Technic

App-Controlled Transformation Vehicle

The one that flips itself over and keeps on driving.

Brick Rated Score

3.5/5

Set 42140 · 2022

Pieces772

Minifigsn/a

Year2022

Set number42140

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The verdict

The flip is the whole reason this set exists, and honestly, the flip is glorious.

You drive it into a wall, it somersaults onto its other face, and the app switches screens to match whichever vehicle is now on top. It is genuinely clever engineering wrapped around a genuinely frustrating app, and I felt both things in the same afternoon. If you want a motorised Technic pack that does a party trick, this is a fun one, but go in knowing the app is the boss of everything here.

Best for: builders who want a Powered Up motor pack with a wow-factor party trick

The full review

What it is

This is a double-sided Technic vehicle that runs on tracks, and the trick is right there in the name. One face is an aerodynamic racer, the other is a rugged exploration truck with a little bed on the back, and when you drive it head-on into a wall the whole thing tips over and carries on driving upside down. The flip is what got me. I kept sending it at the skirting board just to watch it turn over, and every single time the app flipped its own screen to show whichever vehicle had landed on top. It is the kind of mechanical cleverness that makes people who do not care about LEGO stop and say wait, do that again.

The catch

I will be straight with you about the caveats, because there are a few and they matter. This thing does not move without the CONTROL+ app. Not slowly, not at all. If you do not have a compatible phone or tablet handy, you are holding a very handsome paperweight, and that dependence also means the set lives and dies by Lego keeping the app alive on future operating systems. The app itself is the weak link even today. It regularly misses touches, the steering can get twitchy, and more than one builder has watched their vehicle spin in helpless little circles instead of driving. The motors are also on the gentle side, so if you were picturing something that tears across the floor, temper that. At its original 140 to 150 dollar price it asks a lot for what is really a tech demo with a great gimmick.

Who it's for

So who actually clicks with this one. If you want a motorising starter kit, it is a strong buy, because that hub and those two encoder motors are the expensive heart of the Powered Up system and they carry straight into your own builds later. Families who want a shared afternoon of driving something silly into walls will get real joy out of it too. If you are a purist who loves precise mechanical Technic (gearboxes, steering racks, working pistons), this will feel thin and app-shackled, and you will be happier elsewhere. Buy it for the flip and the parts, not for a driving experience that competes with a proper RC car.

The parts story

What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.

The build runs around four to six hours and it is friendlier than its piece count suggests. The chassis is bulky and satisfying rather than fiddly, and Lego color-codes the instructions so you always know which sub-assembly you are feeding into the frame. The back end of the build is the interesting part, where you calibrate the two motors and test the flip, and there is a real little payoff moment when the whole mechanism clicks into working order for the first time.

For a parts hunter this box earns its keep. The headline is the Powered Up 4-port hub and two Large motors, and those motors have internal angle encoders with absolute positioning, so each one knows exactly where its output is pointing regardless of where it started. There are brand new azure 20-tooth and blue 12-tooth gears, plenty of exclusive neon yellow elements including 13L and 7L beams and tiny new 1x panels, plus newer pieces like the grey 11L perpendicular beam (previously stuck inside the UCS AT-AT) and the black 19x3 frame from the McLaren F1 car. As a motorising kit dressed up as a toy, the value is genuinely there.

Fun facts

01The vehicle physically flips over when it drives into a wall, and the CONTROL+ app automatically switches its own screen to match whichever of the two vehicles is now facing up.
02The two Large Powered Up motors have absolute-position encoders, meaning each motor knows the exact angle of its output shaft even at power-on, which is what makes the controlled flip possible.
03It cannot move at all without the app, an unusual choice that led several reviewers to warn buyers without a smartphone to pick a different set entirely.
04The hub runs on 6 AA batteries and drives the whole 360-degree double-sided body, which measures over 10 inches long and 7.5 inches wide.