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Episode 217: LEGO Designer Milan Reindl
Episode 217: LEGO Designer Milan Reindl
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About this episode
Milan Reindl, a senior model designer at Lego, shares his fascinating journey from being an English and chemistry teacher in Czechoslovakia to creating life-size, drivable Lego Formula One cars. He discusses the intricate design process behind models like the Red Bull RB20, highlighting the challenges and triumphs of merging engineering with childhood dreams. Milan emphasizes the importance of passion, patience, and teamwork in design, while also reflecting on the educational potential of Lego in inspiring future engineers. The episode captures the intersection of car culture and creativity through the lens of Lego.
Topics:
lego design
formula one
engineering
model building
creativity
teamwork
educational potential
passion for cars
life-size models
career journey
LEGO Designer Milan Reindl
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The automobile is one of the most important inventions that revolutionize the modern world.
In America, the rich history of car culture runs deep as technology continues to shape the future of the industry.
Jason Stein is here to share the stories of people passionate about cars from industry leaders and innovators to car obsessed celebrities.
Buckle up as Jason takes you inside the boardroom, onto the track and around the bend on Cars and Culture on SiriusXM Business Radio.
Welcome into our 217th episode of Cars and Culture with Jason Stein here on SiriusXM Business Channel 132.
Great to have you along with us.
From the racetrack to the toy box, today we explore what happens when two global obsessions collide, Formula One and Lego.
Speed, precision and childhood dreams captured brick by brick.
Milan Rendell, senior model designer at Lego, has turned imagination into engineering marvels,
and his team's work has helped create life-size, fully drivable Lego F1 cars,
brought Lego Technic partnerships with Formula One teams to life,
and delivered models like the Red Bull RB20,
designed with such precision that even the drivers themselves were astonished.
Nearly 400,000 bricks, 22,000 hours of labor in a workshop in his native Czech Republic.
This is the scale of Lego's boldest projects.
But Milan's story goes well beyond bricks and gears.
Once an English and chemistry teacher in a small Czech town,
he turned a childhood fascination with Lego, an evil Western toy banned in communist Czechoslovakia,
into a career shaping some of the most complex and beloved Lego Technic models in the world.
And more than 13 years later, he's still designing the future.
He's still inspiring children to become engineers,
and proving that passion, patience and play can build something truly extraordinary.
This is the story of how Formula One and Lego came together,
and the remarkable designer behind it, all ahead on Cars & Culture.
Hello, I'm Milan Rendell, and this is Cars & Culture with Jason Stein.
From the racetrack to the toy box, and today we explore what happens when two Colombo...
Start again.
From the racetrack to the toy box, today we're exploring what happens when two global obsessions meet.
Formula One and Lego, speed, precision, and of course childhood dreams.
Brick by brick. Milan, it is wonderful to have you on the program.
Thank you for joining me today.
Thanks for having me today.
Yeah, it's wonderful to have you.
I had the opportunity to attend the Miami Grand Prix back in May, just ahead of summer.
And it was an extremely exciting, extremely fascinating, wild afternoon,
not because of the race tracks on the cars, or the cars that were on the racetrack rather,
but because of the driver's parade that took place ahead of it,
with fully drivable, big build cars touring on the track.
What an accomplishment.
Tell me a little bit about that.
I mean, there must have been a moment of pride for you.
I wasn't involved directly into this project, but you know,
just afterwards reading the comments from F1 veterans like Lewis Hamilton,
saying like this was the best parade ever, that really tells you something.
And you could as well see that the F1 pilots went totally crazy,
and you know, the childhood just awoken them and they just had so much fun.
Even though they were not supposed to hit each other,
they turned it into kind of destruction derby of F1 cars.
But yeah, what an amazing achievement.
Building life-size, Lego speed champions, F1 cars that can fit two drivers at the same time
and are fully operational is quite a stunt from the Lego group, if you ask me.
Yeah, the amount of time involved in putting all this together,
I know was kind of crazy.
And then this is a multi-year partnership that's going on between the two groups.
But 26 designers, engineers, builders, 22,000 hours in the Gladno factory located in your former home of the Czech Republic.
Yes.
What a special moment for really for both brands, right?
Yeah, I think so as well.
