Playmobil goes back to the future
25.6.2020
Translation: machine translated
Doc, Marty, Einstein and the DeLorean. For the 35th film anniversary, there's a "Back to the Future" set from Playmobil. The best Playmobil has to offer this year.
"Are you telling me you built a time machine out of a DeLorean?" asks Marty. "I thought to myself: if you're going to put a time machine in a car, you'd better do it in style," replies Doc and sends Einstein the dog a few minutes into the future.
Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) probably didn't have the same taste as Dr Emmet Brown (Christopher Lloyd), or Doc for short. But the DeLorean DMC-12 is the ideal time-travelling car: a body made of stainless steel and enough power to reach 140 km/h to make the time jump a success.
Although not made of stainless steel but just as stylish and with all the details as the original, the DeLorean is now available in a smaller plastic version from Playmobil.
In contrast to the original from the film, you don't need an engineering degree to assemble it. The number of individual parts is manageable. The only thing that requires a steady hand and a certain amount of patience is attaching the stickers. Two things that are not my strengths.
Level surfaces are no problem to glue, but the blue elements at the back of the DeLorean are a test of strength. From a distance, it still looks good in my case. On closer inspection, however, my moderate skills come to light. But never mind! After two or three time jumps, it will all have melted away anyway.
Playmobil has put a lot of attention to detail into the DeLorean. For example, the nuclear reactor in the rear of the vehicle, which provides the 1.21 gigawatts of power required for the time jump. The reactor is powered by a plutonium core, which is also included in the Playmobil set and is interchangeable. So watch out if you have Libyan terrorists in your neighbourhood. And if you run out of plutonium, you can use the "lightning rod" to get the power you need in other ways. As long as you know exactly when and where the lightning strikes. So that Marty and Doc can sit in the car, the wing doors on the driver and passenger side can be opened upwards. The wheels have another great function. These can be folded through 90 degrees, allowing the DeLorean to go into hover mode and fly.
To add even more visual flavour to your time travel spectacle, the car has built-in lighting effects. By pressing a button on the underbody of the DeLorean, the blue add-on parts and the flux compensator start to flicker. If you press the button again, the lights light up continuously. Incidentally, Doc designed the flux compensator over 60 years ago:
This was a great moment in the history of science. The 5th of November 1955! Yes, that's when it happened, on 5 November 1955, the day I invented time travel. I still remember it vividly. I was standing on the loo and wanted to hang up a clock. The edge of the bowl was wet, so I slipped and hit my head hard. When I came round, I had a revelation. A vision. I had a picture in my head. A picture of this! This box makes time travel possible in the first place! The flux compensator!
In order for your compensator to work, you also need two AAA batteries. Unfortunately, the Playmobil nuclear reactor is not sufficient for this.
Playmobil has hit the bull's eye with this set. Film nerds will snatch this set out of their hands, because there is almost no merchandise for "Back to the Future". Vehicles were my absolute favourite Playmobil sets when I was a kid, so the DeLorean is a sure value for your kids too. Whether they know the films or not doesn't matter.
PS: If your kids don't know the movies yet... what are you waiting for? DeLorean on your knees, popcorn ready and then film night. Let's go!
Riding my motorbike makes me feel free, fishing brings out my inner hunter, using my camera gets me creative. I make my money messing around with toys all day.
