The best imaginations are based on reality. This odd looking machine is a ‘Savoia S-21’ as depicted in the Japanese animated movie ‘Porco Rosso’. It is however, based on a real Italian 1920s air racer, that if anything looked even stranger than its cartoon counterpart. Eero Okkonen is the creator of this appealing brick-built interpretation, complete with the cape-wearing titular protagonist, and there’s more to see at his photostream.
If we could write to Santa to ask for anything, a supercar would be near the top of the list. It’s probably a good thing he only gives toys though, as if we all got our wishes the world would likely be much worse for it.
Cue today’s creations, which – whilst they are toys – do help us into the world of supercar ownership, as each as been published with building instructions so you can build them at home too!
Above is Nathanael Kuipers‘ Ferrari La Ferrari, which he has built entirely from the parts from the official LEGO Speed Champions 76914 Ferrari 812 Competizione set, whilst below is Fabrice Larcheveque‘s fantastic Lamborghini Diablo, which recreates the ’90s supercar icon beautifully in 8-wide brick.
There’s more to see of each via the links above, where building instructions can also be found, so you too can own a supercar this Christmas.
And now for something that every one of our British readers will immediately recognise, the optimistically named Reliant Regal Supervan. Most famously wearing ‘Trotters Independent Trading Co’ livery, the Supervan was one the stars of the cult comedy ‘Only Fools and Horses’, in which it carried all manner of dodgy wares around Peckham, including – in this case – blow-up dolls that took their brief rather literally…
Newcomer BobKickflip is the builder behind this one, who has replicated it, its iconic ‘Trotters’ livery, and its payload of explosive replica females brilliantly. There’s more of the model to see, including a link building instructions, at Bob’s photostream, and you can head to Hookie Street via the link above.
We regularly feature ginormous trucks here at The Lego Car Blog. Because we’re five. But today’s is rather smaller, being just seven studs in width, yet packing in as much detail as models several times its size. Built by regular bloggee Ralph Savelsberg, this Mercedes-Benz Arocs replicates the real world trucks run by British heavy haulage firm Allelys, and you can see more of it, the trailer it pulls, and a few of Ralph’s other superb small-scale haulers via the link above.
According to cartoon lore, the banana skin is the slippiest object in the universe. Not the obvious choice for tyres therefore, which tend to require the opposite characteristics of skiddy fruit, but that hasn’t stopped Renaud Petit Lego, who has equipped his sci-fi water tanker with wheels wrapped in the bendy berries. Keep your eyes peeled and slither over to Flickr via the link above.
Today’s seminal title song.
Ford’s Transit was an emphatic success when it launched in the 1960s. By the late ’70s almost every van on British and European roads was a Transit, with vans called ‘Transits’ regardless of their actual make and model.
But the Transit was also disposable. Built as a tool, rarely looked after, and thrown away afterwards, the attrition of the Transit was almost total. Almost.
In 1960s-70s Germany, the Transit Mk.1 was a popular fire response vehicle, carrying ladders on the roof, pumping equipment inside, and with a siren and an upturned plant-pot blue light mounted above the cab.
Unlike their invariably white workhorse brethren, Transits in the fire service were well looked after, meticulously maintained, and travelled relatively low mileage. They were also kept for decades, and thus by the time they retired they were the only surviving examples of the Mk1 left. Which means that today if you see a Ford Transit Mk1 in Germany, it’ll probably be red, and once have carried ladders on the roof.
Cue Versteinert‘s lovely 7-wide German fire service Ford Transit Mk1, constructed following his more humdrum version that appeared here last month. Beautiful attention to detail matches the presentation, and there’s more to see of his fantastic fire service Ford at his photostream.
Click the first link in the text above for one of the few Transit Mk1 survivors, or the second for one that almost certainly didn’t.
