Yearly Archives: 2019

Green Machine

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We like a good tractor here at The Lego Car Blog. After all, they’re responsible for the production of the tasty vegetables and even tastier meats that reside in TLCB Fridge. This excellent Technic tractor comes from previous bloggee Thirdwigg and it’s a John Deere 6130R, complete with a working piston engine, front and rear power take-offs, steering and drawbars. There’s more to see of Thirdwigg’s build on Flickr, Brickshelf, and at the Eurobricks discussion forum – head to the farm via the links above.

Timber Wolf

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This is a Timber Wolf. Nope, us neither, but it’s a very cool build and there’s more to see courtesy of Kale Frost on Flickr. Click the link to make the jump.

Looks Like a Fish, Moves Like a Fish, Steers Like a Cow*

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This magnificent Octan Space Racer – imagined for the iconic video game ‘Wipeout’ – comes from TLCB favourite David Roberts, who has very much taken the ‘more is more’ route with power, and the ‘it’ll be fine’ route with steering. Kinda like a Camaro.

To quote the builder “Built for speed, it was equipped with two massive engines from Whatt & Pritney. Much of the underside of its nose was given to heat exchanger pipes. This cooling array boosted the power of the engines considerably. If the designers had paid as much attention to the steering it might have been a successful racer.”

Yup, a Camaro then. See more at David’s photosteam via the link above.

*TLCB Points available if you know the link.

Head Scratcher

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We don’t know who Poe Dameron is, what a Head Starter is, or even where the head in this model by Flickr’s ianying616 has come from (is it LEGO?). However we do know it’s shiny, has a racing stripe, and an implausibly enormous engine, which means had we not have featured it the Elves would’ve started a riot. There’s more to see at ianying’s photostream via the link above where you can try to work it out.

Restoration Ralph

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Restoring a car is a tricky business, but it’s slightly easier on an old pick-up truck such as this Ford F100. Everything bolts on and off a frame, there are virtually no electrics, and about three spanner sizes will undo every bolt. Of course it’s easier still in LEGO form…

This neat F100 restoration scene comes from regular bloggee Ralph Savelsberg, who has depicted the classic pick-up in various stages of reassembly. A variety of tools are included too and there’s more to see of Ralph’s restoration on Flickr via the link above.

Beetle Drive

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The Elves, driven by hunger and a strict ‘find us a bloody car’ policy have started to return to TLCB Towers. They’ve come up trumps too as this most excellent Volkswagen Käfer (or Kaefer) Racer comes from Lino Martins and is his first car for almost two years. Pictured alongside the Hot Wheels toy it’s based on, Lino’s heavily modified Beetle features a removable body, a mid-mounted V8 engine, and official LEGO decals. See more on Flickr at the link.

Fictional Fighter

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From one strange vintage aircraft to another, only this one isn’t real. This oddly-shaped aircraft comes from the mind of Jon Hall, being constructed in his trademark ‘sky-fi’ style, and featuring some rather lovely detail and decal work. It’s called the ‘P-65 Tomahawk’ and it looks a bit like one of those terrifying crab thingies or the alien from Alien. Head to Jon’s photostream via the link above to check it out, whilst we enforce a strict ‘Bring Us Back a Bloody Car’ policy on our Elven workforce. We’ll see you in, er… a few days? A week? It depends on what you lot build…

Lightning Bolt!

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Lightning is always cool. OK, not always; this guy took some liberties. But other than that it’s cool. One of fastest and most terrifying forces in nature, lightning also makes a for a great aircraft name. It’s been used twice that we know of, the second being the unhinged English Electric Lightning and the first being this; the glorious Lockheed P-38J Lightning. The Lockheed P-38’s usual (and we think quite beautiful) twin boom design makes it an oddity in the aircraft world, and even more so considering it first entered service in 1941.

Deployed as a bomber, a long range escort fighter, a ground attack craft, for photo reconnaissance, and as a night fighter, the P-38 flew throughout the entire American involvement in World War Two in a vast array of theatres, with over 10,000 produced in just 4 years.

This colourful mini-figure scale version of the iconic warbird comes from previous bloggee John C. Lamarck of Flickr, who has done a wonderful job recreating the P-38 Lightning in lego form. The hand-drawn decals add to the cartoonish nature of the build too, and there’s more to see at John’s photostream by clicking here.

Not a Car

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But a pair of Abt locomotives that are, well… beautiful. We thought Abt were a motorsport company specialising in Volkswagen Group products, but then we are a car blog after all. Sharing a name but otherwise totally unrelated are these Abt locos built for the Mount Lyell Mining Company’s narrow gauge railway on the Tasmanian West Coast. And they really are built for Tasmania’s West Coast, as builder Alexander (aka narrow_gauge) was commissioned to create these for The West Coast Wilderness Railway who now run the real restored locomotives. Custom decals, 3D printed valve gear and motors complete the realism, and there’s more to see at Alexander’s photostream via the link above (or at the The West Coast Wilderness Railway Museum).

Creamsicle

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Porsche and Volkswagen have history as long as the two companies’ existence. A shared dark past links the Beetle and the 911, the 1980s 924 was powered by a VW van engine, and more recently Volkswagen have bought Porsche outright, adding the brand to their ever-increasing and possibly slightly evil empire.

