Category Archives: Lego

The Living Daylights

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Controversial opinion of the week; The Timothy Dalton era Bond films were the best Bond films.

OK, ‘best’ is definitely subjective, but they were perhaps the most accurate to the books. They were dark, rather violent, and a magnitude less absurd than the Roger Moore era movies that preceded them.

1987’s ‘The Living Daylights’ also benefited from a fantastic Bond Car; the awesome Aston Martin V8 Vantage. Fitted with a set of skis, laser hubcaps, rockets, and a rocket motor (Less absurd!? Ed.), 007’s Vantage was rather more highly specified than the police Lada 1500s in pursuit, culminating a snowy car chase that involved a fishing shed and a cello.

OK, perhaps they were just as absurd (our editor has likely interjected already somewhere above to this end…) (Sure has! Ed.), but the Vantage was still awesome.

Cue (or ‘Q’, hah!) this marvellous Speed Champions recreation of Bond’s Aston Martin V8 Vantage from ‘The Living Daylights’, as built by previous bloggee barneius of Flickr. Complete with skis and a rocket motor, barneius’ build is ready to take on a whole fleet of police Ladas, and you can join the chase on a frozen lake somewhere in Czechoslovakia via the link above.

GT-ONE

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Built for the GT1 regulations of the late ’90s, this is the Toyota GT-ONE, a V8-powered homologation endurance racer (yes, there really was a ‘road’ version’) that took second at the Le Mans 24 Hours.

Created by SFH_Bricks, this incredible Speed Champions replica of the GT-One captures the astonishing real car wonderfully, with the excellent brick-work enhanced by a superbly accurate livery courtesy of Brickstickershop.

Building instructions are available and there’s more to see of SFH’s fantastic 1999 Le Mans racer on Flickr – click the link above to take a closer look.

She’s Electric*

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Despite supposedly being a car blog, we’ve featured all manner of trains over the years. However they have almost all been steam or diesel powered, which doesn’t really reflect what is actually the prime energy source for moving people and things about on the railways.

Today electricity powers the majority of rail traffic, with it being far more efficient, a lot less polluting, and much quieter than burning fossilised dinosaurs, even if the electricity itself is generated by doing just that.

This exceptional electric locomotive is an SNCF CC6500, published by KMbricklab fresh from a win at the ‘Brick Train Awards 2023’. And they probably know about Lego trains.

There’s much more of KM’s beautifully presented model to see at their ‘SNCF CC6500 Electric Locomotive’ album on Flickr, and you can buy your rail ticket via the link in the text above.

*Today’s excellent title song.

Ghostly Porsche

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Following on from the ‘Initial D’ manga series, ‘MF Ghost’ resets the Japanese street racing scene to the late 2020s, when self-driving electric cars are the norm and internal combustion engines are consigned to history. Except in the mountain passes…

Protagonist Kanata Rivington’s Toyota GT86 beats everyone it seems, regardless of how exotic their car is, including Jackson Taylor’s modified Miami-blue Porcshe 911 Carrera GTS, recreated here by Ilya M.

Clever techniques, accurate ‘8’ decals, and top quality presentation all feature, and there’s more of Taylor’s Porsche 911 to see on Flickr, including a link free building instructions. Click the link above to recreate your own ghostly 911, and then lose to a Toyota with half the power.

Pimp My Duplo

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The genius of LEGO is that every part can work with every other, across themes, times and even sub-brands. Cue regular bloggee Jonathan Elliott, who has demonstrated this compatibility by combining a LEGO Duplo car shell with far more intricate System pieces. The result is one heck of a rad’ toddler ride, and you can see more of his inspired Duplo/System mash-up on Flickr via the link above.

Having a Lark

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Once the world’s fastest production car, and winner of the 1995 Le Mans 24 Hours, this is the McLaren F1 GTR.

Following its victory at Le Mans (the first time either a manufacturer or team had won the race on their Le Mans debut), McLaren’s Ron Dennis and businessman Kazumichi Goh decided to take the car to Japan, forming McLaren Team Lark, and taking on the country’s domestic teams in the newly formed GT500 championship.

