General News & Features
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800,000-piece LEGO® tractor
To celebrate the introduction of the new LEGO® Technic XERION, design and product teams from CLAAS and LEGO® came together to assemble a new LEGO® XERION at the home of the XERION – production line 4 at Harsewinkel. A film of this special model going down the production line and being put through its paces alongside its bigger brothers can be seen on the YourCLAAS section within YouTube.
All of us at some stage or other have built something that vaguely resembles a tractor using LEGO®. But professional LEGO® builders Sarl ERC Briques have taken LEGO® tractor building to a totally different level with this full-scale model of a CLAAS ARION 460 PANORAMIC tractor. Nicknamed ‘TractoBrick’, the CLAAS LEGO® tractor used up almost 800,000 bricks in 388 shapes, weighs 3.5 tonnes and rather than an evening, it took a team of four the equivalent of 146 days to build.
The LEGO® ARION was built for the Musée du Compa agricultural museum near Chartres in France, who wanted an eyecatching centrepiece for a new permanent exhibition in its great machinery hall, where it will line-up next 12 real tractors depicting the history of the motorisation of agriculture.
LEGO® Technic XERION On a slightly smaller scale however, ‘TractoBrick’ has not been the only collaboration with LEGO® who has introduced a new Technic model of the XERION 5000. LEGO® has not had an agricultural vehicle in its model range for many years, and
having looked at various options chose the XERION because of its unique design and features. Measuring 30cm high and 61cm long, the LEGO® XERION 5000 is made up of 1,950 bricks. As on the real thing, the cab on the model XERION lifts and turns around, while a switch behind the cab can be used to select the different steering options. The XERION comes with a rear crane or a dozer blade, both of which can be operated electronically. The LEGO® XERION 5000 is available through CLAAS dealers or via the CLAAS website.