Attacks on LEGO Sites

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Regular readers of this shady corner of the internet will know that one of the sites our Elves frequent for models is Eurobricks, an expansive fan forum containing thousands of Lego topics.

However over the past week it’d been very quiet from our Eurobricks based Elves, so we headed there ourselves to check it out and… couldn’t.

It turns out Eurobricks experienced a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDOS) attack, where their servers were flooded with traffic, taking the site offline. Eurobricks is now back up and running after the team there implemented a fix which you can read about here, but coincidentally(?) we’re undergoing some seriously unusual traffic too.

In fact, every day for the last few days we’ve received as many visits in 24 hours as we usually do in a month. That’s tens of thousands of visits a day. But note ‘visits’, not ‘visitors’, as almost all are from the same U.S desktop.

Which means unless a very enthusiastic reader has just discovered us and is working their way through our entire archive one post at a time, strange things are afoot.

So far TLCB hasn’t fallen over (we’re as surprised as you!), but if you do have trouble accessing us please let us know. Although if that is the case you probably won’t be able to read this nor comment, so perhaps this whole post is moot…

Anyway, welcome back online Eurobricks and you can show them your support via the link above!

Winning Horse

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Modern Formula 1 cars last just one season. But back in the 1970s Scuderia Ferrari created a car that lasted for six. And it won four of them, making it the most successful design in Formula 1 history.

First competing in 1975, the Ferrari 312T featured a tubular steel spaceframe, a transverse 3 litre flat-12 making around 500bhp, and excellent reliability. The version we have here today is the T4 variant, featuring aerodynamic modifications to take the Constructor’s World Championship back from Lotus, whose ‘ground effect’ design ended the 312T’s winning streak in 1978.

It worked too, returning the Constructor’s title to Ferrari and giving Jody Scheckter the Driver’s Championship. This fabulous recreation of the 312 T4 comes from Andre Pinto of Flickr, and captures Scheckter‘s title-winning car in spectacular detail.

Custom chromed pieces, authentic replica decals, and stunning internals make Andre’s Ferrari 312T one of the finest vintage Formula 1 cars we’ve published yet, and you can find all the images at his ‘Ferrari 312 T4’ album via the link above.

The First of Many

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It’s 1970, and northern France is being pounded by heavy rain. Of the dozens of starters at that year’s Le Mans 24 Hours, only seven remain. The leading three are built by a manufacturer that has never won the race before. Richard Attwood and Hans Herrmann’s Porsche Salzburg 917K crosses the finish line five laps ahead of the rest, beginning a run that to date includes nineteen outright wins, making Porsche the most successful manufacturer in Le Mans history.

This fantastic Speed Champions homage to that first victory comes from SFH_Bricks of Flickr, whose Porsche Salzburg 917K includes a tremendous replica livery courtesy of Brickstickershop. Building instructions are available and you can head to a soaking Circuit de la Sarthe fifty-six years ago via the link above.

Beef Pew

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Along with cyberpunk and melon as a starter, we really don’t understand sci-fi. And that’s why, in our minds, pretty much all spaceships go ‘pew-pew!’. Except today, because this one goes ‘PEW-PEW’. Probably. It’s beefy.

That beef begins with two LEGO City cement mixer drum pieces on either side, whilst a Second World War bomber-like gun turret provides the ‘pew’-ing. Sorry, ‘PEW’-ing.

Flickr’s Thomas Jenkins is the builder behind it and you can join him for some beef pew at his photostream. Click the link above for a taste, or wait for a proper Lego site to blog this without referring to a bovine based broth.

Cyberpunk Skyline

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Things TLCB doesn’t understand; Star Trek. Pugs. Melon as a starter. Trap music. Marvel. Cyberpunk.

Which means we’re rather out of our depth here with these two cyberpunk Nissan Skylines of different vintages, and thus our only commentary is ‘don’t they look cool!’.

Flickr’s Sergio Batista owns the cyberpunk pairing and you can take a closer look at each neon Nissan at his photostream via the link above. And seriously, how is melon as a starter acceptable?

