How the LEGO Group cooked up the original LEGO Star Wars UCS X-wing

The Force of Creativity author Graham E. Hancock reveals how the LEGO Star Wars team created the original UCS X-wing – and how it was actually scaled to a LEGO figure…

When I started working on LEGO Star Wars: The Force of Creativity, I was really excited to research and write about the Ultimate Collector Series (UCS). It has been an absolute mainstay of the Star Wars theme, running for 24 of its 25 years. Other series have come and gone, but these epic display models have staying power. There have been so many detailed starfighters, capital ships, freighters and more that if you only buy the UCS sets, you still have a huge collection. 

But it all started as an experiment. Design Master Henrik Andersen is a very prolific designer indeed and he told me just how inconspicuously this collection began. Back in the late 1990s, Henrik joined the LEGO Group as part of the design department. He was placed in Model Team, a theme that offered scale models of real-world vehicles.

The only drawback was that Model Team was winding down when Henrik joined the project. Instead of the small and medium-sized sets for the more mature builder, the LEGO Group’s strategy was shifting to a different approach with sets even more explicitly targeted at adults.

Henrik and his manager embarked on a phase of exploration, trying out different models to see what could work in what would become the Advanced Models theme. Because the LEGO Group had just acquired the Star Wars licence, they tried out a few different spaceships at a bigger-than-minifigure scale.

In fact, Henrik did scale the X-wing he was working on around a figure – a LEGO Technic figure. During the 1990s, the LEGO Group’s complex engineering-focused theme included articulated characters in the sets. With their pitch-black shades, these guys epitomised 1990s ‘cool’, but were a little bit at odds with the function-orientated nature of Technic. 

One of those figures fit inside the cockpit of the X-wing sketch model – Henrik even painted one up and placed it inside – but it was a ‘just for fun’ moment rather than anything that was actually being considered for the set. Although the Technic figure didn’t make it into the box, a SCALA flowerpot element was used as part of the engines. Today, seeing pieces from different themes used in new ways is commonplace; back then though, it was bold and unorthodox. 

LEGO Star Wars was still very new at the time, so there was a lot to consider in creating 7191 X-wing Fighter. The Design Master tried out different colours to see what might work, including a dark grey version of the ship. He attempted to convey the dirty, battle-worn look that the ships have in the film, resulting in a model that has more colour variation than later UCS X-wings.

To make it clear that this model was for display rather than play, Henrik built a black display stand with an information plaque. He couldn’t have known at the time that every single UCS model that followed would continue that tradition. 

What’s really great about this story is that it doesn’t end with that original X-wing – the UCS range offered the ship again as 10240 Red Five X-wing Starfighter in 2013. Henrik was the model coach on that one, bringing his expertise to help ensure the second one lived up to the exacting LEGO standards that every set must meet.

Two decades after he kicked off the whole run of detailed sets for adults, Henrik designed the ship again himself. 75355 X-wing Starfighter was released in 2023 and features the most accurate shaping yet. In an illustration of how times have changed, he started his design work on the new one with digital tools rather than physical bricks.

That full circle moment has happened again with the release of 75382 TIE Interceptor, this year’s UCS model for May the 4th. Back in 2000, the X-wing’s partner set was 7181 TIE Interceptor, so Henrik has now had the opportunity to deliver the two sets that started his LEGO career to a modern standard.

Of course, there have been a lot of UCS sets in the years between 2000 and 2023… and in LEGO Star Wars: The Force of Creativity, I dedicate a whole chapter to them. Certain sets are called out for special attention as they tell part of this evolving collection’s story, which went from two pretty large starfighters to absolutely massive models like 75192 Millennium Falcon. It might have started off as an experiment, but it has definitely earned the U in UCS over the past 25 years.

LEGO Star Wars: The Force of Creativity is available to pre-order now, and will start shipping from July 20. Don’t miss all of this year’s LEGO Star Wars May the 4th deals and all of our LEGO Star Wars 25th anniversary coverage.

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