The Lark McLaren F1 GTRs were dominant, comfortably beating domestic rivals from Nissan, Toyota and Honda to win every GT500 race in 1996 bar one.

So dominant was the F1 GTR in fact, that the organisers effectively legislated it out of the championship, imposing so many restrictions on the team that they withdrew before the start of the ’97 season.

The result, after that single all-conquering year, was that the rest of the GT500 teams considerably upped their game. GT500 cars became much faster, more exciting, and more technologically-advanced, and thus the ongoing success of the GT500 Championship has more than a little to do with a little British car that entered for just one season some three decades ago.

This wonderful homage to the short-lived but spectacular Team Lark McLaren F1 GTRs comes from TLCB debutant brickengineeringdude, who has recreated the ’96 championship-winning racer brilliantly in brick form. 3D-Printed wheels, tyres decals, and a superb approximation of the Team Lark livery make brick’s F1 GTR instantly recognisable, and there’s much more to see at their photostream via the link.

But what of Team Lark and GT500? Well owner Kazumichi Goh went on to buy an Audi R8, and with it won the 2004 Le Mans 24 Hours, becoming only the second Japanese team to win the race outright. Meanwhile Japan’s GT500 championship has gone from strength to strength, but has never again been won by a non-Japanese car since the Team Lark McLarens of 1996…

Brick-Built Bugatti

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The Bugatti Veyron is, somewhat unbelievably, nearly twenty years old. Re-borne via Volkswagen back in the 2000s, Bugatti set out to build the fastest production car in the world. Just because they could. And we like that. After a painfully fraught development the 1,000bhp Veyron did indeed take the record in 2005, reaching a top speed of over 250mph.

However despite being a decade older than this site, and re-setting what was thought possible for a road car, the Veyron has only appeared here twice in TLCB’s history. We’ve featured three times more Lada Nivas, five times the number of Trabants, and even twice as many Zuks (What? Exactly). Although perhaps that says more about TLCB than it does the online Lego Community…

Anyway, today the Bugatti Veyron is finally making only its third appearance here at TLCB courtesy of previous bloggee 3D supercarBricks of Flickr. 3D’s brick-built Bugatti recreates the record-holding hypercar brilliantly in brick form, although to our eyes there may be a few mildly controversial 3D-printed pieces to assist with the visual accuracy.

Nevertheless it’s an excellent model, and there’s more of it to see at 3D’s album on Flickr via the link above. And if you’re wondering what the heck a ‘Zuk’ is, there’s a link in the text above for that too.

Ship-Shape Suggestion

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Ok, we’re know we’re crap at sci-fi, and we posted a round-up of the entirely sci-fi ‘SHIPtember 2023’ build-a-thon a few days ago, but this one was posted in October. So we missed it. It also means we’re not sure it’s ‘SHIPtember’ at all, but seeing as we know nothing about the annual building bandwagon beyond the 100-studs rule, October’s probably OK.

Suggested to us by a reader, this is Scott Wilhelm’s astonishing ‘Whispered Edict’, a vast – and vastly detailed – spacecraft packing more layers than a chicken farm.

A construction of immense complexity, Scott’s SHIPtember entry has something to do with “Fuel-Guild Supertankers”, “Antimatter Cannons”, and “Magnetic Suspension”, but even though TLCB Office – who are normally only interested in obscure British cars from 1963 – know what none of that means, we’re still spell-bound about how it all holds together.

There’s more to see of Scott’s incredible creation, including a description that’ll make more sense than whatever you read here, on Flickr – click these coloured words to take a look and to be as amazed (if not as confused) as we are.

Virtually Toyotas

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It’s a digitally Japanese day here at The Lego Car Blog, as we have four virtual Toyota products to share with you. We don’t often blog digital creations here, but these are a) throughly excellent, and b) we’re as certain as we can be that they can be built for real, what with designer Peter Blackert (aka Lego911) releasing building instructions alongside the imagery, and having literally written the book on how to build Miniland scale vehicles.

