Meet The Best Creator Expert Vehicle LEGO Has Ever Made

It takes the crown in many ways, and probably keeps it too…

This one is going to be very hard to beat. LEGO Creator Expert cars are generally memorable, iconic, one might say. Perhaps that’s partly why The LEGO Group decided to rename the series to Icons, too. Whatever the reasons, though, the newest member of the LEGO Creator Expert vehicles, is most definitely the one to write home about. It takes the crown in so many ways, I feel I wouldn’t be doing it justice if I didn’t list out all the reasons before jumping into the review.

Reasons, there are many…

So far, I own the Porsche 911, the Ford Mustang, the Volkswagen T2, the Chevrolet Camaro and the Delorean. All fantastic cars, great builds, gorgeous display sets, all worth their weight in gold. Yet, the Land Rover manages to outshine them all in several ways, though not all necessarily good ways. 😜

• Let’s start with the price. 240 euros. The only other Icons car selling at that price was the Ghostbusters ECTO-1.
• While it does feature an impressive, 2336 pieces, that still makes it one of the most expensive Icons cars ever. The VW T2 sells for 160 euros, and just at 130 pieces less.
• It is the first Icons car to feature individual suspensions for each wheel, in fact, the first to ever feature suspensions, period.
• Speaking of suspensions, the Land Rover has probably the most realistic feeling suspensions I have seen in a LEGO car, be that Technic or System. Spot on. I even did a slo-mo and posted it on Instagram. Go watch it now!
• Comes in a very nice sand green colour, a rarity in LEGO cars.
• It features more Technic pieces than I have ever seen on an Icons car before. At one point I was wondering whether this was a Technic or System set. It is of course the latter, but Technic fans will love this set more than all the previous ones.
• It has not four, not five, but six wheels! One spare sits on the hood, the other at the back.
• Has the most accessories I have ever seen in a LEGO car set. Somewhere around 22!
• The first set to ever feature rounded rectangular wheel arches. They look fantastic, but I hope to see these in different colours too in the future, as the sand green makes it harder to reuse in other builds.
• The first Icons car that comes with a truly inspiring video. Think Apple levels of inspiring.

If nine out of these ten reasons didn’t convince you, let’s move on to the review, as there is plenty more to talk about.

Why you should get it despite the price-tag…

Yes, it’s an expensive set. Yes, it’s also a licensed set. It’s a Land Rover Classic Defender 90, after all, and it marks the car company’s 75th birthday. All of this, paired with LEGO being a premium toy by default, likely contributed to what many reviewers call an overinflated price tag. But there’s a whole lot more to it than just looking at the box and the price. If anything, I think the box doesn’t sell it as well as it could. I blame the overly simplistic box design that LEGO started adopting a while back. Probably in an attempt to streamline their design teams, they ended up with these black box templates that just get the model added with a bit of fake lighting. Ugh.

To truly understand the value of this set, you gotta build it, and speaking of building it, I, for one, think it hit just the right balance between complexity and fun. The Technic bits required a bit more attention, especially around the suspension and steering, so don’t go looking for unicorns in the skies when putting together those, but in many other sections, it felt pretty straightforward. Not too many funky build techniques, and I didn’t mind that. If you want funky techniques, buy Speed Champions cars. Those will teach you how to build LEGO in very small packages. That being said, this set will teach you something, or at least, I certainly learned how to build a suspension system like I have never seen in any LEGO set before. You can see it quite clearly in the below image.

The car also comes with two engines, not just one. If you’re more of a city person, you can use the 8 cylinder petrol engine, but if off-roading is more your thing, you have a diesel engine you can install instead. They both look great, and the petrol one makes use of — believe it or not — eight black sausage pieces! Folks, please stop saying modern LEGO pieces are not reusable. You need to work on your imagination.

Among many other things this Land Rover is equipped with, you also have a winch at the front. This does not feature a ratchet mechanism, and it’s not as secured to the body of the vehicle as I would like, but nevertheless looks great and fun to have.

Speaking of things that could function better, the steering isn’t as reactive as I would like it to be, quite a bit of lag, probably the most I have seen on an Icons car. While I’m listing out tiny faults, I would also mention that certain aspects of the build are fragile, so handle with care. Make sure to pick it up from the bottom, as otherwise you’ll end up with a convertible Classic Defender 90. 🤣

On that note, there is a semi-legit reason why some part of this car feel more fragile than others. As you build it, you have the option to create two versions of the car. Well, three actually, or even four. Allow me to explain. The Estate edition is basically the vehicle with zero accessories. Clean, perfect for city life. The off-road version is with all the bells and whistles. The Estate edition, however, can come with two different hoods, one with a bulge, and the other one without. So, that’s three versions. The fourth, and unofficial one, is the convertible where you can take off the entire top very easily and enjoy a drive with the wind in your hair and flies in your eyes.

There are probably more aspects worth mentioning, but these are what mattered to me, what stood out as key things to keep in mind when considering picking this up at this price.

Again, I fully acknowledge the cost this Icons set comes at, but despite it and some of the nitpicks that I mentioned, I still find the LEGO Land Rover Classic Defender 90, set #10317, one of the best system sets I have had the pleasure of building in the last decade.

If iconic 4x4 vehicles are your thing, the LEGO Land Rover Classic Defender 90 is the set to buy. A purchase impossible to regret.

Attila Vago — Software Engineer improving the world one line of code at a time. Cool nerd since forever, writer of codes and blogs. Web accessibility advocate, LEGO fan, vinyl record collector. Loves craft beer! Read my Hello story here! Subscribe and/or become a member for more stories about LEGO, tech, coding and accessibility! For my less regular readers, I also write about random bits and writing.