Has Technic ever been available as bulk parts?

BooTheMightyHamster

Given that Lego is, as much a 'freebuilding' toy as a 'buy a set and make that model' type thing, I often wonder at the difficulty of buying lots of Lego bricks.  Sure you can buy the Classic boxes, which is good for getting the basics. Pick a Brick is handy but expensive, and tends towards the smaller parts, but if you're a Technic fan...

Why, oh why (he said in his letter-to-the-Telegraph voice) don't Lego do Technic parts packs in the same vein as the Classic boxes.
I'm sure they used to do something like that many moons ago.

Come on Lego!

Shib

Not being a technic type I'd never really thought about this, but I have a vague memory of my brother (who was always more technically minded than me) having a tub that was branded with Technic logos...a quick browse of the database in the appropriate time frame doesn't show anything relevant, so it might have been a normal LEGO tub that he put stickers on, or just my memory playing tricks.

I'd imagine a big problem with bulk technic parts packs is that they would only really appeal to AFOLs given that technic free building is essentially engineering. While it's not impossible that it'd happen, it just seems unlikely - by the same merit CCBS fans might want bulk parts packs too, but it seems unlikely.

ColoradoBricks

Those days, the closest you'll find to Technic Pack are on the LEGO education website. I have gotten several of them, mainly Pneumatic packs but they are rather pricey when you buy them by the unit as they are usually sold by 12 or 24.

glosminifigfan

Not sure I have ever seen bulk Technic sets, although it would be a great idea. But I had a quick look at the Brickset database and it does shows and it does show some small ish sets such as a 10072, a polybag of 56 beams which was apparently available online in 2007/2008. And I think there are probably various 'education' sets that contain bulk parts.

madforLEGO

BooTheMightyHamster said:

Given that Lego is, as much a 'freebuilding' toy as a 'buy a set and make that model' type thing, I often wonder at the difficulty of buying lots of Lego bricks.  Sure you can buy the Classic boxes, which is good for getting the basics. Pick a Brick is handy but expensive, and tends towards the smaller parts, but if you're a Technic fan...

Why, oh why (he said in his letter-to-the-Telegraph voice) don't Lego do Technic parts packs in the same vein as the Classic boxes.
I'm sure they used to do something like that many moons ago.

Come on Lego!

They did, and while with many of the sets you could design a vehicle with parts, there were many many different models and also were not really listed as a specific set, but as sets like:
http://brickset.com/sets/8030-1/Universal-Set

It is a bit bizarre they do not do those now, but I think LEGO's reasoning is buy a set and get all the parts you want instead of trying to do supplemental sets. Only because those sets would also likely be fairly expensive.
It is also possible they just do not see the clamoring for such sets and it is not worth the cost to produce them if they just sit around.

BooTheMightyHamster

I need to start clamoring!

Thanks all!