Lego Porsche 911 GT3 RS 42056

DAY 2

LOL, last time we did the pile of pieces thing, it took my daughter one year to build the Parisian restaurant. Life's too short, I don't have that much time left.

In the meantime, here is some progress. The rails on the upper left form the console for the D N R shifter. The dark gray gear slips under either red gear to the left or right to actuate D or R. The mess to the right is the part of the transmission. It's going to get a whole lot more complex.

 

My dad says that I am Han Chinese, but I think he is full of shit because I can get dark, have occasional salt and pepper and red hairs, and some cousins on my mom's side look like that actor who plays Django Fett. I figure I'm part Dutch, Polynesian, and Han Chinese whatever the f**k "Han" means.

My wife is descended from a Jewish matrimonial line. Her grandmother went to lengths to hide this. I don't think it was as cool to be Jewish back then as it is now. Add some English and German (her mom's dad) and then Scottish and British (her dad).

So basically, my kids are mutts. The Asian genes seem to manifest stronger.

 

It's basically Chinese master race bullshit. "I can trace my lineage to Huang Di (Yellow Emperor)" or "We are as ancient as the Vorlons". Whoop dee doo!

 

DAY 3

From the same culture that built the ancient viking boats, and now specialized modern ships, submersibles, and some of the best speaker drivers around (Scan-Speak and Seas). You'll be blown away by the following. I haven't seen Lego do something like this yet.

Continuing from where we left off last time, here is the rest of the transmission. You can see the linkages on the sides of the transmission that change the gearing (the gray pieces that slide into the red gears). In later photos, you'll see how the paddle shifters link back. Yeah, paddle shifters. Note working automatic transmission selector for D N and R.


Parts of the driver's side dash and console where the steering wheel and paddle shifters will reside. The linkage to the shifters to the back of the car can be seen in the unit on the left.


The steering shaft has gears to turn the shaft sticking out to the right. It will turn a rack and pinion - to be shown another day.


Here is the completed drivers side console with the steering wheel and paddle shifters in place.


The two pieces are now snapped into place. We can see the paddle shifter linkage at the bottom of the drivers console connecting to the transmission at the back.

You can buy a little bit more than five of these kits of the cost of a RedNet D16 Ethernet to AES gizmo.

 

DAY 4

Dual A-arm front suspension with steering rack, tie rods, coilover shocks. Not too different from other Technic car kits. An added touch was the yellow brake calipers. The Lego designers wanted the big yellow brake calipers to be an important element of the kit.


Here is the front suspension mounted into the rest of the frame. We can see how the steering wheel links to the steering rack.


Each kit includes a plaque with an individualized serial number (blurred out).


Most of the complex / fun stuff is over - only the rear suspension and engine (crankshaft and cylinders).

 

It was hard to find when it came out in June or July. I think stocks have finally returned back to normal. My local Lego store finally had a few boxes in the back, limited to one per customer. What happens is speculators buy a bunch of them and try to sell on Amazon or eBay for more than what they bought it for. Lego then notices and produces a bunch to screw over these speculators. Lego did this with the Batman Tumbler.

The is one of the more expensive Lego kits at near 12 cents per piece. I figure Porsche licensing and all. Probably the closest I will ever get to owning this car, unless my folks decide to finally give parts of their real estate empire to me. Even then, I'm not too sure. I haven't been happy with the direction Porsche has been taking with increasing the size, weight, and lame electronic features of their cars; although the track ready GT3 is probably much different.

 

DAY 5

All the super fun mechanical stuff is over. I've jumped over most of the next step, building of the frame. The frame of the car is in the foreground, with the drivetrain (put together in the past four days) in the background. Note the orange criss-crossed roll bars of the frame.



Sliding the frame over the drivetrain here. The manual says Porsche employs a similar "marriage" process to the frame and drivetrain on the real car.


Marriage of the frame and drivetrain completed, with the addition of the seats. The sucky thing is that the mechanicals are now hidden. I wish Lego had offered transparent pieces for the panels over the engine and on the engine, or offered panels / engine that could be easily removed. This is one of the downsides of the kit compared to other Technic kits. On the other hand, the exterior view of the completely built car looks a lot nicer than any Technic kit to date.

 

DAY 6

We start box 3. There is only one box left after this, not including the box for the wheels and tires.


Here is how the hood attaches.


The rear of the car. I love how the 911 taillights and distinct curves on the back are interpreted.


Again, we can see how the curves of the roof, the hood, and rear corner panels and fenders are interpreted. If you look carefully, you can see that Lego designers even put in the air intakes at the top front of the rear fenders.


This view gives us a better sense of how Lego really retained the distinctive lines of the 911 GTS3 RS in this kit.

 

The Lego lightsabre might be a fun project.