8865 Test Car

The risky purchase project has finished successfully. I admit that this was my biggest gamble evere, I only hoped that it has all the pieces. Although the set has many fragile parts all of them are in excellent shape: nothing is broken or sunburnt, they have not even been covered in dust. From the traces I suspect that the previous owner has built it together once or twice and then all the pieces ended up in a bag, for my luck. This is the oldest set I have bought so far and the one in the best condition - I will make a comparison of all my purchases sometime.


Like its age suggest, the car is built almost entirely from bricks and only a few special parts. The chassis and the bodywork is made of bricks and so is the rear suspension (excluding the springs and some links). Only the front suspension makes heavy use of special parts.


Interestingly, this car is almost a perfect representation of the developments that have happened in the car industry in the last 20 years. This car feels much more raw than its predecessors. It only has 4 pistons but they are brutally large - the block itself is bigger than a later V10. It runs very smoothly though. The gearbox has 3 gears and no synchronization at all. It happens frequently that it does not take a gear because the cogs are not in position. It also happens that the gearbox drops out of a previously selected gear. It is not very sophisticated and makes the owner feel the technology behind it unlike its successors. (Ok, the 8880 is at least hard to push forward but the 8448 is really very soft.)

I am very happy that I have bought it, it was well worth the 47 Euros it cost (about $85). Even more so if we count the remaining pieces (I will write about it later).

Let the images tell the rest of the story. And here comes the video: