Lumibricks 23001 K's Spinner Review: A Light-Up Blade Runner 2049 Flying Car

Lumibricks had been teasing this one for a while, but a week or so ago they finally dropped set 23001, the Blade Runner 2049 K's Spinner (also direct from Lumibricks). As fans of the Lumibricks cyberpunk sets (see our Cyberpunk Game Stack review) and also fans of both Blade Runner movies, this was a no-brainer pickup for us — and we are certainly glad we got it.

It's worth pausing on what a big deal this set is for the brand. This is Lumibricks' first officially licensed product. Up until now the Cyberpunk Neoncity line has been "legally distinct" cyberpunk: great sets, but nothing with a movie name on the box. Set 23001 is the first-ever brick replica licensed from Blade Runner 2049, and they picked the obvious hero vehicle to lead with. We called this a big deal back when it was just a teaser, and having built it, we stand by that.

If you need a refresher, a spinner is the generic name for the flying cars in the Blade Runner universe. Syd Mead designed the original for the 1982 film and described it as an "aerodyne" — a vehicle that pushes air downward to generate lift — and the press kit at the time claimed three propulsion systems: internal combustion, jet, and anti-gravity. They drive on the ground, take off vertically, hover, and cruise, and the LAPD uses them to patrol the city.

Officer K's spinner in 2049 is the one modeled here, and fun trivia: it was branded as a Peugeot in the film as part of a marketing deal that later ended in a lawsuit. Alcon Entertainment, the studio behind the film, sued Peugeot in January 2019, claiming the automaker had agreed to a $500,000 placement fee plus a $30 million co-promotion commitment, then never ran the promotion — costing the movie at the box office. As for how it ended: a judge did throw out Alcon's 159-page complaint in 2020 for being "confusing, rambling," but that dismissal came with leave to amend rather than ending the case — the rewritten version survived, and the case ran another year before the two sides settled at mediation in September 2021, days before it was due to go to trial. We are not lawyers, so hopefully we didn't get any of that wrong.

What you get in the box

It's not a massive set like the Game Stack — it comes in at 410 pieces — but the build is fun. Here's what's inside, at a glance:

• Set number: 23001
• Brand: Lumibricks (formerly Funwhole)
• Licence: Blade Runner 2049 — officially licensed
• Pieces: 410, across three build stages
• Price: $39.99 — same on Amazon and direct from Lumibricks
• Lighting: 8 built-in LED light points
• Power: 2 x CR2032 batteries — not included
• Minifigures: 1 — Officer K, with a blaster and felt (I think) jacket
• Decoration: 30 printed bricks, zero stickers
• Finished size: roughly 7.4 x 3.7 x 2.7 in (18.8 x 9.5 x 6.8 cm)
• Extras: opening roof, detachable drone with a clear display stand

The printed parts deserve a call-out. Everything is pad-printed rather than stickered, so there's nothing to peel or misalign, and nothing that will lift off a panel in two years.

The Officer K minifigure

One K minifigure with a felt jacket, which is a nice touch. It's his signature high-collar trench coat, and the cloth reads much better than a printed torso would at this scale. He comes with his blaster and the right hairpiece, and he's the only figure in the box — appropriate, since only one seat matters here.

Box and instructions

Standard Lumibricks quality here, which is to say good. The manual is a proper bound booklet rather than a stapled pamphlet, the print is large and legible, and the LED steps are called out clearly enough that you're never guessing where a wire is supposed to end up. It's three steps in the manual, which keeps things easy to track.

The build

At 410 pieces this is a couple of hours, not a weekend, and it's one of the most beginner-friendly entry point into Lumibricks yet. Stage one is the chassis and the bulk of the wiring, which is where all the fiddly work lives — as with every Lumibricks set, the lights go in as you build rather than getting retrofitted into a finished model.

Stage two starts closing in the body and the cockpit, and this is where the shape of the spinner shows up — the wedge nose and the heavy wheel arches are unmistakable once the panels are on.

The battery box tucks away almost indistinguishably attached to the bottom of the vehicle. That's the part I was most worried about on a model this small, and Lumibricks handled it well — from any normal display angle you don't see it at all. It takes two CR2032 cells, and you supply them yourself.

The lights

The lighting is also great. It isn't too overstated — simply headlights, wheel lights, undercarriage, and a booster light. That's eight LED points total, and Lumibricks breaks them down as cool-white spotlights up front, a sharp red light at the rear, a light-blue ambient glow in the cockpit, and a downward-facing white underglow meant to fake a hover effect while the model sits still.

The restraint is the right call. On a vehicle this small it would have been easy to over-light it into a toy, and instead it reads like a night-patrol shot from the film. The underglow in particular does more work than I expected in a dark room.

The drone

K's drone, as you remember from the movie, also pops off the top of the car and attaches to a pole as needed. It's a quick-release mechanism on the roof plus a clear stand, so you can display it either docked or hovering above the spinner mid-recon. The roof itself lifts off cleanly too, so getting K in and out of the cockpit isn't a fight.

Will there be more Blade Runner 2049 Lumibricks sets?

Short answer: yes, and Lumibricks has already said as much. K's Spinner was announced as the first set in the collaboration, with a lineup of locations to follow. The three that have been named so far are:

• The Protein Farm Living Quarters — Sapper Morton's farmhouse, where the movie opens.
• K's Apartment — the cramped tower block unit.
• The Neon Street Markets — the rain-slicked alleys, which are explicitly designed to slot in with the existing Cyberpunk Neoncity modular buildings.

No release dates or prices have been confirmed for any of those yet, so treat the list as a roadmap rather than a schedule. But the direction is clear, and the fact that the street markets are meant to integrate with Neoncity is the interesting part — it means the Blade Runner sets aren't a walled-off side theme, they're an extension of the line Lumibricks already has. With Blade Runner 2099 also arriving on TV this year, the licence has a lot of runway. We'd bet on a vehicle-and-location cadence, and we'd very much like to see Deckard's sedan from the 1982 film eventually.

Is the Lumibricks K's Spinner worth it?

At $39.99 for 410 pieces, a cloth-coated Officer K, 30 printed parts, and eight built-in LEDs, this is the cheapest way into both Lumibricks and licensed Blade Runner bricks. It's also the lowest-risk one — if you've been curious about the brand but didn't want to commit to a $129 Game Stack or a $36.99 Police Patrol Car, this is a two-hour build that shows you exactly what integrated lighting does for a model.

The only real knocks are that you supply your own batteries, and that it went fast — the official Lumibricks store sold out and was still showing out of stock at the time of writing. The good news is that Amazon has it in stock at the same $39.99, so you don't have to wait on a restock.