Here at The Lego Car Blog we love enormous, many-motored machines. Because we’re six. But there’s joy to be found in the small things too, as proven today by Nathan Hake and this wonderful micro-scale MAZ-537. Constructed crossing an autumnal bridge, Nathan’s miniature MAZ is a tiny tribute to his own enormous, many-motored version built for a Lego show that appeared here a few months ago. There’s more of Nathan’s mini-MAZ to see via the link above, you can find the huge show-stopping version from which this diorama is derived here, and if you’d like to see more of the many MAZs to appear at TLCB to date you can click this bonus link to find them all.
The SUV dominates today’s new car market. Whether they’re four-wheel-drive or only look like they’re four-wheel-drive, all are tapping into the marketing of an outdoorsy lifestyle. Which usually means adverts showing impossibly handsome people parked at the beach. Or going hang-gliding off a mountain. Or unpacking some kayaks.
Of course the most adventurous thing the owners will actually do is watch a nature documentary on Netflix, but that hasn’t slowed the unstoppable rise of the pseudo-4×4. Today though, we have two proper all-wheel drive icons, the legendary Audi quattro, and the evergreen Jeep Wrangler.
The Audi (above) comes from Sam Andreas (aka Sseven Bricks), who has placed his superb Speed Champions Audi quattro Sport in its natural environment, navigating a perilous icy mountain pass high above Monaco. It’s here the quattro demonstrated to the world the benefits of all-wheel-drive in a performance car, and today almost every high performance saloon, estate, and yes – SUV, is driven by all four wheels.
At the other end of the four-wheel-drive scale is the Jeep Wrangler, a car derived from a vehicle so synonymous with off-roading it became the catch-all name for anything 4×4. This brick-built version of the Wrangler’s latest incarnation (below) is the work of yelo_bricks, who’s captured the ‘JL’-series in Speed Champions scale with aplomb.
There’s more to see of both four-wheel-drive icons on Flickr. Take a look via the links above whilst we – as SUV owners – go hang-gliding off a mountain or something.
‘Tis the season of love, wonder, and miracles. So here’s an Iranian short-range satellite-guided tactical ballistic missile system.
Mounted on an Iveco Trakker curtain-sided truck, the Fath-360 TEL missile system is so nondescript when covered up, it could be driving down any European street and no-one would know what was inside. Good thing one of Iran’s customers isn’t currently invading a European neighbour then.
Of course you might be wondering how sanctioned Iran, and its allies Russia and Syria, are getting their hands on an Italian truck on which to mount a ballistic missile system, particularly as Italy (along with the rest of the EU) are supporting Ukraine, the very country invaded by Iran’s key customer. Well, us too.
Whatever, this neat mini-figure scale replica of the Fath-360 missile system and the Iveco Trakker that transports it comes from previous bloggee Ralph Savelsberg, who has captured it superbly, particularly the ‘curtain’ stacked over the cab to allow deployment. There’s more to see on Flickr, and you can join some Russians driving an Iranian ballistic missile system covertly through a Ukrainian town, courtesy of Italy, via the link above.
In the late ’60s Ford were massive in Britain. With dozens of models produced in dozens of factories, they were the best selling car brand by miles. But we’re not here for their cars today, we’re here for something much more important. The Transit.
Launched in 1965 and built not far from TLCB Towers, the Ford Transit immediately became the best-selling van in Europe, and with the Mark 1 in production for twenty years it became so ubiquitous that even today many Brits still call vans ‘Transit-Vans’ regardless of the make or model.
In fact the Mark 1 Transit’s dominance was so great that by the early ’70s London’s Metropolitan Police estimated that 95% of all bank raids used one, as of course did the police themselves.
The Transit’s legacy continues today, with the fourth generation being the best selling vehicle of any type in the UK, and since its release in America, its the best selling van there too.
But back to 1965, and this fantastic 7-wide Speed Champions homage to Ford’s most important post-war vehicle. Constructed by Flickr’s Versteinert it captures the classic van’s aesthetics beautifully, and Vernsteinert’s superbly presented model looks the best way to move stuff about in the late-’60s that we can think of. Of course in the late-’60s, the Transit was pretty much the only way to move stuff about.
