LEGO Ideas and CUUSOO

The Flintstones

Yabba dabba doo, but with one very obvious empty seat.

Brick Rated Score

3.8/5

Set 21316 · 2019

Pieces748

Minifigs4

Year2019

Set number21316

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The verdict

This one hits me right in the Saturday-morning nostalgia, and the foot-powered stone car is honestly the reason to buy it.

The house is charming and packed with little in-jokes, but leaving Dino out of a Flintstones set is a choice I still can't fully forgive. If you grew up with Bedrock and want Fred, Wilma, Barney and Betty on a shelf, you'll be delighted. If you were hoping for the whole gang plus the pet, temper that expectation now.

Best for: grown-up fans who loved the cartoon and want a cheerful character display

The full review

What it is

I have a real soft spot for The Flintstones, so seeing Bedrock rendered in LEGO bricks made me grin before I even opened a bag. This is a LEGO Ideas set built from Andrew Clark's fan submission (his second to reach shelves after Doctor Who), officially designed by Ricardo Silva, and it centres on Fred and Wilma's split-level stone house plus that unmistakable foot-powered car. Across six numbered bags you start with the vehicle, which is the standout of the whole box for me: chunky steamroller wheels, four seats, a soft cloth sunshade roof and a dinosaur rib you can clip on. It looks like it drove straight out of the opening credits.

The catch

Here is where I have to be honest with you. For sixty dollars at launch you are getting 748 pieces, and a decent chunk of that is a fairly quick, straightforward house build rather than anything that will challenge you. That is fine, it is meant to be a playful character set, but do not go in expecting an engineering workout. The bigger sting is the roster. LEGO gave us Fred, Wilma, Barney and Betty, and then simply stopped. Dino, the character arguably as iconic as Fred himself, is nowhere to be found, and neither are Pebbles or Bamm-Bamm. The designers even lampshade it with a printed TV tile showing a news reporter announcing Dino is missing, which is a cute wink but also a reminder of the gap in the box.

Who it's for

So who will love this? If you watched the cartoon as a kid and you want a bright, cheerful slice of Bedrock on your shelf with the four adults and that brilliant car, this delivers exactly that and you should grab it while secondhand prices stay reasonable. If you are a builder chasing clever techniques or complex parts usage, or you simply cannot stomach a Flintstones set without the family pet, this will frustrate more than it satisfies. I land somewhere in the middle: charmed by the theme and the car, quietly annoyed by what got left out.

The parts story

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

Building this is a relaxed, pleasant afternoon rather than a puzzle. The car comes first and it is the most rewarding part, with a satisfying shape that comes together fast. The house then builds up in cross-sections with a removable roof, an opening front door, curtains on rails, a fireplace and a little garden baseplate with a buildable palm tree. It is all approachable enough that a younger fan could tackle it alongside you, which suits a set this playful.

Because this is a LEGO Ideas set, there are no brand new injection-moulded parts, since Ideas sets generally do not get bespoke moulds. The clever exception is the white cloth roof on the car, a custom-tailored fabric piece that skirts the no-new-mould rule since fabric needs no mould. The real value here is in the prints and the character parts: the four minifigures with their cartoon-accurate torsos, the mammoth painting tile, the joke Dino news-report TV screen, and small touches like a croissant used as the horn phone and milk bottles in the garden. It is a set that trades rare elements for personality, and on that front it earns its keep.

Fun facts

01Fan designer Andrew Clark (AndrewClark2) originally submitted the project in February 2017, and it was his second design to reach store shelves after 21304 Doctor Who.
02In Clark's original design the car only seated two, but LEGO lengthened it so all four minifigures could ride together.
03A white croissant element stands in for the house's horn-style phone, one of the set's cheekiest part uses.
04The set launched in March 2019 at 59.99 USD and has climbed well above its retail price since retiring.