Building the Lego Technic Ford GT – a Father’s Day review

Is there a better way to enjoy Father’s Day than a day spent with the family? The first Sunday in September can welcome glorious spring sunshine as often as it can bookend the rainy winter months, and while the former may encourage a day at the park or a trip to the country, the latter points to a day spent inside.

It’s not always a bad thing either. An indoor day can make hot coffee and Vegemite toast made by diligent kids feel like a world-class breakfast, or create a lasting memory when sharing a steak pie and some stories over lunch with the ‘old man’ as the rain patters against the windows.

As a dad, this is your day to enjoy activities with the family together. Yes, we can all watch a movie or sporting game with the crew all piled on the couch, but what about something more ‘technical’?

Growing up in the 1980s, I was part of a peak ‘Lego generation’. The Danish building blocks hit their mainstream stride with Space Lego, Castle Lego and of course, Technic Lego. Here, square blocks made way for hinges, axles and working mechanical parts.

I recall spending an entire Christmas Day, squirrelled away for hours, dedicated to completing the construction of a Technic helicopter. A time scale that ironically, felt largely indulgent even then.

Looking to today, Lego has become a juggernaut of successful licencing and has somehow managed to combine the intellectual property of multiple competing pop-culture streams through the familiar yellow figures. It’s the one place where Harry Potter can hang out with Luke Skywalker and not cause an international licensing incident.

But Lego is more than superheroes, they’ve also managed to engage with some of the largest car companies to create licenced models through the Creator, Icons, Speed Champions and Technic lines, to produce kits that appeal to fans of the brick, both young and old.

Which is why, this Father’s Day, I’m building a 1466-piece Lego Technic Ford GT.

Because, as far as inside-based activities go, there’s enough work and complexity to involve the whole family. In fact, if your Lego skills are anything like mine, you’ll welcome the help!

The kit is pretty impressive.

When complete, the model measures close to 40cm long and 18cm wide. It features working steering, suspension (front and rear), opening doors, boot and engine hatch, and has a really cool adjustable rear wing.

The car is featured in a dark blue shade, doing its Lego-best at mimicking the GT’s launch colourway of Liquid Blue with white GT stripes.

There are stickers to help with finer details, but elements like the dashboard, sports seats, working V6 engine, and even a vaned venturi diffuser are all constructed as part of the kit’s attention to detail.

I will be honest here, and say I had no idea how long the GT was going to take to build. I mentally set aside three hours, but as it turned out, that was very optimistic.

You start with a 274-page manual and a selection of numbered bags.

Gone are the days where everything just gets tipped up onto the table or floor. Today’s modern Lego builder has been traumatised by the ‘clink clink clink’ noises of rare and essential pieces finding their way into the vacuum cleaner too many times, so the manual guides you to a more ‘staged’ build approach.

The first item requiring assembly is the rear subframe which incorporates the differential and suspension, as well as the connection of the transparent V6. It’s about as complex as it sounds.

This was my first Technic set for quite a few years, so it took a bit of time to remember all the components and sizes used in the mechanical construction process. Younger and more dextrous fingers are better suited to some of the fiddly elements, so this is a great way to get the kids involved.

Miss 14 decided very early on that helping with the video and eating my snacks was her best-suited task, and it wasn’t long before I was left alone to build ‘until it starts looking like a car’.

Less than 70-pages in, over an hour spent, and bag one was done. At this point my back was sore from bending over, my foot had gone to sleep a few times and I was ready for a break. Just like all other skills, my Lego fitness had waned with age and lack of practice.

It helps to provide a tip though, which is to set up your build somewhere like the kitchen table, so ergonomics are good, but also so that you can take a break or sub in a spare child to take over for a while.

A fresh cup of coffee and some help from the dog, saw bag two dispatched in another hour, at which point the GT was looking like a properly well-engineered chassis. The dashboard, clever lower-frame of the windscreen, seats and spoiler actuation mechanism were all in place, but we were still short of blue body panels to make the big Ford step out from development and onto the road.

The technical approach to the GT’s complex bodywork was something I found particularly impressive. The use of relatively generic components to construct the very realistic brake ducts and rear haunches of the supercar is a real testament to the skills needed by the Lego designers.

My favourite component was the vaned diffuser under the rear bumper, something that didn’t need to be as complicated and realistic as it was, yet lifted the overall quality of the model just because it was so detailed.

By the end of bag three, the GT was looking quite car-like (from the rear at least) with tail lights and spoiler now in place.

Miss 14 was suitably teen-impressed but flagged that it was getting late and my favour with the rest of the family was now exhausted and I was required to help clean the kitchen. The GT would have to wait.

It’s worth noting too, that some of the more fiddly elements and even some of the diagrams in the manual aren’t as clear as they should be to older eyes, and that calling in some teenage help to ascertain if the small knuckle needed had a peg or groove at the far end, served as a reminder that I am getting old, and that Lego is still primarily for younger hands and eyes.

As the day wore on, I was banished from the front room lest the click-clacking of Lego pieces annoy anyone trying to sleep, but was determined to finish the car.

Less light made it hard to distinguish dark blue from black components, and in no position was my body comfortable in doing this any more. My fingers hurt. I think I missed a couple of small pieces, and it took me about 30-minutes to get the right hand-door to match the positioning of the left-hand one… but around five-past-midnight I was done.

What started as 1466 pieces and 274 pages was now a bonafide supercar, that looked every bit as cool as the box had promised.

The next morning, Miss 14 zoomed it around the kitchen bench, marvelled at the effort, then asked for a cheese toastie and went back to her room. The status quo had returned.

The Lego Technic Ford GT is a great kit that is both challenging and rewarding enough to remind a one-time Lego-er of how much the construction toy can eat up time, but also act as a fun collaboration point for the family.

For the record, I had 18 pieces left over (spares, I hope…) and it took a bit over five hours of building with plenty of breaks in between.

It’s a great gift and a fun way to enjoy a bit of weekend downtime, but now I’m torn whether to keep it on display, or pull it apart and start the whole process again!

Want to build one for yourself? Check it out on the Lego homepage here.