But before ‘dieselgate’, some of the largest fines and lawsuits in corporate history, and an ongoing criminal investigation, Volkswagen and Porsche collaborated to create something rather more charming than breathing difficulties and lung cancer. This is that collaboration, the slightly odd but utterly wonderful VW-Porsche 914/916.

Launched in 1969 the VW-Porsche 914 was produced until 1976, with 120,000 made during that run. A flat-4 engine powered the Volkswagen version, whilst it was joined by an optional flat-6 in the Porsche, giving the two ‘914/4’ and ‘914/6’ names depending upon the engine specified, with power ranging from 75 to 110bhp.

This gorgeous Technic recreation of the Porsche 914 comes from newcomer Wilbert Engels who has built the ’70s oddity beautifully in Lego form. Wilbert’s model includes working suspension, steering with Ackermann geometry, pop-up head-lights, a removable roof, adjustable seats, a gearbox, and a choice of both the flat-4 and flat-6 engines that powered the real cars.

There’s much more to see of Wilbert’s brilliant Porsche 914 at both his Flickr album and at the Eurobricks discussion forum, including a full gallery of images and build specifications.

Take a look via the links in the text above, and cross your fingers that Volkswagen and Porsche can return to making cars like this, rather than an ever expanding range of depressingly identikit SUVs.

Pair of Old Grannies

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We love Ford’s classic Granada. Once worthless banger fodder (and still banger fodder sadly), the Granada is slowly but surely becoming rather cool. There might not be any left by the time it does though, so if not here are two brilliant small-scale examples built by Mateusz Waldowski of Flickr. Mateusz’s brown station wagon has appeared on these pages before and has now been joined by the more common sedan variant, both superbly recreated in 6-wide form with the help of a few stickers/silver marker. Head to Mateusz’s Mk1 Ford Granada album via the link above to see all the images.

Drop It Like It’s Hot

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Crap. Sci-Fi. Well the proper Lego blogs will probably pick this up at some point, so you can read some actual descriptive text about this when they do. Until then, this is Rat Dude‘s ‘Red Morn One’ ‘drop shuttle’, with lots of quotation marks going on as we don’t know what any of that means. It is a lovely build though, and it’s micro-scale too, making it a rather chunky thing to boot. See more on Flickr via the link, or at the proper blogs when they find it.

*Today’s title track. You don’t get that at The Brothers Brick (although you do get professionalism).

“You Can Push it Across the Finish Line… Or You Could Tow it”

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This car as a lot to answer for. Arriving as a wreck in the first ‘The Fast and the Furious’ movie, prompting Jesse’s quote above, Brian’s MkIV Supra Targa became one of the most famous cars on the planet. At least with fourteen year old keyboard warriors.

‘The Fast and the Furious’ franchise has gone on, nine movies later and counting, to become Universal’s highest grossing franchise. With $5 billion in the bank and an untold number of terrible plot lines to continue (seriously, how many dead characters/bad guys are going to return/turn good and join the team?) it seems Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson will have a lot more cheques to cash yet.

The Supra meanwhile, took a (seventeen year) break, but now it’s back too (and has surely got to feature in the next movie?). The aforementioned fourteen year old keyboard warriors hate it, because it’s not the car from the first movie, but by all accounts the MkV Supra is actually bloody good.

Anyway, back to the first film – but far from the first Supra – and Brian’s modified MkIV, recreated here beautifully in Speed Champions-esque style by TLCB regular Simon Przepiorka, complete with the slightly silly livery made famous in the movie, an enormous wing, and whole heck of a bodykit.

There’s more of Simon’s Toyota Supra MkIV from ‘The Fast and the Furious’ to see at his photostream – click the link above to do a 1/4 mile in 10 seconds…

Mars Corp.

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The Mars Corporation is set to branch out a bit in the future, if Flickr’s BobDeQuatre is to believed. Currently makers of pet food, chewing gum, Uncle Ben’s rice, and… er, Mars bars, apparently the company will one day need an off-road buggy fitted with an enormous plasma rifle. Perhaps Pedigree Chum is going to get some more exotic ingredients…

Whatever its purpose, there’s more to see of Bob’s ‘Mars Corporation Escort Vehicle’ at his Flickr album. Click the link above to take a closer look – just don’t ask how your dog food is made.

Tanker Truck Tribute

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Last month we had the tremendously sad job of reporting the news that previous bloggee and legendary truck builder Ingmar Spijkhoven had lost his fight with motor neurone disease. This debilitating disease has no cure, with most sufferers living no more than 5 years from diagnosis. For Ingmar and the thousands of other sufferers there is – at the moment – only one outcome.

Ingmar was unable to visit Lego events towards the end, so his fellow Dutch builders decided to build tribute models to him for the Legoworld 2019 show, an idea he apparently loved.

One such tribute was built by fellow truck builder Bricksonwheels, who took one of Imgmar’s superb trailer designs and added a wonderful Peterbilt 389 truck, chroming each model beautifully and equipping the truck with Power Functions motors and SBrick bluetooth remote control.

Ingmar sadly died a week before the model was completed, but it will be shown at Legoworld alongside the other tributes to him in a dedicated area.

You can see more of Bricksonwheels’ stunning tanker truck tribute to one of the Lego Community’s greatest builders by clicking here, and you can help to change the inevitable outcome of motor neurone disease diagnosis by donating to the research that is underway to find cure.

ALS Association | MND Association