Recently, I’ve been trying to clear up some space in my storeroom in preparation of the new releases by Lego in the upcoming months.  Anyway, I’ve also been wanting to start on the Cars 2 series after getting all the sets in this release this year.  So this will be the start of a series of my reviews of the Lego Cars 2 series starting with 8200 LEGO Radiator Springs Lightning McQueen and 8201 LEGO Classic Mater.

These 2 marks the start of this Cars 2 series by Lego.  They are very small sets compared with the rest of the sets in this release.  I got them since May 2011 when they were released in Singapore.  There are another 5 bigger sets missing in the picture which I got them completed only recently Metro Sale.  Below is a picture I took during the first batch of purchase.

The 2 sets, 8200 and 8201 are very much similar in size although one can tell very clearly that the 8201, Mater set looks more complex as compared to the 8200 Lightning McQueen.

Interestingly, both sets do not come with any stickers to complement the bricks.   Something AFOLs would certainly like as Lego stickers are well known for not being lasting at all.  As shown in the pictures below, both sets come with an instruction booklet and 2 packages with simple parts each.

The assembly of the sets are simple and fast, taking less than 10 minutes to do up each. The Classic Mater is slightly more complicated than the Lightning McQueen due to it being a tow truck compared to a racer. Although these are small sets compared to the rest of bigger sets released together in this series, it doesn’t mean that Lego took a back seat in the design and construction of these sets. You can still the efforts put in by Lego in including the small details of each set in the pictures below. Also, these 2 sets does not any stickers at all and all the details are printed directly on the customized bricks. But sadly, this is not consistent throughout the Cars series. In the bigger sets like the Ultimate series of McQueen and Mater, you will find stickers coming back again 🙁

Overall I would give a 9 out of 10 for these 2 sets for the details included by Lego and the low price of them. Here are some shots of how the two best buddies look like side by side. Do hoot them while their stocks are still available.