LEGO Technic 42232 Koenigsegg Sadair’s Spear Review: The Ferrari’s Successor
We set out to review the 1:8 Ferrari Daytona SP3. LEGO now lists it as retired, so this page covers the car that replaced it at the top of the Technic range. It has 4,104 pieces, a nine-speed gearbox and not a single sticker, and it costs £399.99 at LEGO. Specialist reviewers like it a lot, but they don’t think it’s perfect. One of them got the gearbox to jam.
Where the reviews line up
This summary draws on three sources. Brickset built the set over a week and wrote a long review. New Elementary, a specialist LEGO parts and building blog, did a build review and went looking for faults. The third is the small set of owner ratings at LEGO.com and John Lewis. All three are positive. Where they differ is on whether the set is worth £400.
Three points come up again and again. First, the decoration is all printed. There are no stickers, which is the biggest practical change from the Ferrari and the earlier 1:8 cars. Second, the mechanisms are the best yet in this series. The nine-speed gearbox now has a disc that shows which gear you are in, and the doors, bonnet and rear cover all open with one movement (LEGO calls this “ghost mode”). Third, the build is long. Brickset reported 12 to 15 hours spread over a week. It comes in 30 bags split across three inner boxes, with two instruction books and 1,171 steps.
There are honest caveats. Brickset calls it “the best Technic Ultimate Car yet” but admits to feeling slightly underwhelmed, because there are now so many large Technic cars and the all-black finish is a little dull. New Elementary found that the gearbox jammed in 3rd, 6th and 9th when a motor drove it through a wheel. Pushing the car along by hand did not cause the jam, and nobody else reports it. Owner ratings are perfect, but only a few dozen owners have rated it so far.
Our view: if you were waiting to buy the Ferrari, this is the set that replaced it, and it improves on it in every way the reviews mention. Don’t pay LEGO’s full £399.99 unless you need the Insiders points. Smyths was asking £354.99 on the day we checked.
The three reviews this summary is built from
- BricksetFull build review, 25 July 2026. Took 12–15 hours over a week. The most detailed hands-on account.
- New ElementarySpecialist blog with a parts review and a build review. The only source that found a fault in the gearbox.
- LEGO.com & John Lewis owners5.0/5 from 24 LEGO.com reviews (as reported by BrickPicker) and 5/5 from 7 at John Lewis. Both samples are small.
Before the review: the Ferrari has retired
LEGO’s own product page for 42143 Ferrari Daytona SP3 now says “Retired Product”. Brickfact, a set-tracking site, dates its retirement to July 2026, after a run that began in June 2022. Its UK RRP was £389.99. It had 3,778 pieces and measured about 59 × 25 × 14 cm. Any Ferrari you can still buy is old stock or second-hand, and Brickfact was putting its market value at around £227–£295 when we checked. The 42232 Koenigsegg Sadair’s Spear went on general sale on 4 July 2026. LEGO calls it the sixth model in its Technic Ultimate Car Concept series, so it is the current 1:8 flagship car.
Specification at a glance
| Spec | Figure | Confidence |
|---|---|---|
| Set number | 42232 Koenigsegg Sadair’s Spear Megacar | LEGO.com UK. Sold as “Hypercar” in some countries |
| Pieces | 4,104 | LEGO, all retailers and reviewers agree |
| Age rating | 18+ | LEGO.com UK and John Lewis |
| Scale | 1:8 | LEGO press release |
| Finished size | 15 × 59 × 28 cm (H × L × W) | LEGO. Brickset measured 59 × 24 cm without the mirrors; Merlin’s Bricks measured 57 × 24.5 × 15 cm |
| Box contents | 30 numbered paper bags in three inner boxes, plus three loose plastic bags for bulky parts and shock absorbers; two instruction books | Brickset and Merlin’s Bricks |
| Instructions | Two books, 1,171 steps (about 500 pages each per Brickset; 972 pages in total per Merlin’s Bricks) | The page counts are close but not identical |
| Stickers | None. All decoration is printed | Brickset, New Elementary, Merlin’s Bricks. The count of printed parts varies, see below |
| Build time | 12–15 hours (Brickset). Other critics quoted by BrickPicker say twenty hours or more | These are reviewers’ own times, not LEGO figures |
| Functions | V8 piston engine, 9-speed gearbox with a gear-indicator disc, triplex suspension front and rear, steering, removable roof, one-movement “ghost mode” | LEGO press release |
| Boxed weight | About 7.3 kg | Brickfact (7.340 kg) and Merlin’s Bricks. This is the box, not the finished model |
| Box size | 52 × 38 × 23 cm | Merlin’s Bricks. John Lewis lists 52.2 × 37.8 cm (its height figure is plainly a typo) |
| LEGO RRP | £399.99, with 3,200 Insiders points | LEGO.com UK, “Available now”, 8 Oct 2026 |
| Retailer prices | Smyths £354.99 · John Lewis £399.99 | Retailer pages, 8 Oct 2026. Argos lists it, but its price would not load |
Brickset
Who they are: Huw Millington is the founder and owner of Brickset, the LEGO set database launched in 1997, and maintains its site and data, so his review comes from someone who has catalogued LEGO sets for many years.
