LEGO Technic 42171 Mercedes-AMG F1 W14 vs 42141 McLaren F1 vs CaDA Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN C42 

Check out the local prices and availability in the LEGO Online Shop - racingbrick.com/product/42171-2/

Not gonna lie the caDa is the best one in detail and accuracy.

I really appreciate you handled the possibility of controversy in the comments section. This is what leading rather than controlling looks like. Well done. You have my respect

Lego really needs to up their game. The Cada looks great. Both models are likely display at home only but they both collapse to the ground due to the low chassis.

It is challenging to observe the rear tyres ... Aaaah... And good to know that CaDA knows how to do it right. I think it is the new era of Technic bricks... And that is good for us, consumers, because healthy competition always implicates better products after all. And I ❤ Technic, so lucky me :)

Since these cars are mostly for display purposes, the CaDA one wins with considerable margin. Although from my experience with a previous big CaDA set, the build process is interesting, but challenging and frustrating at times.

Cada actually made a banger bro the slicks and the smooth curves make it look so real

The suspension killed me - lowriding the F1 :D

It still blows my mind that the engine and gearbox section is still pretty much identical to those you'd see in those old 20 year old Ferrari sets.

I feel like if one of the world's biggest toy brands is going to make a collector's item, they should go all out to make everything look as accurate as they can. It's not like they can't afford to print the sidewalls or make a new mould for wider tyres, since even a knockoff Chinese company is capable of that. I get that the structural stability and the ease of building are the number one priority but authenticity shouldn't be just an afterthought.

Cada takes the W

I love that you also bring other brandos to compare similar sets! personally I bought only one CaDa set (C61006W): it is an unofficial "jeep" wrangler; 1941 pieces, a set of headlights, rechargeable battery box with cable, remotely controlled, and 3 motors. bought for €129 on Amazon. the problems are similar to yours and concern the not very specific instructions, plus I made a mistake putting a 12L axle on and I had to use metal pliers to remove it. but all things considered, it's spectacular, radio-controlled that goes anywhere and you can even put 4-wheel drive on it. and for €129 it's a great deal! obviously I continue to buy Lego but if I see certain well-made sets I will certainly consider purchasing them. (besides CaDA there is also Bluebrixx as an interesting company).

The Alfa was such a fun build too. I was extremely impressed by the quality of the pieces and stickers. Well worth the price compared to the other two.

Was completely wrong about the scaling. The Technic pullback in much larger than the Speed Champions model. As a Lego enthusiast I think it's fine to explore 3rd party building options as long as they're not Direct KOs of existing Lego sets. Having built a couple 3rd party Technic set in the last year with similar Lego quality for a fraction of the price it really puts into perspective how overprice some of these sets are given a large part of the piece count is just pins and axles. Still this was a great comparison video and really shows how much better the Technic design for F1 cars has gotten in the past few years.

the cada is by far the best one and is 70€ cheaper than the new lego merc ... lego really needs to step up

Great video! Thanks for the comparisons to other builds available. Keep the videos coming

FANTASTIC REVIEW!!! You came at it with so many different perspectives and laid out all of the facts for us to understand. Its very interesting the different approaches CADA and LEGO have. I find that CADA works in partnership with a lot of MOC creators so that may also explain the complexity/design choices.

The way you compare all these sets is just the best way! You don’t directly give your opinion and are careful to mention that these are your tasted and people can have different opinions! That’s how a good reviewer should be!

I recently got the McLaren set from someone who no longer had room for it. After rebuilding it myself, I noticed it's not actually the shocks that wear out over time but the parts that make up the suspension. All the pieces on the right are slightly bent in one direction and the left are bent in the opposite direction. Switching them actually makes the car sit at a higher level again.

Great set of videos! I really appreciate your perspective on the builds and I agree with all your logical points. That still leaves room for others to have different opinions but in the end, each of us has to decide if a lego set is worth the cost. Thanks for the overview and the discussion about value, accuracy, ease of build, design quality and flaws, etc. You cover everything really well!!

