There’s been much excitement here at TLCB Towers today. Following our preview of the 2015 Technic line-up some time ago, the final piece of the 2015 jigsaw has been found! We’ve had a few images of the missing 42043 set sitting in the office for a while, but unfortunately they weren’t of sufficient quality for us to share here. And we forgot. But let’s go with the quality control aspect as it makes us look more professional.

Anyway, thanks to an intrepid troop of Elves we now do have images of a high enough quality to publish! So this is it – LEGO’s new 2015 Technic flagship, building further on their partnership with Mercedes-Benz, the 2,800 piece 42043 Arcos crane truck.

Based on Mercedes’ real 4-axle tractor unit 42043 surpasses even the previous standards set by the incredible 8110 Unimog set. Featuring both Power Functions electric motors and the next generation pneumatic system (containing all-new components), 42043 features a huge range of functionality.

Three new pneumatic cylinders are used to move the crane arm and grab, with a fourth employed as a pneumatic compressor. A gearbox allows the Power Functions system to perform a variety of tasks, including powering the aforementioned compressor and tipping the bucket, whilst unpowered mechanics take care of the steering, piston engine and suspension.

We expect the new 42043 flagship set to cost upwards £165 when it arrives towards the end of the summer, and if one of TLCB Team saves really hard we’ll be able to bring you a set review. In the meantime you can read our reviews of LEGO’s previous releases, including the Arocs’ predecessor – the 8110 Unimog – by clicking here.

You wait ages for a creamy-beige truck to come along and then two arrive at once…

That’s not true – no-one’s ever waited for a beige truck. But like yesterday‘s find, this 1970s Mercedes-Benz refrigerated box-truck with three-axle trailer looks superb in its unusual colour scheme. Previous bloggee Thietmaier is the builder and you can see more on Flickr.

This enormous Technic-figure scale Mercedes-Benz Actros 8×4 heavy haulage truck was discovered on MOCpages and Eurobricks. It’s been built by Shineyu Yu and it features a host of Technic functions including RC drive and steering. There’s more to see via the link above, and you can check out our preview of LEGO’s official 2015 Mercedes-Benz truck set by clicking here.

The Elves love finding models of Mercedes-Benz’s ubiquitous Unimog. Firstly, the models are usually packed with working features. Damian Z.’s has a very nice Hiab crane mounted behind its cab. Secondly, the models are often built in orange, meaning that the lucky finder is rewarded with an orange Smartie, which are the best sort. Click on this link to Damian’s album on Flickr to see more details, including the neatly attached air intake pipe.

It’s time for another TLCB Set Review! But this time it’s one of our readers – the winner of TLCB Summer Building Competition – Thomas Graafland, who has picked up the Reviewer’s Pen. Thomas has got his hands on LEGO’s 2015 Technic flagship set, the 42043 Mercedes-Benz Arocs, and he’s joined us to explain all…

Browsing on Flickr a while ago I noticed this neat looking Mercedes truck displayed at a Lego fair.
Thinking at first that this was a MOC I was quite shocked that this was actually an official set. The second big shock was the €170 price tag. Normally there would be no chance of me spending that much on a single set, but being a fan of both trucks and LEGO, I knew this was THE set for me.

The box is as per usual with big Technic sets: large and decorated showing the model and the systems used; in this case both Power Functions and Pneumatics V2, and the cover folds open to reveal the model’s functions and some specifications of the real truck.

The box feels heavy, which is always a good sign. Inside are lots of plastic bags, each numbered from 1 to 6, except the one containing the pneumatic parts. The battery box is not in a bag and just slides around in the box between the plastic bags. Instructions are in a single book of 470 pages and the instructions booklet is packed in plastic too, so no folded pages.

The building process is lots of fun. You start off with the chassis, working from the front to the rear. Then comes the cabin, next the crane, and you finish with the bed. The building is very straight-forward, until you reach the crane, which requires some intensive studying of the instructions to get the tubing through the turntable right. It’s not like the instructions give you no clues on how to do it, but it does require a bit of extra attention. The finished truck is not huge, being similar to the 8285/8258 in terms of size. It is heavier, though!

The trucks cabin looks very neat and it definitely looks just like the real deal. The overall shape of the cabin is very smooth, and the cab doesn’t lack detail either. All mirrors, lights, horns and whatnot are present, showing that LEGO went quite some attention to getting the cabin right. I personally really am a fan of the way they did the front grill. I do think it would’ve looked better if the middle part of the grill would’ve been angled too, though, because it just looks a little odd to have only angled the lowest part. The doors open up, to reveal a very, very basic interior. The white colour of the cab looks very clean, but it doesn’t really stand out, which is quite a shame – it doesn’t do justice to that good looking cabin. The ever-boring dark bluish grey doesn’t help making it exciting either.

