After spending Christmas at my parents’ we came home a few days ago for “Christmas 2″ – or in other words the presents to each other we couldn’t be bothered to transport all the way there and all the way back again.
I can report I received a kit as one of mine, although not the usual narrow gauge or even model railway fare…
A Lego kit for a 1962 VW Camper. Containing a mere 1332 pieces, split into 15 bags of bits with 2 instruction booklets, this is certainly not a model for the impatient and in fact took two (long!) evenings to complete.
The instructions start with the engine bay so, armed with suitable encouragement I set off. The engine isn’t as sophisticated as some Lego Technic cars but it is largely hidden once complete.
Despite the complexity of the kit and the close resemblance to the original vehicle, most of the parts are regular Lego blocks although used in a variety of ingenious ways with very little “cheating”. Actually its a testament to the genius of the geometry of the system that such things are even possible.
I decided to kit-bash slightly and build the cabin as right-hand drive. Yet to go in is the dashboard which also acts as a support for the opening ‘safari’ windscreens.
The completed beast. All doors, windscreen, rear hatch and engine cover open, and the roof extension pops up (with a fabric curtain). Inside there is a folding table and convertible bed.
Now how about trying the same level of interactivity in 1:76 scale!
I am VERY jealous. Santa didn’t bring me one of those for Crimbo.
Steve what a coincidence! I got one too, finished mine today, I reckon about 5 hours to finish mine over the past few days. Great fun!