Franzis McLaren Racing Advent Calendar

McLaren Racing Advent Calendar 2026: build a 1:43 Formula 1 model across 24 doors

The McLaren Racing Advent Calendar 2026 is a model kit dressed as a countdown. Behind its 24 doors, Franzis hands you the parts of a McLaren Racing Formula 1 car at 1:43 scale, a piece or small accessory each day, so that by Christmas Eve you have a finished car on its display base. The body is metal, and the whole thing plugs and screws together with no glue needed.

The finished display measures roughly 20 x 15 x 10 cm, car and diorama together, small enough for a desk shelf. The 24 boxes are reversible recyclable cardboard that line up into a large McLaren image front and back. This is a build, not a chocolate box, so it suits an adult who enjoys the making as much as the car.

The spirit of Franzis

Franzis is a German publisher turned model-kit maker, and its advent calendars have become a small genre of their own: a licensed car or aircraft broken into 24 daily assembly steps. The same house makes the Porsche 911 Turbo calendar in the same 1:43 format, so the recipe here is proven.

For McLaren it leans on the licence properly. The parts carry the team’s papaya livery and the 52-page companion book is written with McLaren Racing, the sort of detail that marks out an official kit.

What is inside the McLaren Racing Advent Calendar

Across the 24 doors you get the full parts set for a 1:43 McLaren Racing Formula 1 car: the metal bodywork, the smaller fittings, and the pieces of the base and diorama that the car sits on. One of the days reveals a raised, banked curve on the display that houses an integrated sound module, so a button press gives you a recorded engine note. The 52-page book is the headline extra, not a throwaway leaflet. No paint or glue is required.

Franzis does not publish a content value for this calendar, so I will not invent one. Dividing the launch price by the build across 24 days works out at roughly £2.60 a door. Judge it as a model kit, not a daily treat: a sealed 1:43 F1 model with a sound base and a 52-page licensed book sits in a sensible place for an official piece, even if it is one of the dearer advent calendars going.

The detailed, step-by-step breakdown of all 24 doors is in the SPOILER tab.

My verdict on the McLaren Racing Advent Calendar 2026

What wins me over is the format. Twenty-four small, satisfying jobs beat a chocolate calendar for anyone who likes working with their hands, and the finished car plus the 52-page book written with the team make it feel like a proper McLaren object you keep. As a McLaren fan put it to me, ‘it’s the only advent calendar I’ve actually been sad to finish’.

Where it gives me pause is the price and the patience it asks. This is one of the dearer advent calendars going, and 24 days of small, fiddly steps will frustrate anyone hoping for instant gratification. The metal parts and screw fittings want a steady hand, so treat it as a slow project across December, not a kit you rush through in an evening.

• Not for you if you want chocolate, a quick thrill, or a model you can finish in one sitting.
• Worth every step if you are an F1 fan or model-maker who enjoys the build and wants an official piece that lasts well beyond December.

Franzis and the versions of this calendar

Franzis is one of the few makers that treats the advent calendar as a 24-day build, and the McLaren kit sits in a small range alongside its licensed Porsche calendars: a real badged car, broken into daily steps, finished on a display base. That heritage is why the McLaren edition reads as a serious model kit.

• Buy on Amazon, the version covered here.
• Franzis also makes a Porsche 911 Turbo calendar in the same 1:43 format, for those after a road car rather than an F1 one.

Where to buy the McLaren Racing Advent Calendar 2026

The 2026 edition is sold through Amazon, and it sits among the dearer advent calendars. Compare the live offers at the top of this page before you order.

• Discount code: no code is available at the time of writing.
• Delivery: check the delivery terms on the Amazon listing before you order.
• Release: Franzis has not confirmed a precise on-sale date for 2026; these kits can sell through in the run-up to Christmas, so secure one early if you want to start on 1 December.

Find all the advent calendar deals here.