String Theory

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Unifying quantum mechanics and general relativity, String Theory proposes that the universe is composed of vibrating one-dimensional strings instead of points, incorporating all particles and forces into a single framework. Alternatively it’s adding some string to a LEGO set to make a new one. We’re doing the latter today…

This is paave’s Technic mobile crane, and it’s built only from the parts of the 42175 LEGO Technic Volvo FMX Truck & EC230 Electric Excavator set. Plus a piece of string.

Featuring working steering, outriggers, boom elevation and extension, superstructure rotation, and an inline-6 engine, paave’s alternate is an excellent reconstitution of the 42175 donor, and one you can build for yourself as instructions are available. As long as you have some string. Find a link to them and further build details on Eurobricks via the link above.

YouTube Video

Marlboro Men

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We’re heading back to the turn of the decade today. No the one before that. And the one before that. Yes it’s the late ‘80s, when greed was good and cigarettes were cool.

Cue this glorious pair of classic Formula 1 cars, each made by TLCB Master MOCer Carl Greatrix and each sponsored by the world’s favourite cancer sticks.

Featuring superb custom decals and 3D-printed wheels, Carl has perfectly replicated the McLaren Honda MP4/4 that dominated the 1988 season (winning fifteen of the sixteen races), and the V12-powered Ferrari 641 that came second in the 1990 F1 Championship.

Wonderful detailing abounds and there’s much more to see of both the McLaren and Ferrari on Flickr. Buy a forty-pack of Marlboros via the links above.

Perfect Paint

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TLCB’s home nation likes a neatly painted truck. Most trucks are still plain white of course, but many firms go the extra mile with their visual identity, painting their vehicles in beautiful colours that hark back to the days of horse-drawn carts, canal boats, and traction engines. This is one such truck, a Volvo FH12 operated by Newis heavy haulage and constructed superbly by Flickr’s Ralph Savelsberg. There’s more to see at Ralph’s photostream and you get your brushes out via the link above.

LEGO 77984 Jurassic Park Jeep Wrangler | Set Preview

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An adventure 2,000 bricks in the making… this is the brand new LEGO 77984 Jurassic Park Jeep Wrangler!

Crashing through cinema screens back in 1993, the square-headlamped Jeep Wrangler instantly became an icon of film, despite being quite literally in the shadow of pursuing dinosaurs.

Part of an expansive new LEGO ‘Jurassic World’ line-up that includes dinosaur skeletons, Duplo, and mini-figure scale sets, 77984 brings one of the most recognisable movie cars of all time to the 18+ Icons range.

Constructed from 1,924 pieces, including a trick new canvas roof, 77984 allows for any one of four different variants of the Jurassic Park Jeep to be created. All feature working steering via the spare wheel, a lovely engine under an opening hood, opening doors, a variety of accessories from the movie, plus an info plaque and a Dennis Nedry mini-figure ready to meet a gruesome end.

Expected to cost £179.99 / $199.99 / €199.99, you’ll be able to get your claws on the LEGO 77984 Jurassic Park Jeep Wrangler set from May 2026.

Double Head

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This bizarre machine is a 1984 DAF ‘Double-Head’, built to compete in the Paris-Dakar rally by Dutch driver Jan de Rooy, who wanted more power than one DAF truck could provide. So he used two.

Joining two 11.6 litre DAF 3300s back-to-back behind the cabs, Jan created a twin-engined all-wheel-drive 13-ton behemoth, and one of the strangest Dakar competitors to ever enter.

Sadly the DAF ‘Double-Head’ failed to finish, but it set the template for Jan de Rooy to refine the idea and return with a vehicle that would go on to become a Dakar legend…

But we’ll stay in 1984 for now, courtesy of this spectacular recreation of the DAF ‘Double-Head’ by Flickr’s p.vanderloo, who has replicated not just the truck’s mad exterior but its drivetrain too.

A beautifully replicated livery and full LED lights complete the build, and you can head to the desert in 1984 – twice – via the link above.

Turbo Twin

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The early years of turbocharging – characterised by  chronic lag and spiky handling – were dominated by a few companies; BMW, Porsche, and – more weirdly – Renault.

Weirdly, because Renault didn’t have a sports sedan or sports car to put a turbo into, so they put one into their dinky 5 supermini. And it was mega.

