Daily Fail: Cross Country Race Car

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One of the complaints I heard about the impulse sized 2002 LEGO Racers line was that so many of the sets were nearly identical. While the pull-back motors were a cool innovation, while the one-piece mini-drivers were sort of cool in a blobby sort of way, the lack of variation kept a potentially great theme in the ranks of the merely "pretty good."

Zephyr Knight, though, had no problems with the lack of unique parts - for these bootleggers it was a sign that duplication of the LEGO product was going to be easier than normal.

Behold the next in the line of over sized Impulse repackages: Cross-Country Race Car.

This bootleg is #2003 in Zephyr Knight's inventory. The packaging is again very similar to the two earlier stock numbers" 2001 - The Equation Races Car and 2002 - Super Sonic Races Car.

At least this time they left the "s" off of "Race" to give us a product name that seems to make sense.

The toy itself is a duplication of LEGO's 4592 - Red Monster. Perhaps in an attempt to disguise things, Zephyr opted for a more blue color scheme for "Cross Country." Or, as usual, they probably just didn't care.

The back of the package identifies this set as part of Zephyr's "Series Transformation". This is shown by the three different model designs in the photos. Note the background of flame - a hint that we've entered Hell.

The side of the package has one of the alternate models racing against a poorly-photoshopped background. All of "Cross Country"'s background images are poorly photoshopped images of canyons. Normally Zephyr Knight takes some time to at least try and fit their toys into the fake background - but this time they couldn't be bothered with such trifling details.

The opposite side has the "3 T's" graphic seen on the other race cars in this set. If you've forgotten, those three T's are "Intelligence", "Interesting" and "Amusement".

Nothing too unusual about the instructions - like the others in this set they show both a legless minifigure as a driver, as well as the 1-piece driver body as envisioned by LEGO. As we'll see in a moment, the set actually contains a minifigure complete with legs.

Once again, the pull-back motor has been pirated from the LEGO design.

Super Sonic, the figure from set 2002, appears again as the driver of the Cross Country Race Car. He's exchanged his blue helmet for a lemon-yellow one, and his racing togs for a red prison top, but there's no mistaking that stolen-from-LEGO facial expression.

Once again the helmet is poorly constructed, and the visor refuses to clip to the sides as expected/designed.

Here's Super Sonic with the completed Cross Country Car. No, the color don't match any of the illustrations.

Finally, here's a shot of Sonic on the car. "What am I to do with my hands?" he seems to ask. Perhaps he should have thought of that before he decided to pilot yet another bootleg.

Serves him right.

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As always, many thanks to Joe from The Undiscovered Playthings for sending me this set to review.