Speed Racer & the Mach 5

I present to Lego Ideas, the Mach 5! The fastest, most advanced racing car in the world! Portrayed in its original form as seen in the 1960s manga and anime, Speed Racer, driven by the legendary titular character himself, and built by his father Pops Racer.

Unlike any ol' purist vehicle, the Mach 5 comes equipped with several gadgets to fend off whatever dare comes in its way, this set features the most iconic of them: 

1. Auto-Jacks, when activated during high speeds will instantaneously propel the Mach 5 high upwards over incoming danger, or to allow for a quick fix in desperate situations, such as in the middle of a race.

2. Cutter Blades, primarily for use during travel on wooded terrain to slash vulnerable obstacles within the area, but can also be used as a means of self-defense against dirty opponents.

I'll admit I'm not a lifelong fan of any Speed Racer material, but in the past year I got so hooked to the movie, completely obsessed with it, and recently so I touched on the original Anime. While I'm a diehard defender of everything the film was able to achieve, there's something about the original design of the Mach 5, those ubiquitous 60s touches that make the car's build more exaggerated, giving it that iconic look over other iterations. Rediscovering my interest in Lego and this? I knew I had to combine to the two as one.

It has been over 15 years since the one and only Speed Racer line, and while as evident through MOCs over the years that the quality of those builds hold up today, my goal with this idea was to instead rebuild the Mach 5 from the ground up using complex parts more commonly used in sets of similar scale today, that consist of an unlimited range of shape which would better represent this version's sleek physique and not compromise any detail.

2024 is the perfect opportunity to reintroduce Speed Racer back into Lego, as we've recently seen licensed sets in the Speed Champions line, and they happen to sport similar dimensions to the Speed Racer sets (pioneered you could say), and in the time since, Speed Racer has gained much love from generations old and new, some of whom certainly are Lego builders like me that have also shared their related ideas across here!

The Mach 5 on its own contains 308 parts, including Speed and the Mach 5's accessories however bumps that number to 329.

Every piece connects to each other one way or another.

All decals on the Mach 5 and Speed Racer's minifigure (except the arms which came from some official Lego set) were made by me, while I'm not of great artistic talent I hope they do at least convey an image of what they're meant to reference from the source material.