Mid-rear engined, rear-wheel-drive, and powered by a turbocharged 1.4 litre making 160bhp, the R5 Turbo was a smash hit, and now you can create one for yourself if you own another ‘80s turbocharged icon, LEGO’s excellent 10295 Porsche 911 set.

Featuring working steering, a detailed interior and engine, plus opening doors and hood, Firas Abu-Jaber’s Renault 5 Turbo alternate is the perfect turbocharged twin to the 10295 donor.

Building instructions are available and you can find a link to them, plus all of the superb imagery, at Firas’ photostream. Click the link above to boost on over, or here to learn more about how Firas does it.

Atomic Wedgie

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Tightly-whiteys, budgie smugglers, keggs, chuddies… You’ll have to ask David Roberts why he’s designed a spaceship to look like a giant pair of undercrackers, but if you do, please also ask him why he didn’t build this in white. Perhaps with a brown streak at the rear. A missed opportunity David…

Not in Iran

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If you’ve been vaguely aware of the news over the past few weeks it’s been getting a bit bomby in the Middle East.

That’s because President Trump knew that Iran were going to start a war with America, a war that they in fact started 47 years ago, and so he started a war himself, that’s not a war, that Iran started. Ok it might be a war, but it’s not about regime change. It’s about Iran’s imminent use of the nuclear weapons that America “completely and totally obliterated” only last year. Although the regime has also changed.

Anyway, the not-a-war will only last a few weeks, in fact it’s already been won. Although it might go on forever. And NATO need to grow a pair a get involved. Not that Trump needs them.

And if all that sounds like the ravings of an unfiltered toddler making the words up literally as they leave their mouth, that’s because it is.

Thus here’s NATO’s actual front line – the one designed to keep America safe from the Soviet Union behind the buffer of Europe, which isn’t in the Middle East at all – a tremendous Czech Tatra 815-7 8×8 Starkom electronics jammer.

Constructed by Samuel Nerpas (aka Tatrovak), this incredible creation features all-wheel-drive and all-wheel-steering via eight Power Functions XL Motors and two Servos, working all-wheel suspension with adjustable ride height via two M Motors, and pneumatically driven stabilisers via another M Motor. Two CaDa micromotors power the roof-mounted weapons system, with all fifteen operable remotely via a pair of BuWizz Bluetooth bricks, plus there’s a tilting cab complete with a fully detailed interior, opening doors and hatches.

It’s a hugely impressive build, and you can take a closer look at what is still the front line of NATO, which is not in Iran, via both Eurobricks and Flickr.

LEGO Speed Champions 77262 Ken Block’s ‘65 Ford Mustang Hoonicorn V1 | Set Preview

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Internet – this set is for you! Yes one of web’s most famous cars is about to join the Speed Champions line-up, because this is the brand new LEGO Speed Champions 77262 Ken Block’s ‘65 Ford Mustang Hoonicorn V1!

Constructed from 345 pieces, 77262 brings one of the most famous (and fan recreated) cars of modern times to the LEGO range, and unlike the copycat brick brands, this Hoonicorn is officially licensed.

Which of course means a lot of stickers – even without the Monster Energy sponsorship that would have necessitated an 18+ age recommendation (because energy drinks will one day deservedly be seen like cigarettes) – but also the late Ken Block himself in mini-figure form, replica gold wheels, and some of the Hoonicorn’s key details visible in the 2014 ‘Gymkhana 7’ film.

Aimed at ages 9+, the new 77262 Ken Block’s Ford Mustang Hoonicorn V1 set will reach stores in June of ‘26, and is expected to cost $29.99 / £22.99 / €27.99. Start planning your miniature L.A. streets recreation in which to drift it now…

Liebherr Lifts

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This is a Liebherr LTM mobile crane, and it shows that sometimes small-scale building isn’t actually small at all.

Built by Flickr’s Keko007, this Liebherr can get really very large indeed, thanks to a three stage elevating boom with a working winch. There’s also four-axle steering, functional outriggers, and a tilting control cab, and you see lots more of Keko’s surprisingly large erection at his ‘Liebherr LTM 1230-5’ album via the link above.