In order to further ease building of the Technic range of sets, the LEGO company will start using different colors to produce the different gear wheels according to their size.
Starting January 2008, the smaller 8-teeth gear wheels will all be produced in red, 16-tooth wheels in blue, and 24-teeth wheels in yellow. Other colors are still undecided, although it is rumored that axles will also change from the current black and “grey” to white. Whether it will be white or a a new kind of white is unknown too.
While no further list of changes has been published yet, people in the know hint that the wheels and teeth will be made bigger, and that the number of teeth may change as well to accommodate for the bigger sizes.
After the color-coding of other Technic elements such as connector pegs, this is the next step in making life easier for fans all ages. The LEGO company hopes these measures will help reduce the time required to build its most advanced models, as this ever increasing time hinders their popularity.
Sales could also increase as the number of fans required to build a set will be reduced from 5 to 4; thus ensuring more sets are sold for the same total number of people.
When asked for comments, a fan sarcastically replied “Changing the axle colors? Yeah, sure, whey pieces! Just what we need!”