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Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 1969

Glossy black muscle you get to customise three different ways.

Brick Rated Score

4.2/5

Set 10304 · 2022

Pieces1,456

Minifigsn/a

Year2022

Set number10304

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The verdict

This is the car set that keeps handing you decisions, and I love that about it.

Hardtop or convertible, hidden headlights or classic round ones, red or white or grey stripes, so you're not just following steps, you're building the exact Camaro you want on the shelf. It goes a little blocky from certain angles and it isn't cheap, but the personality and the play features win you back fast.

Best for: Muscle-car fans who want a display piece they can build their own way

The full review

There's something about a glossy black muscle car that just looks right on a shelf, and the Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 1969 nails that first impression. This is a 1:12-ish LEGO® set in the Icons line, roughly 1,456 pieces of low, wide, aggressive 1969 Camaro, and the thing that sets it apart from a lot of the display cars is how much it lets you decide. You pick hardtop or convertible. You pick the classic round headlights or the hideaway ones that recreate the real RS option. You pick red, white or grey for the racing stripes. By the time you're done you feel like you designed your own Camaro rather than just assembling someone else's, and honestly that's a rare feeling with a licensed car set.

The interior is where it quietly got me. The seats use textured bricks to fake a fabric look in contrasting red, there's a big working steering wheel, a stickered speedo cluster, an adjustable gear shifter, and a little stickered radio. Open the hood and you get a brick-built V8 with a sticker for the 302, and underneath, two extended Technic connectors do double duty as exhaust pipes. There are furry dice on the mirror and a tiny magazine tucked on the back seat, the kind of details that make you grin when you spot them.

Now the honest bit on the money and the shape. At roughly 150 to 170 dollars this isn't a bargain-bin buy, and for 1,456 pieces you're paying a bit of a premium for the license and the play features rather than sheer part count. The bigger caveat is the silhouette. LEGO can only do so much curve with bricks, and from certain angles this Camaro reads a little boxy and rectangular, especially around the rear. It's most obvious head-on and from the back three-quarter view. And if you crank the front wheels to full lock, you'll catch a peek of some off-colour parts inside the wheel wells, a small thing but the kind of small thing that bugs perfectionists.

So who should grab it. If you love American muscle, or you just want a substantial car on the shelf that you got to personalise, this is an easy yes, and now that it's retired the value has been climbing on the secondary market. If you're chasing the smoothest, most photo-realistic LEGO car out there, you might find the shaping a touch too blocky for the price. For me the customisation and the sheer number of thoughtful details tip it firmly into the win column.

The parts story

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

The build flows in a really satisfying order. You start with the chassis and the working steering linkage, then drop in the brick-built 302 V8, and from there it's all about layering the long black bodywork panel by panel. The SNOT (studs-not-on-top) work around the flanks is clever without being fiddly, and because you're choosing your configuration as you go (roof or no roof, which headlights, which stripes), the assembly never feels like autopilot. It's a steady, grown-up build with a few genuinely smart techniques rather than a marathon, and the customisation choices keep your brain engaged right to the end.

On pieces, the headline is the wheels. This set debuted metallic silver rims, closer to real chrome than the old flat silver or dark grey, and they pair with a new mudguard and wheel arch element made to hug those flared Camaro fenders. Those two new molds working together are the standout for parts nerds. Elsewhere you get a big haul of glossy black panels and slopes, textured red bricks for the seat fabric effect, and two extended Technic connectors (65443) repurposed as exhaust tips. At 1,456 pieces for around 150 to 170 dollars the raw per-part value is only okay, but the new molds, the recolours and the play features are where your money actually goes.

Fun facts

01The real 1969 Z/28's 302 cubic inch V8 existed for one reason: Chevy needed to squeak under the SCCA Trans-Am racing limit of 5.0 litres, so the engine was purpose-built to homologate the car for the track.
02The hideaway headlight option in the set recreates the actual 1969 RS package, where the headlights hid behind body-colour panels when switched off.
03There's a printed magazine tile tucked on the back seat as a nod to LEGO's old Model Team line, a sweet little Easter egg for longtime fans.
04It comes with furry dice for the mirror and a choice of two license plates, so you can lean fully into the era.