LEGO City 60445 F1 Truck with RB20 & AMR24 F1 Cars review

LEGO City 60445 F1 Truck with RB20 & AMR24 F1 Cars continues to build around the sport of F1, and has us reminiscing of old Speed Champions sets.

Alongside 60444 F1 Garage & Mercedes-AMG & Alpine Cars that offers a glimpse into a Formula 1 garage and 60443 F1 Pit Stop & Pit Crew with Ferrari Car that plays through the action of a pit stop, LEGO City’s January 2025 range of sets includes one more world-building set in the form of 60445 F1 Truck with RB20 & AMR24 F1 Cars.

Including licensed F1 cars for Red Bull and Aston Martin (albeit with the former specifically not called that and their energy drink logo not appearing anywhere across the set so as to keep it accessible for younger audiences), 60445 F1 Truck with RB20 & AMR24 F1 Cars offers a transport truck complete with simulator and space for both cars to fit inside.

Release: January 1, 2025 Price: £89.99 / $99.99 / €99.99 Pieces: 1,086 Minifigures: 5 LEGO: Order now

Third time’s a charm

60444 F1 Garage & Mercedes-AMG & Alpine Cars had us beginning to think back to how its concept of placing race cars in a garage setting was previously explored in Speed Champions, with the likes of 2018’s 75889 Ferrari Ultimate Garage and – a little more specifically although still not for Formula 1 itself – with 2016’s 75876 Porsche 919 Hybrid and 917K Pit Lane. The comparisons stop there, though, given a number of notable differences, whilst they don’t even begin between 2025’s 60443 F1 Pit Stop & Pit Crew with Ferrari Car and 2015’s 75911 McLaren Mercedes Pit Stop.

But 60445 F1 Truck with RB20 & AMR24 F1 Cars does have us reminiscing of one of the very first Speed Champions sets from that launch year of 2015, 75913 F14 T & Scuderia Ferrari Truck. Aimed at the same starting age group of 8+, and priced only £10 less, the concept of a large transport truck with an F1 car that can fit inside has been done before here, and – looking back a further 10 years – in LEGO Racers 8654 Scuderia Ferrari Truck.

What is interesting to note, though, is the potential shift in the audience and particularly over the last decade, between when Speed Champions tried to revisit the truck-and-F1-car idea with 75913 and LEGO City now with 60445 F1 Truck with RB20 & AMR24 F1 Cars, because the reason Speed Champions moved away from supplementary builds to pure car-only sets was feedback and sales – it didn’t work back then for that version of the market.

Fast forward 10 years, though, and 60445 F1 Truck with RB20 & AMR24 F1 Cars modernises the formula (pun intended) a little bit and goes again, at a time when F1’s brand has never been so popular or far-reaching.

Instead of having space in the truck for one car and a bunch of mechanic tools and apparatus, 60445 focuses predominantly on car transport, building out space for two cars to sit nose to tail inside the truck bed.

The other notable difference is in the branding and design of the truck – it’s not affiliated to any one team, but to the F1 brand itself, just as the design and crew featured in 60444 F1 Garage & Mercedes-AMG & Alpine Cars and 60443 F1 Pit Stop & Pit Crew with Ferrari Car.

These two changes allow the set the chance to include two different F1 team cars to open up the most relevant play within the set – the ability for the cars to race each other – and it also allows, alongside 60444 and 60443, the chance for you to swap whichever cars go into the truck based on which sets you collect.

Team-branded garages, pit lanes and trucks – alongside team-specific crew – would be very much welcome at least in our eyes as Formula 1 fans, but opening up the cross-set play potential by branding these supplementary, world-building sets under the F1 moniker makes the most sense, at least for now and particularly with Speed Champions’ fairly recent and unsuccessful foray into team-branded material in mind.

A new formula

That Formula 1 branding, combined with some neat ideas and a focus on authentic details, makes for a sleek build for 60445 F1 Truck with RB20 & AMR24 F1 Cars. The colour scheme works great across a vehicle that is excellently put together, particularly so for being six studs wide – for instance, the cabin includes space for a bed for those long haul trips across the world for the next race, and space up top for two minifigures to sit side by side.

Little build techniques here and there add detail and effects to the model almost effortlessly, but in ways we’ve not seen before from a City truck, elevating what is still a model designed for 8+ builders to something older fans can get lost within just as much.

The entire design of the truck, from cabin to trailer inside and out, comes together very satisfyingly thanks to some clever ideas that balance creating that smoothed-out style and appearance with good playability and substance throughout, and it leaves you with a model that feels very much like it could be at home in the F1 paddock.

Reimagined and modernised

60445 F1 Truck with RB20 & AMR24 F1 Cars looks good and is also as hands-on as you would expect, plus perhaps a little more so. Ramps pull out from the underside of the truck and clip to the end so as to drive each F1 car up into it, and both cars fit snugly inside. Between the cabin and trailer, though, is an additional cabin that houses a simulator.

It’s a small detail but a wonderfully thought-out and realised one that captures a big part of F1 life for drivers away from the track – be that sim work or gaming – and it comes complete with a little ‘give’ in the seat to mimic movements of driving around.

The sim racer is the final detail that caps an aesthetically-pleasing, top-quality build that offers a lot of interest and enough authenticity to warrant consideration from any LEGO F1 fan. You won’t get these world-building sets in Speed Champions any more, but we can’t imagine they’d be any different (except for having more stickers), and that’s the best compliment we can pay 60445 F1 Truck with RB20 & AMR24 F1 Cars.

This set was provided for review by the LEGO Group.

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Our honest opinion: 60445 F1 Truck with RB20 & AMR24 F1 Cars rolls the dice for at least the third time with this concept, with perhaps the best results yet. LEGO City can do things Speed Champions can't.