Review : LEGO Creator Expert 10268 Vestas Wind Turbine

Today we are quickly interested in the LEGO Creator Expert set 10268 Vestas Wind Turbine (826 pieces) which for the modest sum of 179.99 € allows you to join from 23 November 2018 the 17000 employees of the Vestas brand who were offered in 2008 this imposing advertising object bearing the reference 4999.

In fact, apart from a few details, these two sets are identical and that of 2008 was free except for those who agreed to buy it back for around € 400 from employees who are not very sensitive to the joys of construction based on plastic bricks.

One can also wonder if this box really deserves its place in the LEGO Creator Expert range, with its 826 pieces, its construction techniques from another age and its somewhat sloppy finish. LEGO could have launched a range called "Legacy"for these re-editions of sets, as is the case in the LEGO Ninjago 2019 range, to classify these boxes in a tribute series without any other pretensions.

You might as well tell you right away, this one meter high wind turbine does not produce electricity. On the contrary, it consumes it. It is paradoxical but it is like that. To stir up some air, LEGO provides a set of elements Power Functions which will obviously have to be supplied with half a dozen batteries. The cables are rather well hidden in the base and in the pillar of the wind turbine. The whole is an illusion.

The bad idea: to use the LEDs supplied to illuminate the entrance to the cabin rather than to reproduce the light markings placed at the top of the real wind turbines ... The effect would have been much more interesting, especially for lovers of dioramas. The LEGO designer preferred to propose a solution that very simply highlights the production of electricity by the wind turbine. It's logical and understandable, the whole set is an ecological pamphlet to which the few trees made from bio-polyethylene come to contribute.

These three trees have also created confusion with some media who have wrongly claimed that LEGO produces a set here, all of the parts of which are in bio-polyethylene made from the distillation of sugar cane. It is not so.

The detail that shocks me here is the presence of a house right at the foot of the wind turbine. This is obviously totally inconsistent but we will do with it because we had to show us what we do with the electricity produced by this type of installation. Reissue requires, here we are entitled to this cabin worthy of a set from the 70s which is not really the level of what we can expect at LEGO in 2018.

We can see it as a tribute to the first LEGO constructions but I still consider that the manufacturer could have made the effort to update the previous version to make it aesthetically compatible with other LEGO Creator sets of the moment.

This set is, like the reference 4999, an advertising object, for the Vestas brand whose logo appears on the box, on the wind turbine, on the maintenance van and even very large on the torso of the two employees. And that's without counting all the promo for the brand distilled over the pages of the instruction booklet.

I said it before, but I would have preferred a product in the colors of the (fictitious) Octan brand. In this case, LEGO could have boasted of bringing its own brands into an era where respect for the environment matters a little more than before.

The minifigs of the two employees of the Vestas company are also simple promotional items. No effort has been made on the torso and legs, LEGO is limited to pad printing a huge blue V on each of the characters, probably to pay tribute to the stickers in set 4999.

Another point of detail that annoys me, the extreme flexibility of the green base plate provided. It is time for LEGO to market slightly more rigid plates, even if it means that they are a little thicker, to allow the movement of the content they support more easily. By the way, if you did not know, the base plates are not manufactured directly by LEGO but by an Austrian subcontractor, the Greiner company which has factories pretty much everywhere LEGO has a presence.

In short, the only real good news here is that LEGO shows once again that no set is really safe from a reissue and that with a little patience it is possible to offer some past references at a more reasonable price than on the secondary market. Unfortunately, I remain convinced that many fans would have preferred to get a revisited version of this box rather than a simple reissue.

In short, if you like sets with a little vintage look, you will find what you are looking for here and for half the price of the aftermarket. Otherwise, you can go your way, this set is in my opinion a bulky (and noisy) paid advertising product which is far from highlighting all the know-how of the brand.

Note: The set shown here is put into play as usual. To participate in the raffle, simply post a comment on this article before December 2 at 23:59 p.m.. You have every right to disagree with me, this is not eliminatory.

Update : The winner was drawn and was notified by email, his nickname is indicated below. Without a response from him to my request for contact details within 5 days, a new winner will be drawn.