I am currently in the process of building the CaDA F1 car, and I'm really enjoying it so far. The finished product seems like it will look really good. With the transparent stickers, you can sometimes leave visible fingerprints, and the stuff that is supposed to be white on the stickers aren't opaque enough though. I got my McLaren pretty much when it came out, and it doesn't seem to have the suspension sagging issue. And I agree with you about the steering being impossible to center. That kind of irritates me, as it probably could have been rectified with some additional thought. CaDA was able to design it so that it centers.

Seeing that Coda with proper sized wheels, printed wheels and a much more realistic overall look, does make me frown to say the least. Looks like Lego is becoming complacent.

i agree, the peugeout was very fun to build, albeit frustrating at times, and my fingers were in shreds when I was done, but otherwise a very good set

I used to completely dismiss the "fake" Lego makers but the CaDA sets do seem really interesting, especially when Lego keeps just hiking the prices.

Excellent and fair comparison and analysis between Lego and CaDa. I hope to see more like this in the future!

Was all set to pick up the Mercedes tomorrow but those rear tyres totally kills it,looking at the cada now

Still waiting on my CaDA Alfa Romeo. I really like that Lego is focusing more on F1, was glad to see all the new models. But the CaDa seems more realistic, crucially it has the right tyres, and I'm an Alfa fan. Let's see how it goes.

9:46 the other looks like an actual real F1 car and the other looks like something made, designed by someone who doesn't follow F1 Cada wins this round.

i had the 2005 lego ferrari f1 i just got the merc and its really cool how similar they are build wise and its cool how the merc lets you see more of the functionality brought back memories it was awesome build

HI Balazs, it seems that great minds think alike! I was pleased to see and hear (in the final minute) your agreement with my remark on the preference for the teal-coloured flex tube over stickers as decoration. Your detailed review (great and informative as always) of these big €150 and €220 sets has made me more and more convinced that the one for me will be the €27 pullback set. I've seen enough fake V6 and V8 engines (most of them hidden under panel fairings) not to need another one to satisfy my building enjoyment. And I definitely don't need a million difficult to align stickers. That €27 version will satisfy perfectly my thirst for a quick and fun build that I can share with less experienced builders...

I know the Mercedes didn’t do very well but a red bull car would need even more stickers or a very complicated design and the cada Alfa Romeo looks really good for a non Lego set (except the fact that it almost pulls it self apart) and it has printed tyres in stead of lego

That's a very objective and nicely done review. Keep up the good work!

Was REALLY hoping Cada featured in this. Their design is insane!!

Great overview of the 3! I came here because I'm new to technic builds and wanted to start a new hobby. I ultimately decided to get all 3 of these and they should be here in a couple days. Im debating if i want to stick with the formula 1 cars or add some others in later. They will all be wall mounted on frames from Mark's Magic. I plan to motorize them later on but i just want to start small first by building them. Its also so dang expensive!!!

Hi any suggestion on how to support the weight of the car so that the suspension won't let go in the future?

The Cada set looks great, of course. I'd be curious to see what the Mercedes looks like with the Alfa C42 wheels though. That's what we all want:)

Are the 42171 and 42141 the same scale? A little hard to tell. I'm curious if the slick tires from the 42171 are direct bolt-ons for the 42141 or if they're a different scale.

I think this is a very informative video. This is helped by (as other comments have said) the fact that the Cada version is not a direct copy of either the Lego McLaren or the Lego Mercedes. The biggest difference is obviously between the McLaren and the other two as there is such a design difference. A set of different sizes of front/rear tyres on the Merc F1 would be nice but I suppose you have to look at production costs and usage in other sets, although how much the cost would be to make a wider tyre to possibly fit on the same rim is unknown. I think from a display look the Cada Alfa wins with the Lego Merc 2nd and the Lego McLaren trailing in 3rd but some of this due to F1 car design changes rather than "poor" Lego design. Many thanks for the video.

None of these sets are for me... I own the 8674 Ferrari F1 from way back when and the combination of detail and functionality still cannot be beaten in my opinion! That said, kudos for a balanced, detailed, objective and informative review. I love the comparisons and the many different angles you look at these sets. One of the many reasons I love watching your channel! Keep up the great work mate :)

8:50 THIS!!! They could've made a working DRS at least...

Thanks for a great very balanced review!!

Just got my CaDa La Ferrari set. Love it

Thank you for another in a long list of outstanding reviews! I'm a BIG fan! While I am a Lego builder, I am not JUST a Lego builder. I have been very please with the building experiences I have had with non-lego offerings! CaDa and others provide very good kits at very competitive prices! Plus, in most cases, once they're build it's very difficult if at all to tell them apart! Thanks Again

very good review. I think you compared the models fairly. I also ordered all 3 and am looking forward to it ❤

How does Cada have differently sized rear tires but both the McLaren and Mercedes Benz’s don’t?!

Good comparisons, it was very informative and useful. I do like the stuff that CaDA puts out as while I haven't got any of their sets before, I appreciate that the sets they put out are their own designs. The only problem with CaDA sets for me is that while they are less at costly than the equivelent Lego set by retail, they're not that widely available in the UK, so there is no discounts on those CaDA sets, while almost all Lego sets always have discounts. For example, the CaDA Mercedes AMG Project 1 set you showed briefly is £250 in the UK, which is certainly a lot less than the Lego Technic Ferrari Daytona SP3 set which costs £390. But, that Lego set has been discounted to the same amount as the CaDA set numerous times, sometimes even more so; the lowest I've seen the Ferrari Daytona set is £200, which is a substantial discount. It's instances like that, which are very very frequent, are really the main reason I haven't gone for any of the CaDA sets, it's hard to ignore the discount.

Man these slick tires look so good!

Cool that 3rd party producers are mentioned, as some have really cool ideas, even if the instructions and building techniques are...less developed. Tried out a fair few massive builds, where one was impossible to finish, but four was impressive in comparison to the OG versions. And a handful of new concepts that should've been OG. Healthy competition for now.

Honestly I would love to see some reviews of caDa Master sets, quite a few of them seem very interesting and id like to see what their build quality is like!

I wonder if I can change the tyre from cada to the lego mercedes one

Great that you compare them! ❤

I think my least favorite thing about the Cada are the stickers across multiple elements. They just don't look great (especially with the transparent backing making every bubble and imperfection very obvious, just look at that rear wing at 6:45), they're even more painful to apply properly than a regular sticker, and they're pretty much a non-starter if you ever plan to take apart the set. There's a reason LEGO stopped allowing designers to do that years ago. Also not a fan of how dull the print is on those stickers, but at least they figured out the tires.

Thank you for showing that speed champion for scale.

The red part on the top of the Mercedes seems to stick out awkwardly

Would be interesting to see a comparison between these and earlier Lego Technic Formula 1 cars

Very good review and comparison, thank you. I have the McLaren and the Alfa (which I bought in a pop-up store for €100) and the Mercedes is on the way. The CaDa build experience was pretty good but had some odd solutions for the suspension, and it is very difficult to pick up, especially the floor and sidepods feel very flimsy. The McLaren was better and mine is not suffering from suspension droop. I’m looking forward to the Mercedes, but when will I build it? There are a lot of new very desirable sets coming on March the first!

I have got a Lego Technic McLaren one months ago and just purchased also the CaDa one. This CaDa set looks way better on YT comparisons than Lego ones so I wanna compare them myself 😊

Mi spiace dirlo visto che costruisco LEGO dal 1978 ma CADA sta veramente facendo dei splendidi modelli io ho già preso la MERCEDES AMG ONE, L'ALFA ROMEO F1 e anche il modello del HAMMER e atri e mi sono divertito veramente.

