All angles and sharp edges, the 1985 Audi Sport quattro S1 is one of the world’s most famous rally cars, we build one in Lego Speed Champions form.
Lockdown has given all of us time to get back to basics…or just binge watch everything we can. For me, I’ve managed to get back to something I haven’t done since I was a kid…play with Lego.
Both my kids, and I’m sure yours do as well, have huge plastic tubs filled with Lego. My son tinkers around with his every now and then but my daughter is incredibly creative. Me, I’ve loved Lego from afar, perving on the latest Technic and Speed Champions kits, encouraging others to get involved but I haven’t touched a brick in anger in years. Until now.
The Lego Speed Champions 1985 Audi Sport quattro S1 kit was a gift from my kids. And it’s one of the best things they’ve ever got me. See, I’m not great at relaxing. Terrible at it, actually. Even during lockdown. But the Audi kit forced me to stop and sit still. Even if only for about 30 min.
Let’s talk about the kit
Either late last year or early this year, Lego released a slightly bigger version of its Audi Sport quattro S1 kit. It was called, by those in the know, as an eight stud kit. Meaning, if you look at a piece of Lego, it measures eight studs wide. Make sense?
Actually, all of the Speed Champions cars are now 25% bigger than they were. And the significance of that is that the cars have grown from dinky to substantial. Meaning, once complete, the kit now feels less like a toy. In fact, it now measures 16 centimetres long, six centimetres tall and seven centimetres wide. It contains 250 pieces which is a whole lot less than the limited-run Lego Technic Lamborghini Sian FKP 37. The kit comes with just about everything you need to build a Lego version of one of the heroes of Group B rally and from its penultimate year, too. Contained within the kit is everything you’ll need to build the car. Sort of. I’ll get to this soon enough.
The 1985 Audi Sport quattro S1 was a monster on the Group B rally stage with Audi one of the dominant players throughout Group B. But, for me, it was the shape of the S1 that caught my eye and burned itself into my brain.
And for a kit that measures just 16 centimetres long, I reckon the Lego designers have done an amazing job of crafting this kit. See, the S1 had such a unique shape, from its pumped guards, and square grille with its huge spoiler and then there’s the angle of the C-pillar at the back and the gigantic rear wing. I’ve read some Lego nerds complaining about that transition at the back but I reckon it works fine. And that’s because there’s so much else about this kit that’s bang on. And the more you look at the finished kit and pictures of the real thing the more you realise just how genius this little kit is. And unlike some of the swooping designs of the Speed Champions Nissan GT-R, I reckon the square shape and angles of the S1 lend themselves to Lego more than the others. I mean, even if it wasn’t yellow and white, you’d never mistake this thing for being anything else other than the 1985 Audi quattro S1. Check out Dominic Fraser’s Instagram page for his recreations using Lego Speed Champions kits, including this S1.
Yep, I’m a super fan of this Lego Speed Champions Audi quattro S1 and that it costs just $29.99 makes it a bargain. I mean, go to a department store and look at the price of Lego. It ain’t cheap. For me, this kit, because of the nostalgia, has more going for it than some of the bigger, more expensive kits. Although, I am keen to have a crack at the new Defender now.
The build itself
Building this 250-piece kit took me about 30 minutes and it’s worth mentioning that I thoroughly enjoyed it. Well, almost all of it. Can you tell there’s a moan coming?
With all of the bags emptied and dry run of the instructions completed I set out building the S1 and it was mostly smooth sailing. Mostly. See, there were two mistakes with my kit and that was that a single strip measuring six studs long was missing. Completely. Fortunately, my kids, as I mentioned, have plenty of Lego and so I was able to source a spare from their stuff. And then there was a vent that should have been black but, in my kit, was white. That I couldn’t replace from my kids stash of spares so used it to finish the car off.
Then there are the decals. If you’ve got fat fingers like me then you’ll struggle. Like me. The decals are tiny and super fiddly. Also, in my kit, the decal card had been folded in half which made things even more annoying.
Beyond that, though, the instructions were reasonably clear and easy to follow, allowing you to finish each small part before moving onto the next. My only gripe with the instructions was that it was hard to tell the difference between the white, grey and black parts that needed to be used in some parts of the build. But I’d suggest that’s to do with the printing and not the fault of the kit.
In all, including the faffing about looking for the replacement parts in my kids’ Lego tubs, the build took me around 30 minutes.
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I loved everything about this kit except ONE thing. Why did they include a male racer when it was Michele Mouton who won the Pikes Peak Rally with this car in ’85??