But you know, Gladno is really known and the workshop in there known for like overdoing themselves every year.
Like, you know, whatever they achieved one year, they beat it the year after.
So they did exactly the same with the amount of hours and work put into the F1 cars.
You know, they started originally just building, just if you're, if we can say,
like life-size replicas of things for Legoland parks and special exhibitions.
And right now to like fully one-to-one scale drivable cars.
And no matter if we take the Bugatti in 2018, the McLaren two years ago or three years ago already.
And then the F1 cars.
So yes, there are a bunch of very talented and dedicated people
and they are willing to experiment and try even harder than before.
It's amazing to me when I looked at some of the statistics.
Nearly 400,000 Lego bricks for each big build.
Yes.
But the vehicles weigh a thousand kilograms and can go 20 kilometers an hour, 12 miles an hour.
The intricate detail that's been captured, the unique detail of the cars,
the sponsor logos on the side, authentic Pirelli tires.
I mean, what's the mindset that goes into these sorts of things?
It's just the willingness to, you know, challenge whatever anybody else has done before
and trying it better, harder and, you know, not be afraid as well to fail throughout the process.
Because that's what, you know, in every designer's mindset,
that's what we do every day pretty much.
You know, be ready to change things if they do not work.
And sometimes, especially in the Kledner workshop, they are pretty bound with very tight deadlines.
So they do not have much space for failure.
So sometimes it's just one good attempt that needs to work and usually does.
Yeah.
Julia Golden, who's the Chief Product and Marketing Officer at Lego Group,
said that at Lego, and you know this,
at Lego, you're constantly striving to push the boundaries of what's possible.
That's the mindset inside the company, correct?
That's true.
Like you don't want to rinse and repeat the same stuff, you know, all the time.
You're always challenging yourself.
And even though if you're designing something that has been done before,
it's good to just take a few steps back and look at the thing that you're working on
and looking as well at the previous products that were similar
and saying like, you know, could I do something better?
Could I do it in a different way, a cooler way, easier way,
a way that is easier to build or a way that will perform better
in the case of the electric drivable cars as well?
You've been involved in the Lego Technic Department since you began, right?
Yes.
Yeah.
For 13 and a half years almost, yes.
But yeah, your story is an unusual one.
You're a former English teacher.
Yes.
From a very small town.
I used to teach in a city at a high school, but afterwards a friend of mine
just let me know that there's a vacant position for an English teacher in my hometown.
So I was like, yeah, I might try to come back where I was born.
And when I arrived there, I was just asked like, what else can you teach?
And I was like, well, English and Russian languages,
but nobody learns Russian these days.
So is that not enough?
And they told me that I have to add at least one other subject
and it was choice between chemistry and physical education.
And I'm terrible at sports, but I can set things on fire.
So that was my premise.
I was like, I can do my own fireworks.
Let's try chemistry.
Amazing.
You send in your CV with a few images of your best looking models,
but nobody called you back.
I mean, it was a year and a half before you were invited for your first job.
No, it was half a year before my first job interview.
But still, I completely lost hope.
I was like, okay, it either got lost somewhere or they don't want me.
It would be at least nice if somebody found five minutes to write me an email.
Like, thank you for this.
We don't need you.
So I just, yeah, completely lost hope.
And half a year later, I was invited for the first job interview,
which I passed.
But unfortunately, the Lego group stopped hiring employees.
So, but they couldn't share the information with me back then.
I learned about it like just few years ago
from the same guy that was supposed to hire me.
And then I had to wait until he stepped up to the lead role
of the director of the Lego city.
His wingman was appointed the design manager of Lego Technic
and there was vacant position at the end of 2011 again.
So they called me and they were like, we have your portfolio.
I heard good things about you, but I need to see you in person
if you click with me and with the team.
So I flew before Christmas 2011 to Billon,
which was really gray, hazy, rainy talk.
And I was like, is it really the place
where I'm gonna spend the following years
and where I want to spend my following years?
Yeah, everything changed as soon as I entered the design studio
and met all the designers and they were, you know,
like good friends that you knew from the internet,
but they were all welcoming me with open arms
and I just, you know, thought for a second,
like, yes, I can probably survive here.
And look at me. I'm here for 13 and a half years.
