A first image, from 8265 Wheel Loader

Here something, you have been waiting for...
After some blurry photos from a dealer catalog being published about two weeks ago, here one of the first images for the new 8265 (Wheel Loader) to be released in the 2H2009.

It resembles a lot to the "8459, Front-End Loader" from 1997 and its later re-editions (8464 from 2001 and 8439 from 2004). These were pneumatic models making use of the LEGO air tank and pneumatic cylinders. See below for easier comparation.

The new 2009 model, will use the Linear Actuators instead (2 of them, as it looks from the first pictures).
Apart from the LAs and as far as we can see from the box image, there are no other Power Functions elements included in this set, like motors, etc... But hopefully there will be some other large PF enabled set, still for 2009 and perhaps some instructions to motorize this Wheel Loader too.
As far as it seems, there is also an HOG in the cabin top, which would allow to steer the vehicle.
Although from this low detailed image, we can't see if it features the articulated-steering common in these kind of machinery, or something else.

This is a very nice looking model, following the tendency that TECHNIC models have been showing, whereas the new aesthetic details being introduced from one generation to next generation of the same model, a few years later, are getting better an better.

This Wheel Loader set, will arrive in a 582 x 378 x 87 mm sized box, which should make it very similar in size, partcount and probably price range to the 2008 "8295, Telescopic Handler", whose building style seems to have much in common.
As for the building style, the new Wheel Loader, also seems to be quite close to other relative recent sets like the "8275, Bulldozer" or "8421, Mobile Crane", which also make use of some parts with studs for the pleasure of many TECHNIC fans.
Even this low-res picture, seems to show however a style closer to what many TECHNIC fan builders use to do. Closer to a Model Team style and less exposure to beams and liftarms. We will see better, as soon as more detailed pictures start to get distributed.


The questions I'd like to see answered for the moment, are:

• Will it allow independent and simultaneous control, of both bucket movements (through the two LAs), or does it has a driving ring mechanism to switch between both?
  
• Will it include instructions to motorize it with PF motors? Which functions? How many motors?
  

Did you like the new 2009 Wheel Loader? Tell us (leave a comment)!



Unfortunately, don't have images from the other 2H2009 TECHNIC sets, to post, but hope they do not take too long, to pop-up somewhere...

If we remember the Whung's list from last August and believing on it (it had been pretty reliable up to now), the only missing sets at the moment are:

• Pisten Buly (or Snow Groomer)
• Crane Truck
  Despite spectacular, hope it won't be a 8421 (Mobile Crane) re-edition or a PF redesign.
• Hauler
  Actual evidences make me believe this might have always been the set 8264, which I first called 'Dumper Truck' and others 'Transport Truck'. I was not sure at the time, what an Hauler must be, after some search.
  If this is the case only rest the first two, which make 3 sets for the 2nd half, as it was the case in 2008.
  

For the most skeptical, take also a look on the new "8169, Lamborghini Gallardo". A very nice LEGO car, but definitely not a TECHNIC set, isn't it?