Forgive Me, Lego: I Really Want To Build This Mattel Audi RS2 Brick Set

Throughout my childhood, Lego sets and the Game Boy Color occupied much of my time. Before I really got into video games (and later, cars), I’d spend hours building, rebuilding, and tinkering with Lego pieces to see what sort of nonsense I could create.

Though I no longer own any of the Lego sets I grew up with, the brand still holds a special place in my heart. That’s why I’m so conflicted about this new brick set from one of Lego’s competitors, Mattel Brick Shop. Developed in a collaboration with Hot Wheels—a Mattel brand—it’s a 1:32 scale buildable model of one of the coolest wagons ever, the Audi RS2 Avant.

I’m not one to betray a brand I’ve been loyal to since birth, but this RS2 kit makes it pretty tough. Its proportions echo the real car near perfectly, and it’s colored in the same Nogaro Blue. The fascia matches up well, and those five-spoke wheels—borrowed from the Porsche 968 Clubsport—are instantly recognizable.

The real RS2 is well-known for being the car that kicked off the hot wagon craze at Audi. The car itself was built in a collaboration with Porsche, which, in addition to those wheels, also supplied parts like the bigger brakes and even the logo. Porsche interviewed an engineer, Michael Hölscher, back in 2021 to celebrate 25 years of the RS2. He revealed just how much work the sports car company put in at the time:

Hölscher recalls the Porsche parts that were integrated into the Audi or developed from scratch in Zuffenhausen: the 17-inch light-alloy wheels borrowed from the Cup car, the exterior mirrors with their new mirror base design, the red high-performance brakes, Porsche lettering in the RS logo, the front and rear bumpers, dials and the door openers.

“Around 20 per cent of the RS2 stems from Porsche,” he estimates. His team fundamentally re-engineered the engine with new parts. “We found it essential to make the Porsche character immediately noticeable and the associations clear.”

That engine, a very Audi-esque turbocharged five-cylinder, made 310 horsepower, which was about as much as a BMW M5 of the same era. For the mid-90s, it was incredibly capable. Sadly, it doesn’t look as if the Mattel version has an engine bay of any kind (at least judging by the promotional photos).

What it does have is a full interior, complete with two rows of seats, a steering wheel, and even a set of stickered gauges. There are also a handful of other stickers, like Audi logos, sponsor stickers, and number decals, that you can stick on wherever you’d like, if you’re the type of person who prefers a custom look. There’s even a second set of rally-inspired aero disc wheels painted in white, in case you want to keep those five-spokes in storage so they don’t get curbed up.

This Audi RS2, along with a 1:16-scale R8 LMS race car, are the newest addition to a handful of kits offered by Mattel through its Brick Shop brand. Other cars include icons like the Mercedes-Benz 300SL, the original Corvette Grand Sport, and Cadillac’s V-Series.R IMSA race car. One thing these kits have over the comparable Lego set is they’re pretty cheap; the RS2 kit can be had for as little as $19.97 on Amazon.

Kits like this can exist because Lego’s patent for interlocking bricks expired decades ago. The great Jason Torchinsky did a whole video on a strange Lego-esque Beetle kit a couple of years back, which I highly recommend watching.

Top graphic image: Mattel

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Hat tip to Car and Driver!