Lego Mario Kart finally leaves the start line… next January

3, 2, 1, Let‘s-a… wait a little bit longer. The first six Lego Mario Kart sets have been officially unveiled, but eager brick builders won’t be starting their engines any time soon. Put January 1st in your diary instead – and start saving if you want more than one kart on your grid come launch day.

Lego had previously said the line-up would be getting the green light in 2025, but didn’t say exactly when – or what sets would appear at launch. The first six have now completed their parade lap, with baby versions of Mario, Luigi and Princess Peach in pole position. Yoshi, Donkey Kong and Toad complete the initial offering.

As expected, minifig-scale Mario characters are still a no-go, and I’m a little gutted there’s no way to recreate Rainbow Road just yet, but there are plenty of nods to the racing series.

The 133-piece, $15/£12/€15 Yoshi Bike kicks off the range, with a blue Yoshi on a green motorbike, complete with green and red shells, a banana skin, item box and traffic cones.

Then there’s the 174-piece, $20/£18/€20 signature red kart from Mario Kart 8, complete with detachable glider, weapons, exhaust flame trails and Toad in a pit crew uniform. With no driver included, you’ll need to supply a character from the existing Lego Super Mario sets: saddle up Mario, Luigi or Princess Peach from those sets and they’ll make suitable sound effects, like drifting kart tyres and honking horns.

Donkey Kong and his DK Jumbo barrel car are bit more involved, at 387 pieces and $35/£30/€35. It comes with a stud shooter that can actually fire red and green shells at the included target.

If you want two karts to actually, y’know, race each other, you’ll need to step up to the Baby Mario vs. Baby Luigi set. The balloon battle pair puts Baby Mario in the Biddybuggy and Baby Luigi in the Tri-Speeder, and equips them each with shell launchers to target the included balloons. The 321-piece set will set you back $30/£25/€30.

The 390-piece, $40/£35/€40 Toad’s Garage set puts two Toads in blue pit crew uniforms to work on Mario Kart 8’s B Dasher kart, complete with car lift, tools and workbench. There’s an all-important shell launcher, but no driver included in the box.

The championship leader has to be the 823-piece Baby Peach & Grand Prix Set, which has a starting gate, podium, track markers and a Lakitu to show the green lights. It comes with Toad on a bike, Baby Peach in the Wild Wiggler kart, and Lemmy the Koopaling in the Landship. It’s the priciest of the lot, at $80/£70/€80 – although still relatively affordable compared to some of Lego’s recent Nintendo licensed efforts.

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