It took Mark Richardson a week of working hours a day to get all the 1,920 pieces of the BMW M1000 RR in order.Mark Richardson/The Globe and Mail
It took me a week to build Lego’s new motorcycle model. That’s a couple of hours a day of following the 700 separate instructions in the assembly manual, and clicking the 1,920 pieces into place in exactly the right way to create the largest motorcycle Lego’s ever sold. It’s a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle of a BMW M 1000 RR.
Lego hopes that those who complete the one-fifth scale model will display it on a shelf, where it will look good and maybe persuade fans to buy another kit. But for BMW, the goal is to make the model builder want to own a real motorcycle one day.
“We really have to think about long-term. Whether it’s for an adult or a younger kid, the plan is that we get into people’s minds, and not only that, but into people’s living rooms,” says Johann von Balluseck, director of BMW Canada’s motorcycle division. “This is one of the first seeds that we can plant. It gets their attention and builds an affinity with the BMW motorcycle brand.”
The new $300 model gets attention, all right. It’s 45 centimetres long and requires unique suspension pieces to support its weight.
It’s unusual for Lego to produce custom components. Designers have the choice of about 3,500 different plastic bricks and “elements” to assemble models, and when they’re given the assignment to create something new, they usually just dig into the tubs of pieces and start clicking away until the model takes shape.
This BMW motorcycle was a bit different. Its head designer was Samuel Tacchi, who used to design real motorcycles for Honda and Triumph, and who helped design Lego’s 600-piece model of a BMW GS motorcycle six years ago.
“I wanted to recreate the kind of feeling you have of building the bike in the factory,” says Tacchi, who consulted at every stage with BMW’s designers. “The guy responsible for building the bike in the factory was guiding me through the process, of how they’re making these motorcycles come to life, and I was following their steps.”
The Lego model begins with the assembly of the gearbox and moves out from there. It’s a complicated and precise process that eventually produces an engine with pistons that turn in the proper sequence, through a transmission with three working gears and neutral.
The model was designed by Samuel Tacchi, who used to design real motorcycles for Honda and Triumph, and who helped design Lego’s 600-piece model of a BMW GS motorcycle six years ago.Mark Richardson/The Globe and Mail
“It’s one of the most complex gearboxes we’ve [Lego has] ever made,” Tacchi says. “There are so few free spaces – it’s very dense. At first we thought, it’s fine, it’s a big motorcycle, but when you start clicking things together, you start getting worried that it’s going to be too small.
“I had to make everything fit to the proper proportions, so there was a lot of back and forth – rebuilding, finding new solutions, rebuilding again, showing BMW the results – but it was a very nice flow to develop this project.”
Commenters on Lego’s website agree that the model is a satisfying build. “It brought me to some kind of meditative mood [finessing] all these smaller pieces together,” says one. “As a true motorbike enthusiast, it’s hard to imagine that there is any two-wheel-addicted guy out there who is not fascinated by this building set.”
The commenter is right. When I built the kit, following the instructions carefully to not have to think for myself, there were any number of light bulb moments when I realized how the little pieces interacted to create a workable mechanism. When I first flicked the gear shift to see the pistons move at a different speed in their clear cylinder head, all the assembly of the last hour finally made sense. I’ve built a dozen Lego models in the past two years and this was the most complex. It’s age-rated for 18-plus.
The real M 1000 RR is BMW’s first “M” performance motorcycle, capable of producing 212 horsepower and a top speed of more than 300 kilometres an hour. When Lego and BMW first toyed with the idea, it was kept to a very small circle within the companies. Tacchi did most of the work at his home in Denmark, in a private room that his wife and infant daughter did not enter. He had access to a private room at Lego’s nearby headquarters, to ensure the model and photos of the bike remained hidden.
It took about six months to create the final model, which was completed last summer. In the process, Tacchi built about 20 different versions until it was finally approved. Since then, he’s created two more Technic models, but won’t say what they are because they’ve not yet been released. (The Technic division creates more complex vehicles for Lego and has partnered with many automakers, including Lamborghini, Bugatti, Ford, Ducati, Harley-Davidson and Jeep.)
The COVID-19 pandemic has created a huge demand for Lego models. Lego’s worldwide revenue increased 21 per cent in 2020 over 2019, for a total of more than $7.5-billion, with an operating profit of more than $2-billion. Revenue grew even more rapidly in the first half of 2021, up 46 per cent from the first half of 2020, while consumer sales grew 36 per cent.
While the company continues to see strong demand for its products, Lego Group chief executive officer Niels Christiansen said last September that he’s expecting top-line growth to stabilize as people return to prepandemic spending patterns. “This trend, combined with our plans to accelerate reinvestments into the future of the business, is expected to result in more normalized profit levels.”
Those reinvestments include more than $500-million to research and develop more sustainable materials, reduce waste to zero by 2025, and make manufacturing operations carbon neutral by the end of this year.
Lego currently produces about 100,000 tonnes of plastic each year, and an estimated 80 per cent of that is nonrecyclable ABS plastic.
Lego bricks are made from ABS plastic because it is fast to form and can be engineered to dimensions measured within microns; most important, it doesn’t degrade over time, so it can be as strong and clickable after decades of use as it was at conception. The compatibility of Lego bricks hasn’t changed since 1958.
Lego announced a new brick two years ago that’s made from polyethylene derived from sugar cane, but it’s too soft for most applications. The key is for a brick to have “clutch power,” which means it will click together. The company says it’s now developed a new material from recycled plastic bottles, but it still has to perfect its clutch power, as well as figure out how to inject it with colour.
The company is also replacing the plastic bag packaging it uses within its boxes to contain the bricks and elements needed for the model. Complex kits use multiple bags for each stage of the assembly; the BMW motorcycle, for instance, included more than 20 bags of different sizes.
In the end, with some patience and diligence, all those bricks become a finished model. Just don’t think of it as only a toy.
“I see Lego Technic as a learning tool for a future engineer, or a designer,” Tacchi says. “I always wish my models will open the eyes of a kid, who’ll say one day that he or she would like to go to a design school and create vehicles, maybe follow the same process I did.”
Not that Tacchi himself owns a real BMW M 1000 RR. In fact, he says, he’s never even seen the $32,000 bike in real life, and worked entirely from photos and sketches. His motorcycle at home is a Honda 650.
BMW Canada has a solution for this, though.
“As long as he has his [motorcycle] licence, I’ll be happy to help him,” von Balluseck says. “If he would like to come to Canada, I’ll show him the M RR and he can go for a spin.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has created a huge demand for Lego models.Lego/Supplied
Shopping for a new car? Check out the Globe Drive Build and Price Tool to see the latest discounts, rebates and rates on new cars, trucks and SUVs. Click here to get your price.
Mark Richardson