Steering is done with the two orange beacons on top of the cabin. The steering system works very well, but you have exactly zero grip on those slippery round beacons. There is some slack with the gears too, which only makes steering more difficult. The two front axles steer and turning feels very smooth thanks to the different steering locks on the two axles.

The truck features live-axle suspension all-around. The suspension is a bit on the hard side, but it works very well apart from that. One big downside of the suspension is that the truck sits really high on its wheels. This would’ve been no problem if the suspension travel was as big the gap between the wheels and fenders, but unfortunately it isn’t. Even when fully compressed, there is still about 2 studs room above the wheels and I feel that lowering the truck would actually have been quite possible. However, the suspension will be a very good base to re-use for Model Team MOCs.

The drivetrain is simple and smooth. The two rear axles drive the engine, which is hidden underneath the cabin. The inline six turns at reasonable speed and especially at higher speeds it makes that nice rattling sound. It’s bit of a pity that it can’t be seen from outside while driving it around, because it is completely hidden by the cab. The cabin folds forward neatly, but even then you can only see the first four cylinders. With some effort you can see the fifth one under the battery box, but the sixth cylinder is completely invisible underneath the crane.

The battery box is hidden very neatly in the rear part of the cabin and is easily replaced. The Power Functions L-motor that drives all the functions resides somewhere in the middle of the chassis and has no trouble driving any of the functions. The gearbox that is driven by the L-motor uses the new driving rings and gears and it drives four functions in total;

First are the outriggers. These use two new parts that seem to be specially designed to just be used as outriggers. They extend by 7-8 studs and need to be lowered by hand. They won’t lift your whole truck off the ground but they do provide the required stability and their red colour adds a bit of visual interest to the whole truck.

The second function is crane rotation. The crane rotates at what I think to be the right speed, where it doesn’t spin so slow that it gets boring, yet it can still be easily positioned precisely. It is a shame that the crane is limited to 180° rotation, though. Due to the pneumatic tubing going through the turntable, it has been limited to just a half circle turning. I’m not asking for 360° reach, but just a tad more would not have been unwelcome.

The pneumatic pump is the third function to be driven. All the crane’s functions except rotating work with pneumatics. The raising, lowering and extending of the crane all work seamlessly and especially in terms of height I’m impressed with its reach. Overall I find the crane to be really good. A small downside is the bucket. It seems to have a bit of trouble opening sometimes and although it can technically swing in all directions, it doesn’t do so, because of the stiffness of the pneumatic tubes. I would’ve personally also liked if it would have been able to turn, but I do understand that the pneumatics prevented the designers from doing so.

Don’t think the it isn’t well engineered though; overall the crane is really the most fun thing to play with on the truck and apart from the bucket I have no complaints about its performance. The pump has no trouble manoeuvring the crane and the tubing along the crane creates a more realistic feeling than using linear actuators would have done. The tubing does make the crane look bigger than it already is, though, and that while the crane already is about 10 studs higher than the cab roof. When looking at it from birds eye view this doesn’t matter, but from ground level it looks a bit off.

The crane uses what the box calls ‘Pneumatics V2’. The only differences I could see from the V1 components are the slightly different mounting points for the pneumatic tubes and the length. Performance-wise there is no difference, so they’ll seamlessly blend in with your regular pneumatics.

The last Power Functions driven function is the tipping of the bed, done by a single large linear actuator. The rear hatch can be locked with a handle on the side of the bed. The carbo-bay has practically no holes, so you can actually cram it with bricks without losing half the load during transport. Unloading works without problems there is nothing to complain about on this part of the truck.

Overall 42043 is lots of fun. All the functions work well and are easy to control, making it a very playable set. The cabin looks very convincing and is done neatly when you look past the dull white colour. The crane is a bit high when collapsed, but the smooth way it works makes up for that. 42043 does cost a lot of money, but it’s worth it. 9/10

Thanks to Thomas for joining us here at TLCB to review LEGO’s 2015 Technic Mercedes-Benz Arocs set. You can read all TLCB’s set reviews by visiting the Set Review Library – click this link to see the dozens available!

Mercedes’ G-Wagon has become a bit of tragic of late, being largely bought by rappers, business men of dubious morality, and rich housewives, fitted with 22″ chrome rims, and driven to the mall every other Tuesday. Never has a vehicle so capable been used so far beneath its ability.

We very much like this one though; Pat-Ard‘s basic short-wheelbase hard top, with plastic coloured wheel-arches, no body-kit, skinny tyres, and much more street-cred than anything in Beverly Hills.

