Daily Fail: Drill Car

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Not all bootleg lines are created equal. There are always varying levels of suck - some lines are made of super brittle material, some are slathered in paint with the skill and care of your typical two year old. And some....some would be completely fine if they weren't stealing toy molds from other companies.

Today's FAIL is a failure of the later sort - out of the package it takes a careful eye to spot the problems with this bootleg. Luckily for the consumer, the box is enough to scare just about anyone away. Let's take a look at....Drill Car.

When my source sends me bootlegs 99% of the time their in fairly good condition. The toys inside might be cracked and broken, but the packages usually look quite nice. Today's set is the exception to that standard.

As you can see, the box is in pretty rough shape. Luckily(?) the contents were intact - and you could still read enough of the box for the lulz.

This is the first time we've seen the "Kazi" brand logo on a bootleg. I have two sets from assortment 63xx - the Drill Car and tomorrow's Fail. Both come in boxes just slightly smaller than the standard LEGO impulse set.

I'm not sure if there's some relation between the name and the strange pyramid type logo, but apparently they've trademarked it. I say "apparently" as I somehow doubt there's any paperwork out there with real information on it. If there were, I'm sure LEGO Legal would have had a word or two with these guys already.

The font choices in the logo are the first hint that we're in for something strange - the over sized "R" makes the toy name look like "D-Rill Car". It's for "5+ Ages" - no direct hint as to what those ages might be, though. I'm guessing Mesozoic and Jurassic for at least two of them.

The back of the package shows a couple of alternate builds for the Drill Car. They did a decent job with the product shots, at least.

The side of the package has an "action shot" of the Drill Car. Apparently the main job of this vehicle is to create potholes.

This side of the package has the Kazi mission statement presented in fractured English.

By developing intelligence, and inspiring potential.
To make children grow up with happiness.

That's fairly deceptive, considering the UN-happiness that bootleg toys bring to children.

The instructions sheet is two sided, and shows the build steps in good detail. Strangely, they show you how to put the minifigure together from component parts, yet the figure was packaged with the torso and legs assembled. (You did have to put the hands into the sleeves, though.)

The bricks are all fairly sturdy for a change - all of them are marked with "KAZI" on the studs.

Here's the assembled mini-figure. The torso's decoration is new, as is the figure's face. The parts themselves are duplicated from standard LEGO molds, though.

Here's a shot of the assembled Drill Car. Note that the rubber tires and yellow plastic hubs are separate pieces - an unusual find for a bootleg line. (More often wheels are re-cast as a single lump of fragile black plastic.) The yellow is a different shade from the LEGO version, and the studs all say "KAZI", but otherwise it's difficult to spot any differences in the parts.

The Drill Car is a dangerous bootleg in that without packaging it can easily be mistaken for an actual LEGO product. Luckily, bootlegs of this quality are fairly rare.

Still.....anyone want to take bets on if the paint on the figure is lead-based?

I didn't think so.

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