It’s taken a surprisingly long time to happen — Wallace and Gromit have been beloved characters for over 35 years — but LEGO has finally made it official. LEGO Ideas set 21371 Wallace & Gromit is the first-ever official LEGO set featuring the iconic Aardman Animations duo, and it’s going on sale October 1, 2026. Pre-orders are open now.
And the best part? It started with a fan.
The Set — What You’re Actually Building
The set depicts Wallace and Gromit aboard their signature red motorcycle and sidecar from the 1995 Academy Award-winning short Wallace & Gromit: A Close Shave — the film where they face off against Preston the robot dog while Wallace develops an unfortunate romantic attachment to the local wool shop owner. It’s the third and most beloved of the original three Aardman shorts, and the motorcycle chase sequence that closes it is one of the most purely fun pieces of animation Aardman has ever produced.
The key details:
- Set Number: 21371
- Theme: LEGO Ideas
- Piece Count: 1,038
- Age Rating: 18+
- Release Date: October 1, 2026
- Price: $99.99 USD / £89.99 GBP / €99.99 EUR / $139.99 CAD / $149.99 AUD
It’s the 10th LEGO Ideas set released in 2026, available from LEGO.com, LEGO stores, Target, and other participating retailers.
The Build — Design Details Worth Knowing
Both Wallace and Gromit are built as poseable display figures rather than standard minifigures, with articulated heads and arms. The LEGO listing includes videos showing the range of motion — particularly notable is Gromit’s expressive potential. Fan designer Sébastien Esnault explained the approach in his interview with LEGO: “It only takes a tiny change in their angle to transform Gromit’s expression from curious to amused or worried.” That kind of expressiveness in brick form is genuinely difficult to achieve, and it speaks to how carefully the design was considered.
One important clarification from Brick Fanatics’ coverage: while the characters can be removed from the vehicle, Gromit’s build only includes his upper body — consistent with how he’s positioned in the sidecar in the film. This isn’t an oversight; it’s a faithful recreation of the scene. What this means practically is that the set isn’t going to function as a standalone figure display for Gromit — it’s designed as a complete scene rather than separable display pieces.
The motorcycle and sidecar can be separated from each other, which is a nice display option for those who want to arrange the two components differently on a shelf.
Additional confirmed features:
- Gromit’s goggles — wearable on the character, matching the A Close Shave design
- Opening motorcycle hatch — with Easter eggs inside including a box of orange crackers (a recurring Aardman prop) and a diamond referencing the heist from The Wrong Trousers
- Accurate license plate from the original film
- A secret third character reportedly hidden within the build — yet to be officially identified by LEGO
The claymation aesthetic has been preserved through a specific design philosophy. Esnault stated: “To recreate the distinctive clay look, I deliberately chose the most rounded LEGO elements wherever possible.” This is the same challenge that faces every fan who tries to translate Aardman’s work into bricks — the organic roundness of clay doesn’t map naturally onto LEGO’s geometric elements — and Esnault’s solution of prioritising rounded parts throughout the build is the cleanest approach available within the system’s constraints.
Who Designed This and How Did It Get Made?
The set originated with Sébastien Esnault, a French LEGO fan who builds under the handle Pidelium. He submitted his Wallace & Gromit motorcycle design to the “90s Throwback – The Next Chapter” LEGO Ideas challenge — a contest inviting fans to build LEGO sets based on iconic TV shows and films from the 1990s. His submission won the Grand Winner prize, which on LEGO Ideas means it enters the review process for potential official production.
The LEGO Ideas program is how several of the most beloved adult collector sets have come to exist. The process works in stages: fans submit designs, other fans vote on their favorites, and LEGO’s own team reviews the highest-supported submissions to assess whether they can be produced as official retail sets. When a fan design is selected, LEGO’s internal designers work with the original creator to refine it for production — addressing structural integrity, part availability, and pricing targets.
In this case, the official set looks remarkably faithful to Esnault’s original submission. LEGO primarily refined the characters’ faces and improved the motorcycle’s structural build rather than overhauling the overall design. The fact that LEGO could get so close to the original fan vision is a testament to how thoroughly Esnault had worked out the design from the beginning.
Why This Is Significant for the LEGO Ideas Line
Despite Wallace and Gromit’s enormous cultural footprint — four films, multiple spinoffs, and a consistent presence in British pop culture for over three decades — this is genuinely the first official LEGO Wallace & Gromit set ever produced. Not a reissue, not a refreshed version of an older set. The very first.
The timing is particularly fitting. Aardman Animations is currently celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2026, with exhibitions, concerts, and a new Shaun the Sheep feature film part of the broader celebration. For the studio’s most globally beloved characters to receive their first LEGO treatment during the anniversary year gives the set an additional layer of significance.
The LEGO Ideas line’s track record with British cultural IP has been strong recently. Previous Ideas sets have included the Fender Stratocaster, the Friends apartment, the Polaroid camera, and numerous other cultural touchstones. Wallace & Gromit fits naturally into the line’s adult collector sensibility — a set that will appeal primarily to people who grew up watching the films rather than children encountering them for the first time.
October Is Already a Packed LEGO Month
The Wallace & Gromit set joins a remarkably busy October 1 release date. The official Lego PlayStation set (72306) also launches on October 1 for $179.99, as does the Lego Buddy the Elf set, Santa’s Holiday Countdown, and three other Christmas themed sets. That’s a genuinely unusual amount of notable LEGO content landing on the same day — October 1 appears to be functioning as a de facto major drop date for the autumn season, giving adult LEGO collectors several meaningful options to decide between simultaneously.
At $99.99 for 1,038 pieces — working out to roughly 10 cents per brick — the Wallace & Gromit set is competitively priced within the LEGO Ideas adult collector range. For fans of Aardman’s work who’ve been waiting literally decades for this particular piece of nostalgia to be officially commemorated in brick form, the wait is finally over. Beloved franchise content that fans have been requesting for years seems to be having a good 2026 across the board.
Pre-orders are live at LEGO.com, Target, and LEGO stores now. October 1 is the date. Cracking.
![Kingdom Hearts Collection [1~3] PS5 Has Half the Platinum Trophies of PS4](https://gamingpromax.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/kingdom-hearts-collection-400x225.webp)