Pat’s model is fitted with working suspension, opening doors, dropping tail-gate with swing-away spare wheel, and with Power Functions RC steering and drive too – check it out in Eurobricks at the link above.

The last four creations posted here have been remotely controlled, thanks to LEGO’s excellent Power Functions motor system, and today’s find makes it five-in-a-row. TLCB debutant Karol Czerwonka’s Mercedes-Benz Arocs recovery truck mixes LEGO’s electric motors and pneumatics systems to create a fully working under-lift and a brilliant tilting and sliding recovery bed.

There’s also functioning steering, a tilting cab with opening doors, and a working piston engine. In fact the only way Karol’s truck could be more realistic is if it included a Fiat on the back. You can see more of the Mercedes on both Brickshelf and Flickr – click the links for the full gallery of images.

LEGO’s latest flagship, the Technic 42043 Mercedes-Benz Arocs set, is currently generating a bit of a buzz in the online Lego Community, and Polish Lego group LUGpol has tasked its members with diversifying the official set by building a new vehicle from the original cab.

We featured a superb remotely controlled Arocs flatbed rescue truck here earlier, which we thought would be tough to beat, but Brickshelf’s GIJack might have taken the lead with his excellent 3-vehicle car transporter. Yes, you can fit not one, but three broken Fiats on-board. Or some nice shiny new cars of course.

There’s a full gallery of high quality images available on Brickshelf via the link above, plus you can read our Review of the official 42043 Mercedes-Benz Arocs set by clicking here.

Home-designed variants of LEGO’s own official 42043 Mercedes-Benz Arocs truck set are popping up all over the place at the moment, and this absolutely enormous 4-axle concrete pump is easily the biggest, the most complicated, and probably the most amazing variant we’ve seen so far.

Built by Brickshelf’s waler, this remarkable Technic model faithfully replicates the huge truck-mounted concrete pumps that regularly service the needs of entire construction sites*.

Featuring remotely controlled Power Functions drive and 4-wheel steering, LED lights, a tilting cab, a V6 piston engine, motorised out-riggers, rotating pump arm, and pneumatic compressor for the pneumatically raising and extending boom, Waler’s Mercdes-Benz Arocs is one of the most technically advanced builds of the year.

There’s an extensive gallery of over 40 superb images available to view on Brickshelf – join us there in amazement by clicking the link in the text above.

*Just like your Mom.

LEGO’s Technic Mercedes-Benz Arocs set is currently generating a huge response from the online community; we’ve publicised four home-built variants in the last week alone! This one, suggested to us by a reader, comes from previous bloggee Krzysztof Cytacki, and it’s so far the most similar build to the official set. But don’t let that fool you – it’s far from a minor modification.

Krzysztof’s Arocs truck loses the official set’s 4-axle configuration in place of a 3-axel with rear-steer set up. It also features a grab arm, pneumatically operated stabilisers, and a hook-lift roll-off container, which is also powered by LEGO’s neat pneumatic system.

There’s lots more too see at Krzysztof’s Flickr photostream via the link above, and if you’d like to read more about the official Technic set that started the current trend you can do so via TLCB Set Review Library – click here to make the jump.

The Mercedes-Benz Arocs creations keep on coming! The latest to grace these pages comes from Eurobrick’s Samolot, and it’s one of the most impressive developments of LEGO’s 42043 set that we’ve seen thus far.

Featuring remote control drive and steering, suspension and pneumatic outriggers, Samolot’s Arocs truck includes as many functions as the official set, and that’s before you get to there junk in the trunk…

Mounted over the rear wheels is a platform suspended by six pneumatic cylinders (controlled via a Power Functions electric compressor), which can raise, lower, pitch, and yaw. Insert some patrons into said platform along with a large TV screen and this Mercedes-Benz Arocs becomes a flight simulator ride!

Samolot’s creation is one of the engineering highlights of the year so far, and includes five Power Functions motors, three Power Functions switches, ten pneumatic cylinders and six meters of pneumatic hosing.

You can see all the details on Eurobricks by clicking here, alongside a full description and, best of all, a video of the flight simulator in action!

…a Mercedes Benz. In this case it’s a 180 Ponton, built by nameless_member. It’s been published on Flickr and the wonderfully named German website Imperium der Steine. The car is massive, scaled to Lego’s biggest wheels. Many Pontons were used as taxis in their native Germany and we can fit the entire TLCB research team inside this Lego version, after the recent lawnmower incident.

No this isn’t a review of Lego Technic’s monster machine, we’ve already done that. This is a review of Andy L’s mini version, which packs almost the same functionality into a chassis that is just 8 studs wide. It steers, has fold-out stabilisers, it tips and has a very manoeuvrable arm. Andy has also made his own grabber bucket, rather than use Lego’s ready made part. Watch the stop-motion video below and then click on this link to MOCpages to see all of the details.