There’s more to see at Vernsteinert’s photostream, and you can join every other ’60s van driver from florists to bank robbers via the link in the text above.
If you’re even slightly into cars, you can’t help but have noticed Jaguar’s divisive rebrand that dropped this week.
Shot in some kind of soft-play-on-Mars, Jaguar’s thirty-second Statement of Intent features exactly zero cars, but does feature a variety of extravagantly dressed androgynous beings representing ‘exuberance’, ‘vividness’, ‘mould-breaking’, and gender fluidity. And that’s got people mad.
Which is perhaps unsurprising, as Jaguar’s executives have thrown the brand’s seventy year history in the bin (including its logo and typography), and yet at the same time the ire seems rather disproportionate. Because despite being entitled ‘Copy Nothing’, the new campaign copies every minority-centred advertising checklist of the last few years. And it’s genius.
Jaguar, for all their heritage, engineering brilliance, and race winning history, have barely made money in decades. We may like Jaguar, but not enough of us are actually buying their products. Not by a long-shot. If we were, they wouldn’t have needed to conduct a shock-tactics rebrand. Nor stop selling cars altogether for a year or two before returning (as they will) with $130k-and-up EVs.
In the meantime, Jaguar have created more exposure through a single thirty-second visual abomination than they have in the last ten years. And if that annoys fans of growling big cats and V8 sports cars, well we weren’t buying enough of their cars anyway.
So before Jaguar return with something wildly different from what’s gone before, here’s what they used to build; a well proportioned if traditionally styled luxury sedan, that frankly, wasn’t quite good enough. Flickr’s Peter Blackert (aka Lego911) is the builder, and you can see more of his digital recreation of Jaguar’s mid-’90s XJ6 at his photostream.
Click the second link above to take a look, or the first if you haven’t yet seen how Jaguar’s marketing department have put a match to everything Jaguar used to be…
It’s ‘Bat Man’! Kinda… but he is bequeathed with as many super-powers as the actual one.
Pictured here doing top superhero work rescuing a cat from a tree, PigletCiamek‘s ‘Bat-Man’ includes everything a baseball-based interpretation of the Dark Knight could want. If what they want is a van shaped like a baseball cap on a ball.
Join him in the strike zone at Flickr Park via the link above!
The Black Square is a 1915 oil-on-canvas painting by Kazimir Malevich, and about the meaning of which we know absolutely nothing. It probably represents something revolutionarily profound, but seeing as we’re a site more known for toilet humour and Your Mom jokes than intelligent discourse, you won’t uncover its significance here.
Thus the Black Square we have today is not a piece of 1910’s art but this resolutely right-angled Peterbilt 352 cab-over truck and equally rectangular chilled trailer. Flickr’s Wlad Prokopets is its creator and you can take a look at his superbly constructed Peterbilt via the link above, or alternatively you can click here to learn something about the suprematist art movement.
With under three-hundred 288 GTO units produced, each now valued at around $2.5million, Ferrari’s mid-’80s homologation special is slightly out of reach for most of us. But not today, because this fantastic Speed Champions Ferrari 288 GTO by Flickr’s László Torma is entirely recreatable at home. Able to fit two mini-figures side-by-side and utilising common pieces found within the Speed Champions range, László has released building instructions for his 8-wide 288 so that you too can own one. Join the 288 GTO Owners club via the link above.
The 1978 LEGO 375 Castle set is currently being advertised on a well-known online auction site for… well, this TLCB Writer has bought cars for less. Nice ones.
Which – for little more than a small pile of yellow blocks – seems rather poor value. Especially considering for the same outlay you could build a miniaturised version, equip it with tracks, and go on an all-inclusive holiday to the Seychelles.
Flickr’s carrier lost has done just that (although they may not be holidaying on a tropical island) with their ‘375 Traction Castle’, which is rather reminiscent of some crustacean-based interplanetary enslavement in a twenty-year-old cartoon.
Take a look via the link above, or alternatively you can blow nearly $10,000 on an unopened original 375 set by clicking here.