{"id":2110090,"date":"2026-08-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2110090"},"modified":"2026-08-25T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T21:00:00","slug":"this-is-legos-life-size-record-breaking-koenigsegg-sadairs-spear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2110090","title":{"rendered":"This is Lego’s life-size, record-breaking Koenigsegg Sadair’s Spear"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Lego Group still has its blocky headquarters in Billund where Ole Kirk Christiansen founded the company way back in 1932. As of 1 January 2025, the small Danish town officially had a population of 7,484, and yet the sprawling, newly inaugurated Lego Campus and its surrounding facilities somehow employ a total of 5,900 people. Bet it\u2019s a struggle to find somewhere to host the Christmas party. Anyway, we are… not there. We\u2019re not even in Denmark. We\u2019ve turned up at the gates of Lego\u2019s far less glamorous facility on a small industrial estate in Kladno, around 20 miles west of Prague in Czechia. It may not look it from the outside, but this is the real dream factory.<\/p>\n

You see, alongside production and packing, the Kladno facility also plays host to the model builders. Ever been to a Legoland and wondered who spent hours sticking together those human-sized minifigures? How about the 6.5m tall, one-tonne scale model of the Elizabeth Tower and Big Ben in the Lego Store London? Or the life-sized, brick-built F1 cars that were actually raced and crashed ahead of the Miami Grand Prix in 2025?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Side note: we\u2019ve never seen the current crop of F1 drivers have so much fun. Yep, all built in Kladno. They\u2019re literally building giant Lego models for a living. Around 1,500 per year right now. Might just leave my CV on the desk at reception. Having paid close attention to a safety video that we\u2019re assured is just like The Lego Movie<\/em>, photographer Olgun and I are each outfitted with a hi-vis and some extremely fetching steel toe-capped trainers. We all know that stepping on an errant brick is more painful than dental surgery, so I\u2019m hardly complaining.<\/p>\n

Photography: Olgun Kordal<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The shop floor is a hive of activity, with a builder at each highly technical station and chimneys stretching down from the ceiling like industrial tendrils. They\u2019re wicking away the fumes from all the glue that\u2019s needed to stop little Jimmy pulling the head off an ornamental camel at Legoland Dubai. Although, that\u2019s not to say that there are any giant camels in build here today. Or aren\u2019t. In fact, just forget the camels altogether.<\/p>\n

What I\u2019m trying to say is we\u2019ve signed a pretty strict NDA to be in here at all, and it means it\u2019s eyes, and cameras, down as we make our way to an even more secret corner of the production line. Lego is now famous for its mega licensing deals, and a few of the partner brands that it\u2019s working with wouldn\u2019t want their wares shown off just yet.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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If only my younger self could see me now, though. Legoland Windsor first opened a month and a day before I was born, and as a brick-obsessed kid it was heaven. Heck, I first learned to drive in the Lego City Driving School. While others were karting before they sat their SATs, I was spending birthday days out piloting a funny little box on wheels that\u2019d max out at walking speed and taught me to give way to the right at roundabouts. Rounding a temporary wall of Technic-filled boxes, we spot what we\u2019ve come to see. Looking rather menacing in the shadows of one of the loading bays is a black Koenigsegg Sadair\u2019s Spear<\/a> with orange accents that perfectly complement my beautifully bright safety gear. Only, there\u2019s something different about this \u2019Segg.<\/p>\n


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You\u2019ll have guessed what that is by now. This particular Sadair\u2019s Spear is made almost entirely from Lego Technic elements. 327,906 of them to be precise. It\u2019s the model building team\u2019s latest in a growing garage of life-sized car builds, which kicked off with a drivable 1:1 scale Bugatti Chiron<\/a> build back in 2018. That car featured over a million tiny elements, zero glue and 2,304 Lego Power Functions motors for a mighty total of 5.2bhp. Bugatti\u2019s famously fast test driver Andy Wallace donned his fireproof pants and got behind the wheel, managing a massive top speed of 12mph at Ehra-Lessien.<\/p>\n

The brief for the Koenigsegg, which was unveiled alongside a smaller scale, 4,104-piece Sadair\u2019s Spear kit that you can actually buy for \u00a3399.99, was a little more ambitious. Not content with just being one of the pack, Christian von Koenigsegg wanted this to be the fastest full-size build yet. Of course he did. \u201cThis was the most complex build in the least amount of time of all the Lego Technic cars,\u201d Lego\u2019s design lead Lubor Zelinka tells TG. \u201cThe brief called for a Lego Technic vehicle that could go very fast, so we set a target of 100kph (62mph).\u00a0<\/p>\n