Lego Technic models. So yeah.
What amazing story.
The first time you actually touched Lego bricks,
you were maybe 10 years old.
Yeah, I was actually 11, 10 years old when I first touched them,
which is quite late for a kid.
But it was the problem of availability back then
in communist Czechoslovakia where Lego was considered
the evil Western brand and it was hard to get.
So a friend of mine's parents were doctors
and they were members of communist parties.
So they somehow managed to sneak in a few boxes
from the Western Germany.
And I was so amazed by the things that little box could do.
And then, you know, my friend let me play with his Lego
while he was doing something else in the meantime
or while I was afterwards, you know,
helping him with the homework or whatever we did
back in the afternoons.
And I just thought, like, I want more.
We didn't have that much money,
so I got only a few small sets when I was a kid.
But yeah, I left Lego in Lego sets
and playing with them in like 95.
And in 2005, I resurrected something that became
probably an obsession or addiction, I could call it.
And yeah, I can't stop playing with the Lego bricks
even after I'm done at work.
I come home, have a break and then I build in the evenings
as well, so yeah.
What are you working on now?
Oh, I can't tell you, but we are shaping the
the assortment of the Lego Technic product line
for 2027.
I can't even share the stuff that is coming
in four months because that still has an embargo.
I told you the information.
I might not be the senior designer at Lego Technic
from tomorrow.
Right, right, right.
Let me ask you this.
You're always working, like you said, so far ahead.
I mean, a year and a half ahead.
It's almost like an automotive product cycle, isn't it?
Where automotive engineers can't talk about
future product that's coming.
Because they're working so far ahead.
We simply, as a part of our agreement with the company
is that we signed on disclosure agreement
and we can't share any information
about the upcoming products
unless the embargo is already either lifted
or we are allowed to share it with certain media
with permission from the people that are sitting above me.
But yeah, we can easily talk about the stuff
that came this year and the years before,
like the Red Bull F1 that I have.
Yeah, yeah.
So tell me a little bit about the Red Bull F1.
This is a fascinating vehicle.
What's the scale on that?
It's approximately one to eight-ish.
It's not exactly one to eight.
It's tiny bit smaller.
But it is kind of 63, I believe,
centimeter long model or interpretation,
as we call it in Lego Technic,
because it never has the, you know,
all the dimensions and characteristics
of a die cast model.
We always interpret the details
because we need to work with 99% of the elements
that we already have there.
So it needs to be buildable
and you can afterwards rip it apart
and turn it into whatever you want afterwards.
And this was quite a pleasant, actually,
cooperation with the Oracle Red Bull F1 racing team
because they were easy to work with.
They shared with us quite a lot of time ahead
some information about the RB20.
So to build the first prototype,
they were like, you know, just base it off the RB19
and then we can start from there.
We can't disclose much yet,
but since it was approaching the end of the year 2023,
they were like, we will be revealing the RB20
in approximately two and a half months time.
What we can share with you is a media friendly model
which doesn't show all the cards,
doesn't put all the cards on the table,
but will be pretty close in terms of shape,
which is what you need to capture the essence of the RB20.
They told me all the details about the suspension setup
that it was exactly the same as on the RB19,
which is what we needed to start with
while building the chassis.
The engine was exactly the same as well.
And then when the RB20 was officially revealed,
they afterwards just told me like,
oh, by the way, you know,
the amount of blades that you have in the Venturi tunnels.
I was like, yeah, I have four there.
Yeah, just add two.
We simply left something hidden from the media
so we didn't show all our competitors or all the things.
But most of the shaping is correct
and they afterwards told me which things should I adjust
if I build it according to the media friendly model of the car.
So I had access to some 3D assets fairly early on
so I could start working on this beast.
Wow.
Was that the first F1 car you had done?
Yes.
If I take into account F1 cars that I had officially released,
I've done a few in the past,
but it was just fan-based or fan-built models
or alternate builds of other sets.
So yes, this was my first F1.
Are you a Formula One fan?
Yes.
Thanks to Max for stopping again.
I used to follow F1 a lot.
Like in the 80s and 90s,
we used to watch it with my dad.
And then something happened to the design of the F1 cars
and I couldn't watch them any longer.
