Friends

Friendship Road-Trip Travel Car

A tiny road trip that packs more charm than its piece count has any right to.

Brick Rated Score

3.8/5

Set 42659 · 2025

Pieces220

Minifigsn/a

Year2025

Set number42659

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The verdict

I built this one on a slow afternoon expecting a quick filler set, and it turned into one of those builds where I kept turning the car over just to look at it from another angle.

At 220 pieces it is small, but the shaping on the body panels and the way the roof rack and luggage tuck onto the back make it feel like a real little vehicle rather than a boxy toy car. It will not challenge anyone who has built the bigger Friends sets, and there is no dramatic reveal moment, but it is a genuinely satisfying half hour. This is the set you hand to a kid who wants to build something themselves start to finish in one sitting, or the one you buy as a stocking-stuffer companion to a bigger Friends set.

Best for: kids building solo for the first time, and Friends collectors filling out their vehicle lineup

The full review

What it is

This is a small road-trip vehicle set, and I mean small in a good way, the kind of build you can knock out in one sitting without ever consulting a coffee mug for backup. What surprised me was how much personality LEGO squeezed into the body shell. The panels curve where you would expect a real hatchback to curve, the windshield sits at a proper angle instead of a flat brick wall, and the little roof rack with luggage on top sells the whole road-trip idea instantly. It photographs better than a set this size has any right to.

The catch

I will be honest about where it falls short. The piece count is modest, and if you are shopping purely on pieces-per-dollar this is not the set that wins that argument. There is also no big surprise mechanism or hidden feature, what you see in the box is what you get, a car that looks good and rolls well. If you want an engineering puzzle to sink your teeth into, this will feel over in a blink.

Who it's for

Get this one for a kid who is ready to build something on their own without a parent hovering, or for a Friends collector who wants a cute little runabout to park next to the bigger sets in a Heartlake City shelf display. Skip it if you are chasing part count value or want a build with real complexity, there are bigger Friends sets that will scratch that itch better.

The parts story

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

The build itself moves fast, you are stacking the chassis, dropping in the seats, and closing up the body shell before you have really settled into a rhythm. It is not a set that asks much of you technically, but the sequence is satisfying because you can see the car take shape almost immediately, panel by panel, rather than staring at a flat plate for twenty minutes wondering when it will look like anything.

The standout here is simply how well the curved body panels read as an actual small car once assembled, LEGO Friends has gotten very good at using slopes and curved elements to fake automotive shaping out of a small parts budget, and this set is a good example of that trick working. The roof rack and stacked luggage pieces are the other nice touch, they are simple parts but they do a lot of storytelling work for very little piece cost, which is exactly what you want in a smaller set like this.

Fun facts

01The Friends theme has increasingly leaned on curved and sloped elements to give small vehicles a rounded, real-car silhouette rather than the boxy look older LEGO cars had.
02Road-trip and travel themed builds are a recurring idea in Friends sets, giving the Heartlake City cast a reason to have a vehicle even outside the larger cafe and house sets.
03Smaller Friends vehicle sets like this one are often designed with younger or first-time builders in mind, keeping the step count low enough to finish in a single sitting.