Can’t Wait for the DeLorean EV? You Can Go Back to the Future Right Now

When toymaker Lego A/S first started developing the Back to the Future Time Machine a year ago to drop on April 1, it couldn’t have picked a better time. Teasers for a new electric DeLorean car called EVolved popped up before February’s Super Bowl LVI with plans to debut the auto this summer at Pebble Beach’s Concours d’Elegance—a jolt of pure happenstance. The design process alone took “about four to six months, from concept to done,” says Lego lead designer Sven Franic in a rare pre-release interview. The closely held company is known for being tight-lipped when it comes to sneak peeks of new sets. For a fan such as myself, this access feels a little like the gates of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory swinging open—although Lego headquarters’ crisp, Danish modern lines are a far cry from the candyman’s industrial factory.The 1,872-piece set ($170) is the latest in Lego’s Creator Expert line, with models that range from the 9,090-piece, 54-inch-long Titanic to the culturally iconic Adidas Originals Superstar sneaker. As lifelong fans, my daughter and I play with her Lego sets frequently, but I’ve also stolen some private time to build the brand’s Typewriter, Porsche 911, and Voltron—the bastion of Saturday morning ’80s cartoons. Since Lego’s first movie tie-in—the X-Wing Fighter from 1999’s Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace—the company found an opportunity to give pop culture lovers a unique way to display fandom. (A smaller, simpler Back to the Future set, the DeLorean Time Machine, was released in 2013.) These advanced sets target sentimental adults who would willingly trade a couple of hours to build a display-worthy model that’s also fun to play with.The Billund, Denmark-based manufacturer posted “extraordinary” sales during the pandemic, with profit jumping by a third last year, thanks to new products and stuck-at-home consumers seeking refuge in its iconic building blocks. In December the world’s largest toymaker, with distribution in 130 countries, announced a new $1 billion factory in Vietnam to meet growing demand in Asia. While Lego is increasing the number of sets geared toward adults—consider the 14-inch-tall Fender Stratocaster, 11,695-piece Art world map, or $380 Lamborghini Sián FKP 37, complete with working 8-speed gearbox—the lion’s share of profits still comes from toys aimed at kids, especially those based on Star Wars and Harry Potter. How a Lego Set Gets MadeTo develop the 13.9 x 6.1 x 4.3-inch model, which builds the time-traveling DeLoreans from each of the 1985 franchise’s three movies, Universal Pictures supplied Franic and his five-person design team with photos of the films’ restored DMC DeLorean. From there, along with die-cast metal versions of the car as guides, Franic set to building. Whereas other designers might rely on computer modeling, the Croatian-born former car mechanic says he’d rather use his hands. “I like to brick-build everything, especially if you have functions involved, because you really want stuff in your hands to see how it works.” For the complex three-in-one build, meaning three potential configurations, Franic spent a couple of weeks playing with the bricks to develop a concept. “We work in open spaces with adjustable tables, surrounded by large drawers filled with standard Lego elements,” Franic continues. “For anything that is less commonly used we take a short walk to the large stock shelves, with all the elements and colors we currently have in production.” In short, it’s a Lego fan’s version of paradise. The trickiest part of the silhouette was nailing the DeLorean’s front hood. “That was a design challenge from the beginning, because any existing elements we had—our slope elements—were too sharp,” he says. To Lego designers, the model and its parts are not measured in inches or angles, but rather in such terms as modules or studs. For example, the thinnest Lego part is a plate. Stack three plates and it becomes the height of what you think of a standard Lego block. “You have to ask what would be the closest increment that makes sense in the Lego system,” Franic says, “so our angle is basically a four-module-long part that changes the incline by one plate over the four studs.” Lego designers are careful when introducing new elements to ensure that the part will be useful beyond the set it has been designed for. As the project progressed, from perfecting the car’s proportions to more complex engineering tasks such as figuring out how to flip all four wheels down, as the car does at the end of the first movie (“Where we’re going, we don’t need roads!”), the set was handed over to Lego employees to build at their desks. The goal is to see how others build, play, and interpret the building instructions, as well as what parts are fun and which might be repetitive. “Some people actually prefer repetition and find that meditative,” Franic says. “We would like to hit that golden spot, where you’re not bored and you’re challenged just enough with the build.” Once the brick model is perfected, it’s converted into a digital format and shared with other departments such as packaging and marketing to complete their individual portions of the process. Many of the set’s details are nods to Back to the Future Part II, including the look of the Marty and Doc Brown minifigures and surprises under the hood such as a hoverboard, a case of plutonium, the OUTATIME license plate (both barcode and written versions), and even a banana to feed Mr. Fusion, that “weird thing made out of a coffee grinder,” says Franic. Pop open the gullwing doors, and inside you’ll find a battery-powered light brick between the seats that uses an LED to illuminate the flux capacitor.Some fans might prefer to leave the set with the long pole used to jump-start the time machine via a lightning strike in the first movie. Others might prefer the DeLorean from the Wild West of Part III, with vacuum tubes fixed to the elegantly raked hood. But I’m betting that the wheel-flipping motion (combined with the hovering sound the action forces you to make) will be the configuration most favored by fans. It’s already Franic’s choice, even though it presented the biggest engineering challenge: “You need these axles going through that connect the front and the back wheels, and they all have to be synchronized.”“When you flip the lever under the car, all four wheels flip 90 degrees, and you can do that all day,” he says. “It’s super satisfying.”