Lego Carbon Racers: Purple Prizewinner

The Lego Carbon Racers series wouldn't be complete without a Formula 1 car, and that's what we've got here with the Purple Prizewinner! It's a bit "fancier" than the Tiny Turbos edition, but I'm OK with that, and you should be too.

This is one of the few designs where I had to look up the original Tiny Turbo's building directions. I just didn't want to guess them based on sight.

Here's one immediate advantage the Purple Prizewinner has over the original models: the taillight! If you can't tell, it's that round piece between the fins; the BrickLink Studio rendering program didn't do me a lot of favors there.

Here's where the Studio program did do me some favors, though. The rotation GIFs always look great.

Here's the Purple Prizewinner's inspiration: Lego set 8123, Ferrari F1 Racers. Thanks to the Ferrari branding, I had to do a little extra searching around the BrickLink site to find the set link and picture. Never had this set myself, but I do miss the fold-out racetrack sets in general. Wouldn't it be great if Lego brought back Tiny Turbos and included one of those big, new street tiles they have with each one? (*drifts off into daydreaming*)

That 2x4 plate in Step 1 isn't strictly necessary, so if you don't want to incorporate it, that's OK. It just makes the underside of the car look better--which you might want to do if you're building this model to recreate a scene from the movie Iron Man 2 in microscale.

Not much to say here. Just the underlying bricks being put in place.

This model needs so many 1x2 single-stud plates. Makes me wish the nearby Lego store would have them in the pick-a-brick wall next time. Also, as for Step 6: I really hate stacking two same-size plates on top of each other (because they're tough to separate later), but such is the price of a good model.

There's the taillight! It really shows up better in the directions than the rendering. There's also another two-plate stack in Steps 8-9, but I'm trying not to let it bug me.

Tail added. Moving on . . .

Instead of a grille piece in Step 14, you could use a regular flat 1x2 plate. Or, you could also use a 2x1 plate with a single stud, add a transparent 1x1 slope on top of that, and have an F1 car with a windshield. It's your model. Do what you like.

Also, if you have an idea to make that front airfoil more firmly attached, I'm all ears.

Only the slickest of racing tires for this machine. And with that, we're done here.

There! Consider my "Build a microscale F1 car" achievement completed. Enjoy, and come back next time for a more street-legal Carbon Racer!