Monkie Kid

Red Son's Inferno Truck

A beast of a truck, three great builds, and seven figures you'll want.

Brick Rated Score

4.0/5

Set 80011 · 2020

Pieces1,111

Minifigs7

Year2020

Set number80011

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The verdict

What got me here wasn't actually the truck, it was the little Speedy Panda shop and Pigsy's tuk-tuk hiding in the box, because both are good enough to sit on a shelf on their own.

The Inferno Truck is a proper armored monster with a race car that fires out of the back, and Red Son is one of the best villain figures LEGO made that year. It runs a bit pricey for the piece count, mostly because those huge tires cost you, and locking the trike back onto the truck is fiddlier than it should be. If you love the theme or you build City scenes, this one's an easy yes.

Best for: Monkie Kid fans and City builders who want three good models in one box

The full review

Red Son's Inferno Truck is one of those LEGO® sets that sneaks up on you. You open the box expecting one big vehicle and instead you get three separate builds worth caring about, plus seven minifigures, which is a genuinely generous line-up for a set this size. The star on the label is the Inferno Truck, an armored, dark-red war rig built for Red Son and his three flunkies, and it comes with a small race car (really a trike) that tucks into the back and launches out with a button press. That gimmick actually works, which is more than you can say for a lot of spring-loaded LEGO nonsense.

But here's the thing that won me over. The two side builds aren't afterthoughts. The Speedy Panda convenience store is a cute, playable little shop with an ATM the truck can rip out using a winch, and Pigsy's tuk-tuk is a fresh, characterful three-wheeler that any City fan would happily park on a street layout. When the throwaway builds in a set are this good, you know a real designer cared about the whole box, not just the thing on the front.

Now the money. At around 120 dollars for 1,111 pieces, this set asks a bit more than the count alone justifies, and the reason is those chunky tire and wheel molds, which are expensive and quietly drag down your price-per-piece. It's not a rip-off, but it's not a bargain either, so if raw value is your yardstick you'll feel it. The other honest gripe builders keep raising is the trike, because getting it to lock back onto the truck means fishing for pins you can barely reach, and after the tenth time it stops being charming. The truck itself also leans heavily on dark red and grey, so next to the colorful shop and tuk-tuk it can look a touch flat.

So who's this really for. If you're into the Monkie Kid theme, this is one of the best sets of that first wave and an easy pick up, especially now that it's retired and the good figures are harder to find loose. If you build City scenes, buy it for the shop and the tuk-tuk alone and treat the truck as a bonus. If you only care about squeezing maximum bricks per dollar, you'll do better elsewhere, and that's a fair call. For everyone else, this is a warm, fun, surprisingly complete box that gives you a lot of different play in one sitting.

The parts story

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

The build breaks into three clean chunks, which makes it a lovely one to do across an evening. You start with the smaller stuff, Pigsy's tuk-tuk and the Speedy Panda store, and both go together quickly with satisfying little details like the shop's opening front and the tuk-tuk's rounded shell. Then you get to the main event. The Inferno Truck is a proper beast, with a sturdy chassis, an armored cab, the launching mechanism for the trike in the rear, and the winch and cannons bolted on. The truck and the detachable trike each feel like their own model, so there's real variety in the techniques rather than the same panel work over and over.

On parts, the minifigures carry the value here. Red Son is the prize, with a double-sided head (smug in glasses on one face, a nasty grin on the other), a red fabric-look skirt piece, and that raised red ponytail hair, and he's joined by Monkie Kid, Mei, Lee, and the three bull henchmen Snort, Grunt, and Roar. That's a lot of distinct printing for one box. The physical bricks lean practical rather than collectible, plenty of dark red slopes and useful Technic bits, but the big-ticket items are those large wheel molds, which are the reason the set costs what it does and also the reason MOC builders like grabbing it for parts.

Fun facts

01Monkie Kid launched on 16 May 2020 as the LEGO Group's first full product line built around Chinese culture, inspired by the classic tale Journey to the West and its Monkey King.
02Red Son is written as the short-tempered inventor son of the Demon Bull King and Princess Iron Fan, which is why nearly all his sets, including this one, are packed with weapons and vehicles he built to impress his dad.
03The set retired around May 2022 and now tends to sell above its original 119.99 dollar price on the secondary market, with BrickEconomy tracking it near 175 dollars.
04The seven-minifigure count is unusually high for a set this size, and reviewers singled out the Speedy Panda shop and tuk-tuk as good enough to have been sold as standalone City-friendly releases.