They lifted the nose off the ground.
This is awful.
I can't look for two hours at such ugly cars going around the track.
So yeah, that was my stopping point.
And afterwards I realized like in 2019, 2020,
that they started looking good again.
So I came back.
How difficult was it from start to finish
to put together a model that so closely resembles the real thing?
You know, I had quite a few times,
I had doubts about what I had on my desk in front of me
because the designers from Red Bull
and all the licensing managers that we cooperated with
very closely were like, oh, this looks great.
But this is not the feedback that I want to hear.
I want to hear feedback like, this is great,
but could you change this?
Could you tweak this?
Could this be done better?
Could this be more accurate?
Could this be angled more towards the front, back, whatever?
So I was like, is it really that good
or are they just overlooking something?
So the more they told me it looks great,
the more I doubt it, it really does.
And the other thing that was quite challenging for me
was following the constant updates on the RB20
throughout the season.
So what I have over here is something that was the car
at the end of April, 2024 approximately.
Wow. And then it kept changing.
And then I stopped changing it because I was like,
if I need to finalize the model,
which was like within a month from that time,
and I need to make the building sequence correct,
you know, align all the elements across
because we, even though this is 18 plus models,
we have some restrictions and guidelines on what you can
and cannot do in terms of like the colors of the parts
and the similarity of them in shape.
Then I had to align the things across.
So I told them like, this is the last update
I'm doing to the shaping.
If you're okay with this, perfectly fine.
And this is how the car is going to look eventually.
And they were like, yeah, yeah, that's great.
The other bit that was super challenging
was the front pull rod suspension
because I really wanted to keep the front nose
really sleek and narrow.
So it's only three modules wide
until you attach the other section of the body,
which is like somewhere over here
and putting fully working suspension
and steering that can hold a model
that weighs approximately kilogram and a half
and is 63 centimeters long.
It was really challenging.
So whenever I came up with a solution,
it was either the steering was rubbing against the wishbones
or it was too soft.
And then I simply had a crazy idea
like what if I flip one of the wishbones upside down
and get a different geometry of the attachment points
and suddenly voila, it worked,
but it took me like a month and a half
to get there just in terms of the front suspension
which I was redoing constantly.
So yeah, it's not a job for everyone.
You need to be ready to redo things many times,
like dozens of times if it doesn't work really.
Do you become so immersed in this at this point
that it becomes an obsession?
Yes.
And whichever model I am in the process of designing,
I am totally like within the envelope
of that car vehicle.
You're living it.
I keep watching it on TV.
I keep researching if there are any updates to that thing.
If it goes through any races, I keep following it
and of course rooting for it
because this is going to be my baby next year.
So yes, it as well helps you to afterwards stay focused simply.
So the more you like the thing that you are working on,
that's the result, I would say.
They're always perfect,
but I try to beat myself every time I design a vehicle.
How do you celebrate the fact that you're finished?
I mean, do you sort of put it on a table
with a glass of champagne and say,
well, there it is.
That would be great.
We can't drink in the office, but...
I mean at home.
It's more like you finished the design part of the model,
but it's never really finished until it exits the market completely
and still even afterwards,
you might get questions in regards of that model.
So it's still with you for a very long period of time
because once you finish the design,
you need to approve the stickers.
You need to approve the packaging for it.
You go for the video shoot of the as with the model.
You prepare the models for special video shoots
like in, I believe, was beginning of November last year.
I had to get two models ready for Sergio and Max
because they were filming them at the Qatar Grand Prix.
They did like a fake pit stop with the Lego model
and it was as well video and photos of video of Max
and Sergio holding the model and admiring the details.
That moment right there, Milan,
has got to be the most gratifying point for you
that you have spent all of this time creating
and molding and shaping and changing and adjusting.
And then you have a Formula One driver that's holding the model
that you've created in your mind and then in reality.
That's kind of so gratifying.
It is mind-blowing feeling, honestly.
After the model was released,
I simply just posted on my social media
who would have thought that a kid that started with Lego
breaks that late and had only few boxes as a kid
would be designing models that a four-time world champion
in F1 would be holding and taking photos of it.
Wow.
Universe sometimes really does spin in funny and unexpected ways.
That's wonderful.
