly European, and unlike the 5’s ancestors (which, for a time, sold here as the Renault LeCar, which of course you already know) it won’t be coming here. Funky, forbidden. 

Renault’s chunky 5 3E styling looks great in brick form, too. It’s lo-res, but in a way that works better than some of the uncanny valley LEGO Icons that are actually on sale, like the misbegotten Shelby Cobra. 

The Renault’s creator seems like a gearhead, and there’s a clear enthusiasm in the submission’s description. There are lots of Idea ideas that are worth a vote, but this one has my attention, so I’m bringing it to your attention. 

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