Ninjago

Ninja Tuner Car

A street racer with a strange color story that never quite decides what it wants to be.

Brick Rated Score

3.4/5

Set 71710 · 2020

Pieces428

Minifigs4

Year2020

Set number71710

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The verdict

I wanted to love this one before it even left the box, because a tuner car built from Ninjago parts sounded like exactly my kind of fun.

Once I had it together, though, I kept staring at that aqua and reddish violet combo wondering if it belonged in a cyberpunk city set instead of a ninja show tie-in. The build itself is solid and the minifigs are genuinely great, Digi Kai alone is worth having. But the car reads more like a mash-up than a statement, and that holds it back from being a set I'd tell everyone to grab.

Best for: Ninjago completists chasing the Digi Kai minifig and Prime Empire storyline, not casual vehicle builders

The full review

What it is

This is a small tuner car built for the Prime Empire arc of Ninjago, tied to Season 12, and it comes packed with four minifigures rather than the usual two or three. I went in expecting a fast, punchy little street racer in classic ninja colors. What I got instead was this odd retro palette, aqua panels next to a violet-tinted transparent brick, that honestly looks like it wandered in from a different LEGO line entirely. Once I saw it finished, I understood what other builders meant when they said it feels like it's missing something. The shape is fine. The proportions work. It just doesn't have that moment where a set clicks into place and feels like itself.

The catch

The price is reasonable for the piece count, and I don't think anyone gets fleeced buying this one. My real hesitation is about design intent rather than value. If this same car had shown up in a cyberpunk or racing theme with no ninja branding attached, I think I'd have liked it more on its own terms. As a Ninjago set specifically, the color story fights against everything else on my shelf from this theme, and the stickers lean so hard into a futuristic street racer look that it stops feeling like a ninja vehicle at all.

Who it's for

Get this one if you're chasing Digi Kai for your minifig collection or you're following the Prime Empire storyline set by set, both are real reasons to buy it. If you just want a good-looking Ninjago vehicle to display, I'd point you toward one of the theme's more classic dragon or mech builds instead. This is a set for collectors and completists first, casual builders second.

What works

Digi Kai is a completely new Kai variant with new face, torso, and leg printing plus a medium azure wrapped head, genuinely one of the more distinctive figures from Prime Empire
New printed Player Status element (in transparent fluorescent green and fluorescent reddish orange) is a fun little accessory piece unique to this wave
A returning black rounded shield piece, last seen in 2015, is a nice bonus for anyone who tracks rare recolors

Worth knowing

The transparent medium reddish violet and aqua color scheme feels borrowed from a different theme entirely and clashes with the Ninjago identity
Reviewers on Brickset and elsewhere describe the finished car as something that 'doesn't click', competent but oddly flat once assembled
At $39.99 for 419 pieces it's not a bad value on paper, but the design payoff doesn't match the price the way other Ninjago vehicles have

Sold? Grab it.

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The parts story

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

The build itself moves quickly since it's a compact vehicle, and there's nothing technically demanding here, it's more about snapping together panels and getting the color placement right than solving any clever engineering puzzle. Where it gets interesting is in the small details, the sticker sheet does a lot of the visual heavy lifting on the body panels, which is part of why the finished look feels more decal-driven than brick-built to some reviewers.

The standout pieces are on the minifig side more than the vehicle itself. Digi Kai brings entirely new face, torso, and leg printing along with a new head wrap piece printed with a Medium Azure K symbol, making him one of the more collectible figures in the whole Prime Empire wave. The new Player Status element, a small printed tile in transparent fluorescent green and fluorescent reddish orange, is a neat little addition that also shows up across a couple of the other Prime Empire sets. And the black rounded shield piece returning here hadn't been seen since 2015, a nice surprise for anyone who pays attention to recolors and reruns.

Fun facts

01The set was released in January 2020 as part of the Prime Empire wave tied to Ninjago Season 12, and retired in December 2021.
02Digi Kai is a full new variant of Kai built specifically for this digital game storyline, with unique printing not reused from other Kai figures.
03The transparent medium reddish violet 2x2 round brick included here also appears in two other Prime Empire sets from the same wave.
04On Brickset the set holds a modest 3.4 out of 5 star rating from user reviews, reflecting the mixed reception to its color scheme.