Red Bull, I was going to say Red Bull's reaction,
the driver's reaction must have been super positive.
It was, yes.
And I'm glad that they see all the amount of work
that went into this model.
And I really tried hard to capture every possible detail
given the scale and the constraints
of the Lego Technic platform that we have.
Even redoing constantly some of the shaping
so it fits and looks better as a Lego model
and follows more the real-life concept part.
And there are, of course, some things that are challenging
and you can't fix, but then suddenly you have an idea
that somehow solves it.
So for example, if we look at the front wing in real life,
it's made of four layers of the blades over here.
And if I put four, it would be too thick.
So what we did with the graphic designer
is that we fake the fourth one.
So we split the stickers and it's split into four segments
and it just works.
You know, sometimes even crazy ideas afterwards
just solve the problems.
And usually the simpler the solution, the better.
You're not just selling plastic bricks here.
You're building culture at Lego.
Yeah, you could say that.
After the break, I'll continue my conversation
with the designer Milan Rendell.
To see the interview with Milan,
visit the Cars and Culture YouTube channel.
Subscribe, comment, check out hundreds of conversations
with creators, collectors, and culture makers
who are driving the industry forward.
Welcome back to Cars and Culture. I'm your host, Jason Stein.
Now here's the continuation of my interview with Milan Rendell.
To see the interview with Milan,
visit the Cars and Culture YouTube channel.
Subscribe, comment, and check out hundreds of conversations
with creators, collectors, and culture makers
who are driving the industry forward.
What is, how do you see Lego's role
in the future?
I'm Jason Stein.
Welcome back to Cars and Culture.
I'm Jason Stein.
How do you see Lego's role in the future
of even just the attention
and the energy around motorsports
and more specifically, maybe Formula One?
It's feeding all of it, isn't it?
Sorry?
It's feeding all of it.
Yeah.
Like, you know, the partnership with F1,
if we could say renewed partnership with F1
has, you know, Lego Technic and Lego Races
in the past have been designing Lego F1 cars.
Just renewing it and jumping into the same world again
is more than logical, you know.
The amount of educational capabilities
Lego Breaks do have,
the amount of fun the F1 Races do bring,
and merging these two things together,
so fun from both sides is quite amazing.
And it's as well like, you know, the F1 world,
if you follow just their YouTube channel,
I love as well the technical talks about it,
which, you know, that's what to me as well
should Lego Technic be about educating people
how do things work in real life
and replicating in a simpler way
what do the machines really do.
So, you know, hearing those experts talking about
things like even aerodynamics
or how does the steering suspension
and everything works is quite amazing
and I love, you know, learning
and getting information from both, both the ends.
So, yeah.
And I think kids who build these cars now,
your Technic cars, your Lego Technic cars
will likely maybe go up wanting to be
Formula One engineers or designers.
Or designers, yes.
General car designers.
The more the merrier, of course, you know.
The more knowledge we gather as mankind,
the better for us.
The more education we have, the better it is.
And my uncle once said, you know,
you should learn at least one new information every day
to just, you know, keep your brain occupied
and that's what I tried to go by.
It's so good to be able to express yourself
and as well love things that you're doing,
regardless of what it is.
If you're designing an F1 car
or if you're designing a toy F1 car
or even if you're a dust man,
as soon as you're enjoying the time
that you spend doing something,
it's just, you know, never time wasted.
Well, and you're, after having done the Red Bull build,
I mean, you're an engineer.
You're certainly getting closer.
I'm still a teacher by education
that probably should have gone to a different school.
But on the other hand, it taught me as well other things
and the great thing as well about, you know,
learning all the psychology and education
is that you know the target audience.
You know what is in the kids minds,
how do they grow up, what they are capable of
at certain ages and stages of life.
And that helps me as well designing the LEGO models.
That Red Bull model that you just talked about,
how many pieces in total?
1639 if I remember the number correct.
And how long should that take?
And then tell me what it realistically takes.
To build using instructions, you mean?
Yes.
Yes.
You know, if you are not rushing it
and you have a full day off,
you should be able to finish it by the end of the day.
It can be done within four-ish hours,
but you're not going to enjoy much of the build.
It's going to be really rushed through.
