Icons

Shelby Cobra 427 S/C

The prettiest little roadster LEGO has made, blue paint and all.

Brick Rated Score

4.3/5

Set 10357 · 2025

Pieces1,248

Minifigsn/a

Year2025

Set number10357

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The verdict

This one got me the moment the dark blue bodywork started curving into shape, because you can tell someone fought hard to bend bricks into something this smooth.

It's the most technical of the Icons cars, packed with clever sub-assemblies and a working steering system, and it looks gorgeous on a shelf next to the Mustang. The blocky rear haunches keep it from being flawless, and at 1,248 pieces it feels a touch pricey for its size. But if you love classic muscle cars and enjoy a build that actually challenges you, you'll adore it.

Best for: Classic car fans who want a genuinely tricky, rewarding curved build

The full review

What it is

There's a moment early in this LEGO® set where the deep blue panels start curling around the front fenders, and that's when it clicks that you're not building a boxy car, you're sculpting one. The Shelby Cobra 427 S/C is the 2025 Icons roadster, a 1,248 piece tribute to one of the most feared muscle cars ever built, done in that unmistakable dark blue with twin white racing stripes down the middle. It sits about 30cm long, and every centimetre of it has been fussed over. The bonnet lifts to a detailed engine bay, the boot and doors swing open, the front wheels actually steer, and tucked in the back you get a tiny tool box with silver tools and a golden trophy. No minifigures here, which fits, this is a display car for grown-up hands.

The catch

I'll be straight with you about the caveats, because they're real. This is the priciest-feeling of the recent Icons cars for its size, 159.99 USD for a model that isn't huge, and if you're used to counting value in raw brick heft you might raise an eyebrow. The other honest note is the shaping. The designer worked miracles on the nose and the curves up front, but the side bodywork and the rear haunches still come out a little blocky, and side-on you can see LEGO wrestling with lines that a real Cobra just flows through effortlessly. And that golden trophy meant for the boot? Reviewers kept fumbling with where it's actually supposed to sit, because it doesn't tuck in cleanly. None of these are dealbreakers, but they're the difference between a very good car and a perfect one.

Who it's for

Here's where it lands for me. If you're a classic car person, someone who gets a little flutter over a 1960s roadster, this is an easy yes, and the deep blue livery is honestly one of the best-looking finishes LEGO has done in the line. It's also the pick if you want an Icons car that fights back a bit, because the engineering here is properly involved, full of angled tricks and neat little sub-builds rather than the straightforward slab-building you sometimes get. If you're hunting for the smoothest possible replica or the best price-per-piece on the shelf, you might weigh it more carefully, and folks who prefer a relaxed evening build should know this one asks for your attention. But for the right person this is a keeper, and it looks fantastic parked next to the 10265 Ford Mustang if you've already got that one.

The parts story

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

The build runs across eight numbered bags and it earns its 18+ badge, not because it's brutal, but because it keeps you thinking. You start with the chassis and the steering linkage, which threads a shaft cleverly just under the engine so the front wheels turn from a hidden mechanism without any ugly exposed rod. From there it's all about the body, and this is where it gets fun. There are inverted clips holding the engine cylinder banks, rotated handle pieces creating the fender tapers, and diagonal tile edges framing the cooling vents. The bonnet and boot use double-jointed hinges so they close up flush instead of gaping. It's a build full of little "oh, that's how they did it" moments, and it feels more like the recent Porsche and Ferrari sets than the simpler Icons cars.

For parts nerds this one's a genuine gift. It debuts three new molds: a pair of 1x4 curved wedge slopes (nicknamed "Shelby bows," roughly half-scale Porsche bows) that make the smooth body curves possible, a 4x8 curved wheel arch fender, and a new 6-spoke 30.4x20 wheel with 3-spoke center caps that'll be catnip for classic-car MOC builders. LEGO also quietly reformulated Earth Blue into a more consistent "V.3" for this set, so those 52-odd dark blue elements finally match across the whole shell. You get printed white slopes and tiles for the racing stripes and a printed cobra badge on the steering wheel hub, and mercifully only three stickers in the entire box. At 1,248 pieces the value math is fine rather than generous, but the density and those new molds do a lot to justify it.

Fun facts

01Carroll Shelby reportedly taped a 100 dollar bill to the dashboard and dared passengers to grab it during hard acceleration, the g-forces made it nearly impossible.
02The real 427 S/C started life as a race car so wild it never got homologated, so leftover competition chassis were fitted with mufflers and sold to the public as the "Semi-Competition" street model.
03Designer Leon Pijnenburg introduced three brand-new molds just for this set, including the curved slopes builders nicknamed "Shelby bows."
04LEGO reformulated its Earth Blue color into a new "V.3" recipe for this set so the whole dark blue body would finally match consistently.