The set was 853 Car Chassis — released in 1977, the very first year of what would become the LEGO® Technic series. My brother and I tore into those bags like only children on Christmas morning can. I remember the smell of the instruction booklet, the satisfying click of each piece, and the moment the engine turned for the first time. I also remember learning what a cardan joint was, because set 853 uses several of them.

It had no differential on the rear axle — the back wheels would slip on corners — and the engine only managed two gears on carpet. None of that mattered. I played with that set more than any other toy I owned.

What Made 1977 Revolutionary

Before LEGO® Technic bricks arrived, LEGO® was a system for building shapes. Technic changed the question entirely: instead of what does it look like, the series asked how does it work?

Set 853 introduced working mechanisms — gears, axles, a functioning engine with pistons — to a generation of children who had never seen anything like it. For an eight-year-old in 1977, completing that engine was genuinely difficult. It took ages. But the result was worth every frustrated moment.

The series launched alongside a handful of other sets, all sharing the same philosophy: models that move, turn, lift and function the way the real machines they represent actually do.

The 1980s and 1990s: When Technic Grew Up

Through the 1980s, the sets grew more ambitious. Pneumatics arrived. Remote controls appeared. Models became larger and mechanically more complex

But for me, no set from this era stands higher than the 8880 Super Car, released in 1994. I know its angular, open-frame bodywork puts some people off. I find it one of the most honest designs in the history of the series: you can see every gear, every shaft, every mechanism working. Nothing is hidden.

The 8880 has a fully functional four-speed gearbox, four-wheel steering and four-wheel drive. Every wheel both steers and is powered. For a long time — a very long time — nothing in the LEGO® Technic range surpassed it for mechanical ambition. If you want to understand what the series is really about, the 8880 Super Car will teach you more than any book.

The 2000s: The Flagships Arrive

The early 2000s brought the first truly large-scale sets — models that took days to build and weeks to fully appreciate. Cranes, excavators, trucks. The series found a dual audience: children who wanted to build, and adults who wanted to understand engineering through their hands.

This is also when I began collecting in earnest. What had started as childhood nostalgia became something more deliberate. I was looking not just for the sets I remembered, but for the entire story — every year, every innovation, every step in the evolution of the series.

The Modern Era: 42082 and the Art of Doing More With Less

Of all the sets produced since 2000, my personal favourite is the 42082 Rough Terrain Crane, released in 2018.

It is, in my view, a masterpiece of mechanical engineering within constraints. The entire model — and it is a very large model — is driven by a single motor. Every movement: the outriggers, the crane arm, the rotation, the hook — all of it comes from that one motor, distributed through the structure using nothing but LEGO® Technic bricks.

This is, to me, the essence of what the series has always been about. Not adding more motors. Not hiding complexity behind electronics. Using mechanical ingenuity to solve a problem beautifully.

I wish LEGO® would release a set like 42082 every year. They don’t. Which makes the ones that exist all the more worth preserving.

23 Years, 800+ Sets, Half a Million Bricks

My brother and I played with set 853 until we grew up, and then it disappeared into a storage cupboard the way childhood things do. About twenty years later, my mother brought it back — my daughter had just turned three, and the small parts were finally safe.

My adventure with LEGO® Technic bricks began again, dangerously.

Over the next 23 years I gathered what is now the world’s largest exhibition of LEGO® Technic bricks: more than 800 sets, covering every year from 1977 to today. More than half a million individual bricks.

What I was really collecting, I understand now, was the story of how an idea evolves. The story of how the question how does it work? gets asked and answered differently in each decade. The same spirit — mechanical curiosity, the satisfaction of making something move — expressed through increasingly sophisticated means.

Come and See It For Yourself

The exhibition is in Krakow, at ul. Kościuszki 47, steps from Wawel Castle. Every set is displayed. Many are in working condition — you can see the gears turning, the pistons moving, the mechanisms doing what they were designed to do.

We also run workshops for children and school groups, where the building continues in a hands-on way: mechanics, programming, engineering thinking — using LEGO® Education sets including Spike Prime and Mindstorms.

If you have a set in your attic that you haven’t looked at in years: take it out. Build it. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

And if you happen to be in Krakow — come and visit. I’ll be there, and I’m always happy to talk about the sets.

Świat Małych Techników — World’s Largest Exhibition of LEGO® Technic Bricks

Krakow, Poland | smt.edu.pl | Open daily 10:00–20:00

LEGO® and LEGO® Technic are registered trademarks of the LEGO Group. Świat Małych Techników is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the LEGO Group.