Rule-breaking explained, on to Peter’s first pixel-based Toyota, which is the third-generation Celica, depicted here in face-lifted pop-up headlight form. Powered by a huge array of engines (although solely by the 2.4 litre in the US) the A60-generation Celica helped the Toyota brand gain a reputation for attainable sportiness, and you can see more of Peter’s version via the link.

Peter’s second model appearing here captures one of Toyota’s earlier attempts at a sports coupe, the decidedly un-sporty 1971 Crown Coupe. It looked lovely though, and the Crown station wagon is one of the most comfortable cars that this TLCB Writer has ever had the pleasure of journeying in. Jump back to 1971 via the link.

On to the early-’00s, and the single most dreary vehicle Toyota has ever created, the 2002 Toyota Camry. As we’ve highlighted here before however, dreary sells, with the Camry becoming the best-selling car in America in 2002. And 2003. And 2004. And 2005… You get the picture. There’s more to see of this one at Peter’s photostream via the link.

And finally… the Toyota that isn’t a Toyota, but heralded the arrival of the Lexus brand, the phenomenal Lexus LS400. Created to beat the best car in the world at the time (the Mercedes-Benz S-Class), the LS400 did just that, and is still lauded as perhaps the most thoroughly-engineered car ever produced. Peter’s Miniland-scale version captures the pivotal arrival of Lexus beautifully, and there’s more of the model to see at his photostream.

Further images of each design, details of the real cars, and links to building instructions can be found at Peter Blackert’s Flickr account via the links for each car in the text above, plus you can check out our interview with Peter and his published works by clicking the bonus link here.

Off-Ferraroad

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Taking a Ferrari off-road doesn’t end well. That said, a Ferrari is also perfectly capable of catching fire on smooth asphalt, but off-road is certainly outside of the prancing horse’s design brief.

Except that it’s 2023, which of course means that today you can buy a Ferrari off-roader, because all anyone wants is an SUV. We’d rather take this though, Slick_Brick’s ‘Off-Road Ferrari’ buggy, which is a million times cooler than the Purosangue abomination disgracing the Ferrari name.

Cunning use of the ubiquitous Speed Champions canopy, exposed brick-built suspension, and an equipment rack above the rear-mounted engine add to the off-roady look, and there’s more of the ‘Off-Road Ferrari’ to see at Slick’s photostream by clicking here. We’d probably add a fire extinguisher to that rack though…

SHIPtember Roundup

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It’s the last day of September, which means the annual building bandwagon ‘SHIPtember’ – wherein builders create colossal spaceships measuring one hundred studs or more – is concluding too. Which is good news if you like cars, or you’re Sci-Fi Incompetent.

TLCB Team are of course both of the above, so expect lots of “this is a Really Massive Spaceship”, and little else, in the rest of this post…

Anyway, on to the first creation, and it’s a Really Massive Spaceship. Constructed by Oscar Cederwall, it cleverly utilises a LEGO Crane Support Element down the centre, and there’s more to see via the link above.

The second creation in our SHIPtember 2023 roundup is a Very Large Spaceship Indeed, and sports a veritable rainbow of colours. Nathan Proudlove is its maker and there’s more to see here.


The third SHIPtember model appearing here comes from -Soccerkid6, whose 106-stud racer ‘Falchion 55’ is a Truly Sizeable Spaceship. Ingenious parts usage abounds throughout the design and there’s more of No. 55 to see via the link.


On to the fourth creation in our SHIPtember roundup, this Decidedly Enormous Spaceship by Andreas Lenander, with three superbly constructed engines, beautifully neat asymmetry, and – at least to the eyes of this car blog – wearing Honda racing colours. Click here to see more.

And so, much to the relief of the proper Lego sites that can actually do sci-fi, here’s the final model in our SHIPtember Special, LegOH!’s brilliant ‘Octan Mining Ship’. A Spaceship of Gigantic Proportions, LegOH’s entry packs in a variety of spacey details, none of which we can explain, but that you can see more of via the link above.

