Anyone who grew up on PlayStation knows Ridge Racer. The pinnacle, as many agree, was R4: Ridge Racer Type 4, a game that expanded the franchise’s fictional motorsports universe with characters, teams, a novel art style and musical flair, and—most important for today’s discussion—stunning car designs you wished were real. They’ve barely existed as scale models, but now, a custom Lego builder has rendered them in bricks and shared the instructions and stickers to create them yourself.
I’m not really in the hobbyist Lego world, but I know original creations are nothing new. What stood out to me about this set of R4’s four hero cars by StudWorks is that they look, frankly, perfect. At the very least, they’re as authentic to their actual designs as any Speed Champions set Lego itself has released of real-life cars. And those can look pretty nasty sometimes!
Even better, thanks to a partnership with a website called Brickstickershop, fans will also be able to purchase sticker sheets to complete each car’s livery. That’s a big deal, because without the proper decals, this endeavor would definitely lose some impact.
Ridge Racer Type 4 Cars Replicated in LEGO! (Instructions Available)
See, these four vehicles—the Assoluto Bisonte, Terrazi Troop, Age Solo Dirigeant, and Lizard Detector—aren’t merely fictional cars in the Ridge Racer universe. They’re symbols of the teams that race them, each of which has its own unique story in the game’s single-player campaign. They’re decorated in the game’s iconic CGI opening cinematic. And they looked damn good. You really got the sense Namco lavished over the designs of R4’s fake cars as much as working car designers toil over real ones.
The Assoluto Bisonte was some cyberpunk hybrid of a Ford GT40 and Ferrari. The Terrazi Troop obviously plucked Porsche’s then-contemporary polarizing fried-egg headlights, but the rest of it wasn’t Porsche at all. The Age Solo Dirigeant was like a retro-futuristic British roadster. And the Lizard Detector, a product of the Ridge Racer universe’s American Lizard brand, is probably the least imaginative of the quartet, but also wouldn’t be confused with any of the rest. These cars had their own identities, their own histories, and that made them special.
All of this is why any Ridge Racer fan would snap at the opportunity to own scale models of these cars. As it happens, a small run was actually produced by Kyosho when R4 first released in 1998. They were only sold in Japan, however, and these days, the set fetches well over $1,000. Nobody should pay that much, as they’re quite low-quality. I’d rather have StudWorks’ Lego recreations on my shelf. In fact, that’s exactly what I plan to do—as soon as I get my hands on the right pieces.
Instructions for StudWorks’ R4 cars can be purchased at Rebrickable, while the pre-cut sticker sheets will be available through Brickstickershop in the next few days.
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