There are as well builders that enjoy, you know,
the fast pace of building somewhere in the middle.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, take your time and just get through it.
Yeah.
Let me ask you some other general LEGO questions.
Do you come up with the design ideas
on things you work on
or do you work according to assignments?
It's both ways.
It's both ways.
Sometimes it's our marketing that come up with the idea.
Doing the market research.
Sometimes it's us coming up with better idea afterwards
and removing one of their ideas out of the assortment
and it works totally both ways.
You've put together some incredible models over the years
and I read that one of the models that you're most proud of
is the Fireplane 42040 that you designed 10 years ago.
Yes.
Unbelievable.
And I saw the image of the plane online.
It is beyond fascinating and complicated and beautiful,
but you said it just ticks all of the boxes
for the great LEGO Technic model
that a Technic model should have.
What did you mean by that?
It's sturdy.
It's functional.
It's playable.
In this case, there's a term swooshable if you've heard of it.
So you can just pretend that you're flying the plane
plus the functions are really easy to operate
with one bigger hand
even if you're flying or pretending to fly with the plane.
Yes.
Plus the development process of this model
was smooth sailing from the beginning till the end.
There were no problems at all whatsoever.
I started the model and I probably built four or five prototypes
and I had something that was 95% finished
and then it was just very tiny and small tweaks.
It turned out great
and back in the day we as well did the B models
and the B model turned out as well really good in my eyes.
As a whole toy, I think it's just great, playable, fun product
that wasn't too big, wasn't as well too difficult to get.
It was like $50 price point
so it's not something that you have to rub a bank to afford.
Yeah, in my eyes, great toy product.
One of the models that you said is the most challenging
was the Land Rover Defender.
Oh yes.
And it was the gearbox you said that was so complicated.
Yeah, back in the day I was tasked with the Land Rover Defender
and there was one asked from the marketing
like what could be the most on this one?
I was like well if you want I can put the most complicated gearbox in it
which is what I did.
It wasn't flawless but it taught me a lot
and sometimes complicated it's not for the good of the product
even though visually and everything it turned out pretty well
but the gearbox had some issues afterwards in the market
which we couldn't foresee when we designed and tested the model
and the model was really tested hard
so it was running, shifting the gears for 12 hours on a treadmill
and there were no issues at all whatsoever
and then people started building the model
and the model started cracking in between the gear wheels
and then we found out it's something that we couldn't have foreseen
and it was not the fault of the design.
It was more than some things were changed without letting us know if you will.
I see, I see.
Yeah, but it was still a fun model and still looks great
I still have it on my shelf in a motorized version.
And another model that was interesting in your story
but that took the most toll on you in terms of stress and workload
a certain Mercedes-Benz model, tell us about that.
I wanted a new and very unique color for it
which was the closest match that we had to the brochures
that the Mercedes-Benz used on the G500 professional line edition
and simply not everybody in production was ready to release all the elements
for such a big amount of elements that I needed for the Mercedes-Benz
so I had to redo and rebuild some of the things
so I could use fewer types of the elements, if you will.
But besides that, the cooperation with Mercedes-Benz was nice
it was mostly agreeing on the color
and afterwards some feedback about like what else could we add
to the car to make it really look like the G500 professional line
really rugged, capable off-roader that you use
not for shopping and show off but for really doing some job in hard to reach terrain
and the final result I hope is good
I still like looking at the model and I'm proud of the achievement
especially in terms of what the chassis is capable of
like the differential locks, the gearbox, the suspension travel
which is something that I've probably overdone a little bit
it actually travels, the suspension travels if you take it to the scale more than on the real G500
because one of the first things I saw in Graz in Austria
where the production is located was the G500 professional line
the previous edition standing on rocks with twisted axles completely
I was like, I need to capture this
so I did and yeah
you can twist the axles and push the suspension even into more extreme positions than on the real car
Wow
Did you ever think that you would be such a car guy, I guess
Can you repeat the question please?
Did you ever think you'd be such a car guy, such a person who is so enamored with vehicles?