We started talking about it last summer, but we didn\u2019t really begin work until October. The whole project was seven and a half months. The other ask was to incorporate Koenigsegg\u2019s famous Ghost Mode, so this is the first time we have had so many opening body panels on a full-size build. It\u2019s not just a model anymore, it\u2019s a vehicle.\u201d<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s not just a model anymore, it\u2019s a vehicle<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He\u2019s not lying. Underneath is a bespoke metal chassis and an FIA-spec roll cage. There are proper Koenigsegg carbon wheels too, wrapped in Pirelli tyres, with actual suspension and motorsport grade disc brakes hiding behind the decorative Technic calipers. Sadly the Spear\u2019s 1,603bhp 5.0-litre twin turbo V8 was judged to be a little excessive. Shame. Instead, there\u2019s a small electric motor driving the rear wheels, so while it\u2019s aiming to go quicker than the McLaren P1 build from 2024 (which Lando Norris piloted to a heady 31mph at Silverstone), it\u2019s hardly an EV hypercar to rival the Rimac Nevera. Rather worryingly, it\u2019s not even a full car when we arrive at the factory the day before its scheduled top speed run.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A total of 18 model builders have worked on putting the car together so far in three separate shifts throughout day and night, but the mirrors are still on the work bench, the quick release version of the Sadair\u2019s Spear steering wheel is nowhere to be seen, and half of the car\u2019s \u2018skin\u2019 is still missing down one side. Things are a little frantic.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Of course, before those builders could take over the project, Zelinka and his team of designers had to work out how to transform a valuable engineering training tool (some might call it a kids\u2019 toy) into one of the world\u2019s most extreme hypercars. \u201cWe are model builders. We make things that are based in reality. So I look into what\u2019s significant for the brand that we are working with. In the case of Koenigsegg, what I really like is how they use the family crest with pride on their vehicles,\u201d explains Zelinka. \u201cI\u2019m looking for a way to break down the car body into smaller panels that can be built and repeated, because there\u2019s no way we could place all the 327,000 elements one by one onto the car. We started with sketching and took the checkered pattern from the crest. We managed to create a skin from those diamond-shaped panels that is very durable but lightweight at the same time. It\u2019s also interconnected so that we can make it into any sort of shape.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two of the model builders arrive with a pre-made panel and start slowly joining it to one of the dihedral synchro-helix doors. Apparently up to 50 per cent of the pieces in a standard Technic set are little connectors, and the choice of black bodywork with black connectors for the Koenigsegg made the job of the builders even trickier than usual.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Mansory\u2019s beloved chopped carbon fibre has nothing on this finish though. It\u2019s hard to get your head around in the flesh. And if you\u2019re thinking that Lubor has the greatest job ever, you might just be right. In over a decade with the company he has worked on all the full-size Technic cars and has built an encyclopaedic knowledge of Lego pieces in the process.<\/p>\n

\u201cI pretty much know the catalogue by heart at this point,\u201d he explains when we quiz him on some of the more niche shapes on the Spear. \u201cI\u2019m a big Lego fan myself, so I also build in my free time. Whenever I encounter a new piece, I store it in my memory and think \u2018this could be useful\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We\u2019ve used parts from all kinds of sets on the Koenigsegg. Parts of the front headlights are little canopies from Star Wars ships. The rear lights use house or train windows. The brake lights are emergency lights from police vehicles. We\u2019ve used part of a wheelarch for a curved section of exhaust, and there\u2019s another wheelarch from our C8 Corvette set on the brake calipers.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Parts of the front headlights are little canopies from Star Wars ships<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

With Ghost Mode activated, the doors, bonnet and engine cover glide open gracefully and Zelinka gets to show off his team\u2019s detailed replica of Koenigsegg\u2019s Triplex suspension system. Turns out the gold cylinders used to mimic the \u00d6hlins dampers are actually wheel rims from a Ninjago set, which is apt given his route into this role. \u201cI always loved working on computers, but there\u2019s also something artistic in me. So, I chose to go and study multimedia in college. I spent some time in the animation industry working on kids cartoons and commercials, and then I saw an ad for 3D modelling at Lego. I got hooked on the fact that it gets built physically. In movies you fake things and build for the camera, but here it has to work and from all angles. There\u2019s also this engineering challenge. I thought I would try it for a year or two, but I never looked back. Time flies here.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Lego<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It certainly is for the builders as they scramble to get the car ready, although this team once built a life-size Technic Peugeot 9X8 hypercar at Le Mans within the 24 hours of the famous endurance race, so it shouldn\u2019t come as a surprise to hear that they stick on the last element in the nick of time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m even given the honour of popping the real life Koenigsegg shield into its new Technic housing on the bonnet, and the next day this 1,800kg plastic hypercar sets a blistering top speed of 111kph (69mph). Good grief. Just imagine being overtaken by one of these on the M6…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Lego Group still has its blocky headquarters in Billund where Ole Kirk Christiansen founded the company way back in 1932. As of 1 January 2025, the small Danish town officially had a population of 7,484, and yet the sprawling, newly inaugurated Lego Campus and its surrounding facilities somehow employ a total of 5,900 people. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,237],"class_list":["post-2110090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-topgear-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2110090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2110090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2110090\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2110090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2110090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2110090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}