Recently, a good friend gave me a box full of old LEGO® elements. It included lots of BIONICLE® sets and some parts that I looked at and thought, “That’s flego!” (“Flego” = Fake LEGO® elements.)
But on inspection, I saw the logo and a part number. So I looked it up and learned something about a “new” line of LEGO® products I was unfamiliar with, called ZNAP®. ZNAP® debuted in 1998 and departed in 1999 – apparently not a commercial success. The ZNAP line includes 19 sets over those two years. Here’s how we figured out which set.
The Detective Story
The most interesting element in all of this was a long, flexible version of a technic axle. Once again, I’d never seen anything like it and questioned its authenticity.
To answer that question, I went to BrickLink and searched their catalog. BrickLink revealed that this was a genuine LEGO® element, featured in exactly 2 sets – both ZNAP® sets. Comparing the parts lists shows that these parts
appear in only one of the two candidates. While not complete, these parts came from set 3571, The Blackmobile. Sadly, we don’t have the motor, but there’s a lot of other unique parts which haven’t been produced in 20 years.
Interested? Here’s a link to the ZNAP parts in our store.