There’s a neat packaging theme going on today, and our second post takes this towards Alec Issigonis levels of cleverness. TLCB Master MOCer Sheepo has unveiled his latest model, and it’s probably the most technically brilliant creation you’ll see this year.

Underneath the gorgeous (and complicated) 1954 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing body sits a chassis of mind-bending genius. There’s the usual Power Functions remote control drive and steering of course, plus a remotely operated 4-speed sequential gearbox, all-wheel suspension, all-wheel remotely operated drum brakes and working door locks. All that is squeezed into a model of just 1:11 scale, versus Sheepo’s usual 1:8, and it includes an on-board Li-Po battery, IR receivers and four Power Functions motors.

If you like quality engineering as much as we do then we highly recommend visiting the Eurobricks discussion forum where we found this creation, Sheepo’s own excellent website here, and viewing the delightful video below.

P.S. If you’re reading this Sheepo, surely this is the perfect creation for the LEGO Ideas platform? There’s even a partnership with Mercedes-Benz already in place…

YouTube Video:

Following the launch of LEGO’s 42043 Mercedes-Benz Arocs set earlier in the year the online Lego community has been churning our new variants at a prolific rate.

The latest to feature here comes fitted with a giant piece of Agrar agricultural equipment on the back which is remotely controlled by a Power Functions motor, with another powering its all-wheel-drive, a third controlling the steering, and a fourth operating the transmission.

Eric Trax is the builder behind it and there’s more to see on Brickshelf, the Eurobricks discussion forum here, and in the YouTube video below.

YouTube Video:

OK, there aren’t actually any cars to count in this post, but there could be quite a few. Mechu333‘s thoroughly excellent Mercedes-Benz articulated car transporter can hold seven by our count, and it’s got some decent Technic functions too.

There’s working steering, lowering ramps and top decks, LED head and tail lights and lots more to see at Mechu’s Brickshelf gallery – click the link above to make the jump.

At the opposite end of the scale from today’s other post is this; an absolutely monstrous Mercedes-Benz Unimog 401. Somewhat simpler on the outside than its modern U400 descendant, the 401 was just as ridiculously hardcore underneath, but is also very probably the slowest vehicle that this site has ever featured, and we’re even including this.

Tamás Juhász aka Mbmc is the builder and he’s built one hell of a machine. Underneath the simple green bodywork is a full RC drivetrain complete with a remotely operated 2-speed gearbox and some of the toughest looking suspension we’ve ever seen. There’s also a beautifully recreated working 4-cylinder engine, power take-offs front and rear and opening doors and hood.

There’s lots more to see, including images of the incredible chassis, on several of the key creation-sharing platforms; albums and build details on Flickr, Brickshelf and Eurobricks can be reached via the links.

Mercedes-Benz’s SL63 AMG is a bit brash for our tastes here at TLCB, but it’s got one hell of an engine. The latest iteration of Mercedes’ long-standing range-topper makes over 500bhp from its bi-turbo V8, and it isn’t even the most powerful version available (that honour belongs to the SL65, with a turbocharged V12 making over 600bhp). This excellent Model Team recreation of the mighty Merc comes from previous bloggee Lennart C, and you can see more of his Model Team recreation of the SL63 AMG on Flickr at the link above.

Back again. Shineyu’s back. Tell a friend.

It’s seem like only yesterday that Shineyu featured here at TLCB with an incredible Technic truck, and that’s because it was. His newest creation is a stunning Mercedes-Benz Actros 8×4, and like his previous build it’s fully remote controlled. There’s lots more to see at MOCpages and Eurobricks – click the links for all the images.

Alongside civilian versions of the Hummer, AMG’s G63 version of the Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon is surely one of the most pointless vehicles ever created. Transforming a hardcore off-road workhorse into an immensely powerful on-road racer results in a car that can do neither of those things, and that costs a fortune to do absolutely nothing well at all. In short, the G63 AMG’s only purpose is to be a rolling pile of banknotes proclaiming the wealth of the occupant inside it. Rant over, on to the model…

This impressive recreation of the World’s Most Pointless Car comes from previous bloggee damianple, making his fifth appearance on TLCB. Damian’s G63 AMG is a fully functioning Technic Supercar with some seriously impressive engineering inside. A working V8 engine, all-wheel-suspension, all-wheel-drive, steering and Power Functions remote control are included, amongst a host of other features.

There’s an extensive gallery of photos available to view via Brickshelf, including detailed chassis imagery and interior shots. Click the link above to make the jump.