LEGO Speed Champions 76921 Audi S1 e-tron quattro review

LEGO Speed Champions 76921 Audi S1 e-tron quattro passes up a golden opportunity to break from its rigid formula, but makes up for it with one of the most attractive cars the theme has ever put out.

Designed and built specifically for legendary motorsport driver Ken Block to race around Las Vegas (in a video that has since racked up more than 9 million views on YouTube), the S1 e-tron quattro is a curious choice from LEGO Speed Champions. It’s so closely associated with Block that leaving off its Hoonitron branding and leaving out the named driver feels like a strange miss.

It’s one that’s consistent with other LEGO Speed Champions sets, though – and shouldn’t overshadow what the LEGO designers have achieved here, because 76921 Audi S1 e-tron quattro is easily one of the best-looking cars to race out of Billund to date. For a theme in its fifth year of eight-wide cars, and its 10th year on shelves overall, that’s no small feat.

--- LEGO Speed Champions 76921 Audi S1 e-tron quattro set details ---

Theme: Speed Champions Set name: 76921 Audi S1 e-tron quattro Release date: March 1, 2024

Price: £20.99 / $26.99 / €26.99 Pieces: 274 Minifigures: 1

LEGO: Order now

--- Where to buy LEGO Speed Champions 76921 Audi S1 e-tron quattro ---

LEGO Speed Champions 76921 Audi S1 e-tron quattro debuted on March 1, 2024, and is available to buy now at LEGO.com, in LEGO Stores and through third-party retailers.

--- LEGO Speed Champions 76921 Audi S1 e-tron quattro build ---

Forget your Vauxhalls and your Skodas: LEGO Speed Champions is all about giving us a taste of cars most of us can only dream about driving, and it’s difficult to imagine a rarer experience than getting behind the wheel of the S1 e-tron quattro. Only one of these vehicles exists in real life, and it’s packed with bespoke, handcrafted components that are believed to have cost more than $12 million to assemble.

Even before Block tragically passed away, this car had cemented its status as a modern icon. And it really looks the part, too: inspired by the 1985 Audi Sport quattro, which the LEGO Group has already tackled in one of its first eight-wide Speed Champions sets, this contemporary take on a classic combines its predecessor’s outlandish front and rear spoilers with subtly-sculpted curves and dramatic decals.

76921 Audi S1 e-tron quattro captures the essence of its source material in basically all the right ways, making concessions where required for the medium – some of those curves don’t carry across – but achieving what it can, where it can, with the same level of design prowess we’ve come to expect from each and every car in this theme. Notable techniques include the surfboard that forms part of the rear spoiler (borrowed from 76907 Lotus Evija) and the way standard bricks turned on their side are clipped into place, rather than connected by studs, to form the rear sides of the car. That last one might feel overengineered in the moment, but the result is effective and – you have to say – vital.

While you’ll still have plenty of stickering to do – this is a LEGO Speed Champions set, and the distinctive livery of this particular car left the designers with no other choice – there are also quite a few printed parts in the mix. Choosing which elements to print and which to add stickers to is not an enviable task, but the team has struck the right balance here: the designs you really wouldn’t want misaligned, like the bonnet and headlights, are prints.

The real achievement of 76921 Audi S1 e-tron quattro is not really in the fine details, though: it’s in the overall impression of the finished model. This striking, aggressive and characterful car is even more than the sum of its parts. And those are some pretty good parts.

--- LEGO Speed Champions 76921 Audi S1 e-tron quattro characters ---

This is the second LEGO Speed Champions set of the 2024 wave that would have benefited from ditching the theme’s policy to include only generic minifigures, and it’s even more difficult to look past where 76921 Audi S1 e-tron quattro is concerned, because only one driver has ever been associated with this one-of-a-kind vehicle: the late Ken Block.

The gymkhana legend’s legacy is so great that representing him as a LEGO minifigure in the last car he drove would have been almost too perfect, mirroring the LEGO Group’s approach to Ayrton Senna in the new LEGO Icons 10330 McLaren MP4/4 & Ayrton Senna. But LEGO Speed Champions sticks to its minifigure formula rigidly, and so here we have another generic yellow-skinned minifigure.

It’s at least pretty good, just like 76919 2023 McLaren Formula 1 Car’s generic racer, and the absence of exposed skin on the torso means you can use it to customise any character you like.

--- LEGO Speed Champions 76921 Audi S1 e-tron quattro price ---

We’ve already discussed the pros and cons of this year’s LEGO Speed Champions price increases in our reviews of 76919 2023 McLaren Formula 1 Car and 76920 Ford Mustang Dark Horse, but let’s quickly run through them again. The cons are that the cars are now more expensive – £20.99 / $26.99 / €26.99 apiece rather than £19.99 / $24.99 / €24.99 – and the pros are… erm… we’ll get back to you on that one.

At the very least, this still isn’t an unpalatable price for the value returned in the car’s size, detail and build experience.

--- LEGO Speed Champions 76921 Audi S1 e-tron quattro pictures ---

--- LEGO Speed Champions 76921 Audi S1 e-tron quattro pros and cons ---

Look past the omission of Ken Block here and you’ll find perhaps the best LEGO Speed Champions set of 2024 so far. It’s a pretty strong year all round – 76919 2023 McLaren Formula 1 Car and 76920 Ford Mustang Dark Horse have already set the bar high – but while 76921 Audi S1 e-tron quattro matches both of those cars on a technical level, it arguably surpasses them from an aesthetic perspective.

If you only buy one LEGO Speed Champions car in 2024, make it this one. At least until we see what else the theme has up its sleeve for later in the year…

This set was provided for review by the LEGO Group.

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--- Alternatives to LEGO Speed Champions 76921 Audi S1 e-tron quattro ---

76921 Audi S1 e-tron quattro is the only Audi in the LEGO Speed Champions range right now – previous cars were available but have retired – so you’re going to need to look to other manufacturers if this one isn’t cutting it for you. Highlights of the current crop (including the March 2024 wave) are 76919 2023 McLaren Formula 1 Car and 76906 1970 Ferrari 512 M.

If you want to keep things in the Audi family, there’s always 42160 Audi RS Q e-tron – but that remote-controlled LEGO Technic set is an entirely different beast.

--- LEGO Speed Champions 76921 Audi S1 e-tron quattro FAQs ---