Brickset is the biggest LEGO set database in English, and its reviews are long, careful builds rather than first impressions. Huw spent 12 to 15 hours on the set over the course of a week. He confirms the box layout: 30 parts bags split across three shallow inner boxes, and two instruction books of about 500 pages each, with 1,171 steps in all. Every decorated part is printed. He calls the ghost mode clever, praises the realistic mechanisms, and calls the long build rewarding. His overall verdict is “the best Technic Ultimate Car yet”.
His reservations are worth having. He says the black livery is a bit dull, and that the car is one more in a long line of very similar large Technic cars, which left him slightly underwhelmed. The mechanical notes are more specific. The gearbox has no stop at 1st or 9th, so you can shift straight from one to the other. When you roll the model along, the gear changes are barely noticeable. The ghost-mode doors and bonnet open with one movement, but you have to close them by hand. Two other specialist reviews broadly agree. Brick Fanatics gave it 9/10 and called it “expensive, intense and absolutely not casual”. Merlin’s Bricks praised the crisp printing and the rigid build, but found the instructions overly fine-grained at three or four parts per step. It thought the price would only feel fair below about €300.
Watch: LEGO Technic 42232 Koenigsegg Sadair's Spear Review - Functions, Looks & Verdict (Pt. 2)
This video demonstrates the finished functions and gives a verdict. It is the part that matches Brickset’s review most closely.
Watch on YouTube ↗ Independent YouTube video — not made by or for Shopbam.New Elementary
Who they are: TobyMac is an author at New Elementary, a Recognised LEGO Fan Media site devoted to LEGO parts; a Space and Technic fan as a child, he later became an admin on Rebrickable, so he knows Technic pieces closely.
New Elementary is a specialist blog run by and for experienced LEGO builders, and it pays close attention to parts and to how mechanisms are put together. The parts review confirms there are no stickers. Instead, it counts 21 newly decorated (printed) elements, 14 new moulds and 20 existing parts in new colours. This is where the printed-part count gets confusing. Merlin’s Bricks counted 34 printed parts plus a printed code tile, probably because some designs appear more than once. Either way, you won’t be applying any stickers.
The build review is fond of the set but more critical than most. It finds the gearbox smooth, likes the new gear-indicator disc, and thinks the mirror-folding doors are a step up from earlier sets. It also points out that the price has stayed the same as the 2024 McLaren P1, which had about 200 fewer parts. The complaints are specific. When the reviewer drove the car with a motor through a wheel, the gearbox jammed every time it shifted into 3rd, 6th or 9th. Rolling the car along the floor didn’t cause it, and the reviewer suspects either a build error or the strain of full motor speed. The reviewer also reports that the ghost-mode doors sometimes stick at an angle, that the steering wheel doesn’t line up with the front wheels, that some wishbone bushes work loose under pressure, and that the dark tan accents distract from the car’s shape. Brickset’s commenters also complained about bright blue pins showing on a black car.
Watch: LEGO Technic 42232 Koenigsegg Sadair's Spear - Gearbox & Build Review (Pt. 1)
This video covers the gearbox build. If the jamming report worries you, it shows how many layers have to line up for the nine speeds to work.
Watch on YouTube ↗ Independent YouTube video — not made by or for Shopbam.LEGO.com and John Lewis owners
Who they are: LEGO.com is the manufacturer’s own shop, so its ratings sit on the maker’s page rather than an independent one; John Lewis ratings come from its customers, moderated by PowerReviews, with free-product reviews labelled and a £100 prize draw — both are buyer satisfaction, not tests.
