How LEGO brought 10 life-size, fully-drivable F1 cars to life

LEGO introduce 10 fully-driving, life-size F1 cars for the Miami Grand Prix

Jonatan Jurion, senior designer of brick-based marketing at LEGO, waved his hand down at his knee.

“I’ve been a huge Formula 1 fan since I was a small kid,” he said, illustrating that with his hand wave.

“Naturally, being the only designer really connecting with F1, [this project] landed on my desk.”

Jurion oversaw the design of all 10 life-size F1 LEGO machines, marrying his passion to his career in a whole new way. This project, then, starts with him and his team — and there, the first goal was being able to fit two people inside the cockpit of an upscaled LEGO Speed Champions F1 model.

“That was a challenge, because normally we have one minifigure in [the cockpit],” Jurion explained, “and the proportions of a minifigure are not really what a human looks like.

“So we had to mock up the cockpit first, and then we built the car around the cockpit. So the scale was dependent on if we had enough room for two [people].”

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The base of all 10 cars is the same, but the side pods, wings, and engine covers are all specially designed to resemble the real-life cars they’re modelled after.

Jurion explained that while the teams weren’t exactly sending over any ultra-detailed sketches of the cars, they were “extremely helpful” in guaranteeing that the finished products were as accurate as possible, and that the LEGO team had the clearance to use sponsor logos.

“For us, it’s a huge leap,” Jurion said of LEGO.

“It’s great being able to collaborate so closely with Formula 1, but also with the teams and everybody involved.”

For an even greater sense of the partnership’s impact, PlanetF1.com spoke with Julia Goldin, chief product and marketing officer and executive vice president at the LEGO Group.

“It’s been an amazing journey for us,” she said.

“We have an incredible team in Kladno in the Czech Republic that built epic LEGO builds that we know always excite fans. We’ve done big, life-size cars before — we even did a life-size McLaren.

“So we asked ourselves a question: How could we take it to another level? How could we go beyond?

“It was a very synergistic process between the team in Kladno that always push the boundaries of what is possible and the creative team coming back with this idea of, OK, let’s make cars that are drivable.

“Then it’s a testament to the partnership that we have with F1 because they’re very receptive; they share the same values of pushing the boundaries of innovation. They supported this idea of, oh wow, they’re drivable — let’s use them in the parade.”

For Goldin, LEGO and F1 are the ideal partnership. Not only do they “make the impossible possible,” but they both provide “enormous fun” and immersion at multiple levels.”

“That’s what the LEGO brand is all about — we engage different audiences. We engage kids of different ages, but also families; we’re such a right-of-passage brand, and [F1] is very much a right of passage.

“But we have this tremendous growth of adults, and our fastest growing segment is women — and it’s the same for F1.”

And as far as Miami goes, well — Goldin had an easy answer as to why it was the perfect event at which to debut these fully-functional LEGO F1 cars.

“Miami is an epic race,” she explained. “It’s a race where unexpected things happen.

“It made sense that it would be here where we would bring this to life because it’s such an iconic event on the F1 calendar.”

And you can see the results for yourself; even though the cars are limited to just 20 kph (~12.5 mph), these LEGO cars provided an unforgettable parade lap for fans both at the track and around the world.