I'm glad to have a nice balanced look at CaDA like this. Leave it to the internet, but I feel like most people I see talk about CaDA either call them a cheap Lego bootleg or a complete replacement for Lego. I don't own the Alfa Romeo, but your analysis here lines up with the other CaDA sets I have; Less polish, more illegal building techniques, but also more likely to take risks. I think I am slightly more likely to buy new Lego sets compared to CaDA, but I still quite enjoy their products.

Very nice comparative review. I just wonder if the Cada tires, especially the rear ones, don’t look too “plasticky”, or is it just the lighting? Also, the unstable build of the rear suspension is a hard pass for me. I must admit that recent Cada models look better than the past, and in some models (including this one) the use of all-black pins seems favorable compared to lego

Glad you bring other brand in the equation. I feel like Cada might look good from a certain distance but for a Lego colector eye it won't be good enough. But it's nice to see alternatives showing up that are rising quality and making their own path, not just cloning Lego sets. If the price wore lower I could consider buy Cada. But at that price I rather take Lego on a Black friday deal 😅.

That curve on the nose of the W14 still gets me to this day. Not even an amateur designer should have come up with this.

I have the 2013 formula technic white car and it has a motorised engine cover and actual functional DRS

I enjoy seeing other brands being compared to lego, particularly of the chinese market. There's a lot of hesitation to buy into those sets out of fear of getting something low quality that doesn't assemble well or worse has missing parts. So I'd enjoy seeing more reviews of other brands and direct comparisons to a known standard like Lego.

There is a Technic Zonda-R floating around, would love to see you review it.

Great review!!! You get what you pay for… buy cheap… you get cheap… keep up the good work.

What do you make of the 1/24 scale Alfa f1 model

Are there any other team f1 cars you can get in a similar size that are non Lego?

Great video! More Cada content please!

As soon as I have some time to build it I'll try to make a video!

Look at those wheel on the CaDAs!

I quite like the mould king models just like caDA it is a 3rd party brand and are personally I think the connectivity is less sloppy

The seat is so high in the Mercedes, that really bothers me, I know they had to fit the HoG axle underneath but it could have been done in a much better way

SICK *intro* dammn. I thought that F1 Car on the ‘left’ was a Large Electric RC Car 😮

Alfa looks great!!!

Instead of making new shock absorber pieces, perhaps LEGO should introduce an easier way to swap them out or remove them after the set is built.

Great video! I hate that the 2022 mclaren car has a 2021 livery, however I think the reason for it is the following and it makes sense: The new aero regulations, changed the looks of the car drastically. As you mention in the video, LEGO had to base their design on the show car instead of the actual car because the actual car didn't exist yet when LEGO started development. However, why does the livery not match the actual car? I think the reason behind it is that the new aero regulations were originally scheduled for 2021. Which means the commercial agreements and sponsorships for this season were prepared and signed in 2020, probarbly early in the year. It seems likely McLaren included the distribution of a LEGO set in it's commercial agreements. That means McLaren agreed to their 2021 sponsors that they were included in a LEGO set well in advance of the start of the season. When Formula 1 got hit by Covid restrictions and their financial impact, the 2021 regulations were pushed back to reduce costs. It's very likely that by then the commercial agreements with Mclaren, Lego and their sponsors were already in place. Instead of a new car in 2021, all formula 1 teams drove with an upgraded 2020 spec car for the season. However this meant that the lego model which was likely already designed did not match. Because of that Lego had to push back the introduction to 2022. From a lego point of view it would make sense to revise the livery to make it as realistic as possible. However this never happened. Reasons for this could be any of the following: Lego did not want to invest in changes late in the process The commercial agreements did not allow them to The stickers were already produced and in stock A small disclaimer, this is all based on my own observations and makes a lot of sense in my opinion. I havn't read or heard any reliable sources which confirm or deny all of the above.

