Smile if you wanna go faster

Sometimes a LEGO model shows up which just makes you smile. Tuts Panga‘s Classic Space speeder might not be the most complex creation we’ve ever seen, but if this doesn’t cheer your soul then there’s surely something wrong with you. The vehicle is delightfully chubby and the retro colour scheme is spot-on. I’m also a fan of the minimalist scenery, it provides a bit of context but doesn’t distract from the main focus — the grinning minifigure who’s clearly having a whale of a time in his new ride.

Blue Beetle - Classic Space Speeder

4 comments on “Smile if you wanna go faster

  1. Purple Dave

    You know, the first sets my brother and I got were Homemaker. The first minifig-style sets we got were the plank minifigs. The second pair of them had regular minifigs. I don’t know exactly when we got any of those, but clearly I have sets that predate Classic Space, and yet the earliest CS set I can say for sure that either of us got was from 1982 (we each got three sets from 1981, but they were identical value packs that weren’t released until 1983). So, somehow, it appears that we missed every last CS set that used this color scheme and CS in my mind is firmly cemented as either being light-grey or white/trans-blue. The premiere CS in my mind (before Benny’s Spaceship, Spaceship, SPACESHIP!, of course) is the Galaxy Commander. So, I get what this is about, and why it’s in that color scheme, but whenever I see something in “Classic Space” colors, something in the back of my mind keeps telling me, “wait…that’s not right.” And it doesn’t help that it’s a blue Spaceman, which didn’t come out until 1984 when that color scheme had been outnumbered by both of the ones I was more familiar with.

    And yet when I see this, I do have to imagine that it’s a young Benny, from before his helmet broke, and when his logo was a bit more intact (but still showing some wear).

  2. Håkan

    Classic Space basically had three color schemes, Light Gray with highlights of Trans Green, Blue with highlights of Trans Yellow, and White with highlights of Trans Blue, and the “Classic” color scheme basically survived up until 1986-1987 when Classic Space was being replaced by Futuron.

  3. Purple Dave

    @Håkan:

    Browsing the Classic Space set catalog on Bricklink, organized by year of release, showed me that the blue/trans-yellow color scheme lasted quite a bit longer than I original believed (and past when our earliest CS sets were released), but it’s still weird that the first set I ever got in that color scheme was from The LEGO Movie. And of course, my brother’s Galaxy Commander was the largest model either of us had as kids, the Space Supply Station was the largest Classic Space set I ever owned, plus that was the basic color scheme that was adapted for the Futuron theme, but some of the more eye-catching models in our collection were grey (6880 Surface Explorer, the saucer-ships from the 1977 Value Pack and 6930 Space Supply Station, 6824 Space Dart 1, and 6809 XT-5 & Droid).

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