I guess I kind of always was but planes were my top interest
in terms of vehicles, I always loved looking at jet planes
no matter if it was passenger ones or jet fighters
and I'm fascinated by the fact that if you just push fuel through a tube and set it on fire
you can make something fly
and the same goes for a combustion engine to be honest
and I simply do admire clean and simple design regardless if it's a car, boat, plane
but yes
joining the LEGO Technic design team taught me a lot more about the engineering that is behind all the vehicles
and probably like the first Danish words I learned as well over here
were the technical terms for things like differential steering suspension
and stuff like this
which is hard to believe but yes
I still understand the words even though I don't have to use them because everybody speaks fluent English in the office
Yeah for sure
Just a couple more questions
What are the qualities that a successful LEGO designer needs to have
if someone's listening to this program and says I want to be a LEGO designer
What do you have 13 and a half years later
what is your recommendation besides just being very patient when you when you do these things right
Patience is the key definitely
the other word that starts with P would be passion
you have to be absolutely passionate about things that you're doing
if you don't like what you're doing just just go somewhere else honestly
you know you're wasting everybody else's and yours time mainly
being ready to learn new things
maybe which is something that you can't probably be taught or learn
but like thinking out of the box
like trying to come up with something that is weird
even at first but might be unique and cool solutions to problems
and be ready to work in a team
if you're flying solo you won't be happy over here
and I don't think they would even hire you
at the LEGO group
you need to be able to you know at one point as well like you know
put your hands off the model
and be ready that somebody else is gonna develop the model or vice versa
when somebody falls ill
you might as well end up with somebody else's model that you've never touched before
have no connection, no knowledge of
and be ready to finish it
so to be ready for that
and if you of course study industrial design
with specialty of toy designing then that would be a definite plus
but it's not a must
there's tons of other professions
formally in our and other LEGO design teams
like in LEGO Technic team
it's very wide variety of former occupations
we have a chef
we have a blacksmith that taught graphic design
we have car mechanic
we have interior car designers
we have you know mechanical engineers
teachers
you name it
it's probably gonna be there somewhere in the LEGO design team
across the organization
is there a
this is not a question about future product
but is there is there an F1 car that you would like to design in the future
whether it's a vehicle from the from current or a vehicle from the past
oh yeah the six wheel Tyrell from from the 70s
that was always like the thing that fascinated me as a kid
I was like this is such a cool design
how come there are not more of these cars
it looks way better than the four wheeled one
so that would be that would be lovely if I if I get to design like a historical F1
otherwise I am rooting for Red Bull at the moment
and but I don't have any any problems designing anybody else's cars to be honest
they all look equally cool
and regardless of their performance
or the placement on the grid
it's always something that I like about different different teams cars
that I could pick up on
and be happy with you know designing it so you know
I'm not that picky
I take the box for Red Bull so I'm fine I've done what I could
yeah yeah is there a is there a favorite track that you would like to visit at some point
maybe to get some inspiration
Silverstone was always like a big name for me since I was a kid
I had the privilege to visit it already once not for an F1 race
but for a LEGO related video shoot
while there was the classic car race on the circuit happening
so every time I could I was just standing on the balcony
overlooking like what was happening on the track
it was it was so amazing
and if I am lucky I might be able to visit the Netherlands Grand Prix in a few weeks time
so yeah fingers crossed everything goes fine there
maybe a trip into the paddock to shake Max for Stappen's hand at some point
oh yeah that would be great yes or maybe even get the signature on the bottom of the car
perfect right exactly exactly yeah
well I know that I know you can't talk about what's next
but I know that probably what's next for you is very exciting
and the things you're working on for 2027
what you're already working on is inspirational
and thank you for sharing your story
and I know that you believe that your story is a very unique one
in how far you've come
and the fact that you're holding a Formula One car
as a former teacher right
I mean yeah what a magical moment for you Milan
yeah it is it is definitely and thanks for having me it was it was a pleasure
yeah yeah it's wonderful thank you thank you for sharing your story
thank you for sharing the car
and and and talking all about Formula One's relationship with Lego
yeah see you take care
great thank you thanks so much
thank you to Milan for sharing his journey
to watch his interview head to the Cars and Culture YouTube channel
like and subscribe and dive into our growing library
of more than 200 episodes
where the road always leads to the people who shape the ride
this is episode 217 of Cars and Culture
I'm your host Jason Stein
we'll see you down the road
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