Very good review :)

I had my McLaren Steering wheel not aligned as well, but if you reassemble the steering mechanism and rotate the wheel by one tooth during assembly, the wheel can be centered perfectly, so this is definitely possible and has nothing to do with play within the gears. As the steering mechanism looks similar on the Mercedes, I guess it should there be possible as well...

How much do you estimate your entire technic collection costed. I would like to know so I can save when I start mine.

Good review. When you mentioned about medium Mercedes F1 you could show coda alfa F1 champion size model and also old Mercedes champion ship fom 2pack (F1and AMG)

In my opinion Cada one looks best, but I don't have enough room for it, so I prefer speed champions McLaren :)

Really apreciate your honest respectful opinion on both sets, i do agree with the tires. Wonder if its possible to 3D print a new compatible rim/part to make the Cada tire fit on the mercedes? just a curious tought. Love your reviews.

I hope that lego lerns from cada snd cada becomes even better

Great comparison as usual! How do the big cars roll, especially the Mercedes? I ask because my 42126 Ford Raptor hardly rolls more than one car length when pushed. At the time I tried to reduce friction wherever possibly without luck.

Can you update us if the Mercedes suspension becomes like the McLarens

I am a LEGO person but I do like the CaDA sets. They clearly try to improve their sets what is a big pro for them, I do also like that they (finally) go the legale way and get Licenses instead of copying a car almost 1:1 and just call it "red super car". Lego definitely needs to step up their game, the only thing that worked out great in the last few years have been the raising prices... I also miss a clear line, some cars are in micro scale, lego scale, small technic, big technic models (McLaren) other don't. it makes it much harder to decide what line you want to collect because you never know what they're producing and if it fits (scale wise) to the other sets.

Very impressive is this version of CaDa, one of the best 😱

Really interesting! Thanks for bringing this to us. I hope comments are respectful: Well done for setting out your expectations on this.

So, in essence it seems fair to say that the big technic Formula 1 cars really haven’t changed/improved much since the 2000 Silver Champion. Which has a badass alternative model to boot!

Glad to see you're peeking over the LEGO horizon and looking at other manufacturers. CaDa seems to be one of the best. I find it interesting that you say you're challenged by building with all-black pins and axles. LEGO models are criticized by some for having too many colorful parts and blue pins everywhere, and it could be argued that an "18+" set should be buildable by the target audience without colorful pieces everywhere. Or, to put like a granddad: "In my time, we built LEGO models with all-black parts for breakfast!" (I'm a 90s kid who grew up with the old Technic and never had trouble with black pins and axles)

The weak shocks surprise me. None of my 1/10, 1/8, or the McLaren have collapsed at all , nor has my cada “Italian super car”. Still working on the AMG ONE.

I would love to see the Mercedes with the cara tyres if possible

I would love that Alfa Romeo to be a thing I just loved their livery so much

Hello racing brick i am really a big fan and i just want to let you know i love your videos, keep it up!

In my core I'm a true Lego fan that could not combine Lego with other bricks for example. However, Cada is one of the few "Lego copy" brands that I can respect mainly because they make their own designs and not copy the intellectual property of Lego and their designers. It is obvious they still copy the designs of most of the individual pieces but that's fine I guess.

so for around 200$ I get 4 front tires in the Lego Set? they dont even bother to give you bigger back tires even if the way cheaper model has the right tires, so its impossible for Lego to make bigger back tires in this expensive set?

I was wondering if you also had any experience with technic set from the blockzone?

Thank you for the unbiased comparison! I have to disagree only with the R&D prices. Lego had the patent for years to refinance the costs, that's what a patent is for. Since then, other brands developed new moulds themselfes which Lego now copies (1x5 plate, 1x2 "not-cheese" slope,...). Some new Lego parts are protected, but some of them I feel arguable. I see no invention in making a plate or Technic beam one stud longer/wider/higher. But that's up to all the well paid legal consultants

Cada manage the details well. But I hate the small engine.