These ratings are hosted by shops that sell the set, and the samples are small. Thirty-one ratings across two shops doesn’t prove much. The UK LEGO.com page had no reviews showing when we checked, so the figure of 24 most likely comes from another region’s LEGO store. We report it as BrickPicker’s figure, not LEGO UK’s. The ratings are worth including mainly to show that owners have not reported anything that the specialist reviews missed.
BrickPicker also collects critics’ scores, and those are less unanimous than the owners: an average of 68.2/100 across five critics, with a headline “BrickScore” of 72. Its summary shows the same split as the specialist reviews. Critics praise the gearbox as a real step forward and say the shape is instantly recognisable as a Koenigsegg. The complaints are the time it takes to build, a black colour scheme that every large Technic car now seems to use, and some gaps and mismatched pieces. At least one critic said “wait for sale”, which fits with Smyths already charging £45 less than LEGO.
Watch: BEST LEGO Car!? LEGO Technic Koenigsegg Sadair's Spear 42232 Build & Review
This is an enthusiast build-and-review video, closer to an owner’s point of view than a specialist teardown.
Watch on YouTube ↗ Independent YouTube video — not made by or for Shopbam.Strengths and weak points
What holds up
- No stickers at all. Every decorated part is printed, and Merlin’s Bricks says the printing is crisp.
- The nine-speed gearbox now has a visible gear-indicator disc.
- Ghost mode: one movement raises the rear cover, swings the doors and bonnet and folds the mirrors.
- Solid and rigid once built, according to two reviewers.
- Over 300 more pieces than the Ferrari (4,104 against 3,778) for £10 more at full price.
- The build comes in 30 stages with two books, and has helpful aids such as length markings and arrows.
What people complain about
- £399.99 at LEGO is a lot. Even the positive reviews call it a major investment.
- One reviewer’s gearbox jammed in 3rd, 6th and 9th when driven by a motor.
- The gearbox has no end stops, and gear changes are hard to notice when you roll the car.
- Black livery with blue pins and dark tan accents. Several reviewers find it dull or distracting.
- The doors can stick, steering lock is limited, and the steering wheel is offset from the front wheels.
- Three or four parts per step makes for a slow build, and the doors have to be closed by hand.
Who it actually suits
Buy it if you were saving for the Ferrari and want the current flagship instead. It’s also a good fit if you enjoy long, methodical builds and want the gearbox mechanics as much as the finished car, or if you’re looking for a big gift for an adult LEGO fan. It is rated 18+. Shop around before you pay full price.
Look elsewhere if you want a car to play with rather than display. New Elementary’s reviewer said they would rather save for a more playable Technic model. Also skip it if you already own two or three of the large Technic supercars and the black finish leaves you cold, or if you don’t have shelf space for a model about 59 cm long. A second-hand or old-stock Ferrari is a cheaper route if the car itself matters more to you than having the newest mechanisms.
What we could not check
- The videos. We confirmed all three YouTube videos by finding each one in several differently worded search listings. We did not open them, and the listings did not name the channels.
- Argos price and rating. Argos lists the set as product 9608977, but its page is built by scripts that our tools could not load, so we have no Argos price or rating.
- LEGO UK owner reviews. The UK LEGO.com page showed no reviews when we checked. The 24-review figure is BrickPicker’s and may come from a different LEGO region.
- The exact printed-part count. New Elementary counts 21 newly decorated element designs and Merlin’s Bricks counts 34 printed parts plus a code tile. They are probably counting different things, so we have printed both.
- Finished size. LEGO says 59 cm long and 28 cm wide, Brickset measured 24 cm wide without the mirrors, and Merlin’s Bricks measured 57 × 24.5 cm. Measure your shelf against the larger figure.
- Whether the gearbox jam is common. Only one reviewer reports it, and only under motor drive. No owner reports have confirmed it either way.
- Retirement date. LEGO never publishes retirement dates. Brickfact’s status note for this set is not a clear end date. The best guide we have is the Ferrari, which was on sale for about four years.
- Independent consumer testing. No Which? or national consumer magazine test exists for this set. The reviews here come from specialist LEGO sites.
Sources and prices last checked 8 October 2026. LEGO prices change around Black Friday and Christmas, so check the listing in front of you before ordering.