Creator

Ford Mustang

The dark blue 1967 fastback that a whole lot of people call LEGO's best car.

Brick Rated Score

4.6/5

Set 10265 · 2019

Pieces1,471

Minifigsn/a

Year2019

Set number10265

Check price on Amazon

Affiliate link. We may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

The verdict

This one earns its reputation.

It's a 1967 Mustang GT Fastback in that deep dark blue with the twin racing stripes, and the proportions are so right it almost hurts. The steering actually works, the doors open, the roof lifts off, and there's a whole box of hot-rod extras you can bolt on if stock isn't your style. If you have any love for classic American muscle, you'll be grinning by the time you fit the last stripe tile.

Best for: Classic car lovers who want a display piece they can also fiddle with

The full review

What it is

There's a reason people keep calling this the best car LEGO has made. The 10265 Ford Mustang is a 1967 GT Fastback done in that gorgeous dark blue with the white racing stripes down the middle, and the moment you set it on a shelf the proportions just land. Long hood, short deck, that aggressive low nose. This is a LEGO® set that captures a specific real car so well that non-LEGO people stop and ask about it. And it isn't just a pretty shell. The steering works when you turn the little wheel, the doors swing open, the roof panel lifts right off so you can see the interior, and both the engine bay and the trunk are detailed enough to reward a closer look.

The catch

Now for the honest wrinkles, because there are a couple. The most common complaint, by a mile, is those printed racing stripe tiles. There are a lot of them, they run the length of the car, and getting every single one to line up cleanly takes patience. Plenty of owners mention stripes that sit a hair off, and once you notice it you can't unnotice it. The other quiet frustration is the color palette. Dark blue against black is lovely on the finished car but genuinely tricky to follow in the instructions unless you've got good light, so set yourself up near a bright lamp before you start. And while the build never drags for long, a few sections repeat. On price, it launched around 150 dollars, later crept up, and now that it retired at the end of 2023 the aftermarket asks more than that, so it's not the bargain it once was.

Who it's for

If you love classic muscle cars, or you just want one seriously handsome model on the shelf, this is an easy yes. The extra box of hot-rod parts means you're not locked into one look either. You can run it factory stock, or bolt on the supercharger, side pipes, ducktail spoiler and chin spoiler and give it real attitude. Who should think twice? If you want a set packed with clever engineering surprises the whole way through, the Mustang is more about faithful shape than trick techniques, so it may feel calmer than you expect. And if you're chasing best value per piece, retirement pricing works against you now. But for the car itself? It's one of the most satisfying vehicles LEGO has ever put its name on, and it looks the part every single day it sits out.

What works

The stance and proportions nail the 1967 Fastback, one of the best-looking cars LEGO has ever done
Working steering, opening doors, a liftoff roof, and a detailed engine bay give you real things to play with
A generous bag of customization parts (supercharger, ducktail spoiler, side pipes, chin spoiler, nitrous tank) lets you build stock or hot rod

Worth knowing

Those printed racing stripe tiles are fiddly to line up, and misalignment is the single most common gripe owners raise
The very dark blue and black parts can be hard to tell apart when you're following instructions in dim light
At 1,471 pieces it's on the pricier side per part, and the secondary market only asks more now that it's retired

Sold? Grab it.

Check price on Amazon

Affiliate link. We may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

The parts story

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

The build starts under the skin with the chassis, and this is the clever bit, because you're threading in the working steering and the adjustable rear suspension at the same time as you lay the frame. That keeps the early going from feeling like plain groundwork. From there you're onto the engine bay and interior, then the long sweeping bodywork that gives the Mustang its shape, and finally the fiddly stripe-and-detail stage. Pacing is mostly smooth, with a couple of repeated stretches on the panels and, of course, that patience-testing run of printed stripe tiles near the end. It's a build about coaxing curves out of bricks rather than hitting you with surprise mechanisms.

For parts people, the good news is this set leans on printing over stickers. There are 28 unique printed elements, most of them for that blue-and-white stripe work, which beats the 18 stickers and means your detailing won't peel or fade. Fresh molds arrived here too: new 5-spoke rims, a 2x8 brick with a curved bow, a 1x3 Mustang logo tile, and a 2x4 bow with the 'GT' emblem. With 1,471 pieces at its original price the per-part value was fair rather than generous, and retirement has nudged that the wrong way. But you're paying for shape and printed detail, not raw brick count, and on that front the Mustang delivers.

Fun facts

01Designer Mike Psiaki slipped a Pythagorean joke into the model, using 3-4-5 triangle beams under the hood so the math literally holds the bonnet up.
02The German license plates aren't random. They once belonged to fellow LEGO designer Adam Grabowski, who helped prototype the car.
03Development started back in spring 2015, right after Psiaki and Jamie Berard finished the 10252 Volkswagen Beetle, so this Mustang was years in the making.
04The set ships with a box of optional hot-rod parts including a supercharger, nitrous tank, side pipes and a ducktail spoiler, so you can build it stock or turn it into a street monster.