Last year, Peugeot returned to endurance racing with their 9×8 Le Mans Hypercar. However, they did miss out on last year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, having been unable to get the car ready for the event. Instead, the prototype racer will make its debut at the world’s oldest active endurance race this year and the LEGO Technic Peugeot 9×8 24H Le Mans Hybrid Hypercar is here to commemorate that upcoming milestone.
That’s right, it’s a model replica of Peugeot’s entry for this year’s Le Mans, allowing you to test drive how the endurance sports car will do well before the actual race takes place this coming June. Just in case you weren’t aware, it also happens to be the event’s 100th year anniversary, making this quite a great set to commemorate the special occasion.
The LEGO Technic Peugeot 9×8 24H Le Mans Hybrid Hypercar recreates the endurance racer in a 1:10-scale model form, giving you a pretty large replica that’s going to make a substantial presence anywhere you decide to show it off. It’s extremely detailed, recreating the curvy shapes and complex lines of the hybrid race car, which, if you’ve seen it in real world photos, looks like a futuristic ride straight out of a comic book movie. Seriously, you can put a Bat signal on this thing and people will believe it’s the new Batmobile. And yes, the LEGO version captures its full essence.
Every angle, every swooping line, and every odd proportion gets carefully reproduced in the LEGO version, making it quite the complicated-looking model. Granted, the Technic line is, pretty much, filled with similar complex designs, considering how difficult it is to recreate the aerodynamics of sports cars with little bricks, but it makes for a fascinating model all the same.
The LEGO Technic Peugeot 9×8 24H Le Mans Hybrid Hypercar recreates the hybrid powertrain of the actual race car, so you get to build both the V6 piston engine that sends power to the rear wheels and the electric motor with the battery module. It also comes with a working suspension on the front and rear, as well as a steering system, both of which have been designed specifically for this model, so it’s unlike any LEGO Technic car you’ve built before. Other notable elements include functional doors and glow-in-the-dark light elements, so you can keep the race going well into the night, much like the actual car is set to do during 24-hour endurance races.
When assembled, it measures 19.5 x 9 x 5 inches (length x width x height), so this is quite massive for a toy car. And yes, it’s going to be a tough build, considering both the size and the unique shapes that car models tend to require. It comes with a total of 1,775 pieces, by the way, which is a lot but not that overwhelming, so we imagine it will make for an equally challenging and entertaining build.
The LEGO Technic Peugeot 9×8 24H Le Mans Hybrid Hypercar comes out May 1st, priced at $199.99.