I have always loved the look of the classic Land Rover Defender. So much so that while we drive the new 2021 Defender, I still dream about owning a classic one. It doesn’t mean however, that I can’t have a version of my ideal Defender…even if it is on the small side, and made of plastic bricks. Sometimes Santa does listen.
It’s been a while since I’ve played with LEGO but I can really see the appeal to young and old alike. Opening the very large box revealed many bags of bricks and the thickest instruction book I’ve ever seen; clearly, this was not going to be some diminutive model of the Defender.
Tearing into each labeled bag and following the guide, step-by-step, was easy enough, although I did make a few mistakes and had to pry apart more than a few bricks every now and then. I quickly learned that the small orange tool provided for this specific task didn’t actually work very well – it wasn’t thin enough to get in between tightly locked bricks – so I improvised with a really small flat head screwdriver. It took me many hours over the course of two days to build the base model.
I’m not sure what LEGO does for other sets in their ICON series, but for this one, bits of Land Rover Defender history was interspersed among the pages of the instruction booklet. Beyond the base model, there was also the possibility of customizing it, kind of like a Choose Your Adventure book. Three options were provided: Expedition, ‘Bulge’ Version A and ‘Sleek’ Version B. Depending on which one I choose, there will be more bags to open and parts to build. For obvious reasons I plan to build out the Expedition model, but that will be a project for another day. After all, just because Christmas has come and gone doesn’t mean I can’t draw out the anticipation of more play, and indulge my inner child for as long as I can.