There you have it; TLCB’s immensely incompetent roundup of some Really Massive Spaceships for 2023. Don’t be fooled by our crap write-up though, each is a phenomenal build and well worth checking out, even if – like us – you don’t understand sci-fi whatsoever.

All can be found on Flickr (plus a lot more besides), and you can make the jump to hyperspace via the links above. Take a look whilst we get back to writing about things that have wheels and engines.

Poop Poop!

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We’re pretty sure not every vintage car went ‘Poop poop!’*, but we can’t help but feel all Toad-of-Toad-Hall when we see one.

This lovely Speed Champions scale example comes from previous bloggee K P of Flickr, using only simple pieces and neat presentation to wonderful effect.

Poop poop your way to K P’s photostream for this and other old-timey creations via the link above.

*Some of course, went ‘Aaoogha!’

Hot Hatch Genesis

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Despite what Volkswagen would have you believe, the Golf GTI was not the world’s first hot hatchback. Nope, that honour goes to a little factory in Scotland that was originally part of the Rootes Group.

Rootes owned a variety of successful British brands, including Hillman, Humber, Singer and Sunbeam, before they were acquired by Chrysler in 1967, who then proceeded to ruin them.

In just a few short years the whole thing was loss-making, and the French government – fearing the demise of the French brands that Chrysler also owned – encouraged Peugeot-Citroen to purchase the remnants, which they did. For a dollar.

The result was the return of the Talbot name, which was applied to various Rootes products including their Sunbeam small hatchback. It was a design Chrysler kept hold of too, being quite a good one, successfully selling a very similar looking model as the Dodge Omni / Plymouth Horizon in the US.

In Europe, Peugeot-Citroen wanted to raise the profile of the reborn Talbot name, and so they decided to go motor racing, with Group B rallying their chosen route. Fortunately for them, Chrysler had already developed a sporty version of the Horizon / Sunbeam, having turned to Lotus for the development, but didn’t have time to launch it before the sale to Peugeot-Citroen.

Thus when it finally arrived, the 150bhp Sunbeam Lotus wore a Talbot badge, becoming the world’s first hot hatchback, and duly winning the World Rally Championship in 1981.

Such immediate success meant that Talbot become a household name, which must’ve pleased Peugeot-Citroen. Or so you would have thought. By the mid-’80s they’d killed it, with the marque lingering on a van for few a years before disappearing completely.

Still, SIM CAMAT of Flickr does remember the Talbot Sunbeam Lotus, and has paid homage via his wonderful Model Team recreation of the world’s first hot hatchback.

Beautifully accurate, SIM’s Sunbeam features opening doors and hood, a highly detailed interior complete with folding seats, and a stunning removable replica of the 2.2 litre slant-four Lotus engine that powered the car to the ’81 World Rally Championship.

There’s lots more of the model to see at SIM CAMAT’s photostream, and you can head back to the often-forgotten genesis of the hot hatchback via the link in the text above.

Golden Air

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We haven’t written a post regarding golden air transport since we blogged about Donald Trump’s Air Force One showers*. Today though we’re back to golden air travel, courtesy of Ralph Savelsberg and this lovely Mitsubishi Fuso Canter box truck, wearing the livery of Japan’s ‘Meitetsu Golden Air Cargo’ company.

Ralph has captured both the truck and livery beautifully in Miniland scale, and there’s more of the Meitetsu Mitsubishi to see at his photostream. Click here for golden air delivery.

*Trump likes to be pissed on.

Rally-Bred

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This is the unmistakable shape of the Lancia Stratos, designed by Bertone and powered by a Ferrari Dino V6, it was the first car purpose-built for rallying, winning the World Rally Championship three times consecutively between 1974 and 1976.

This lovely diorama by Flickr’s alex_bricks, who appeared here recently with his stunning 1988 Monaco Grand Prix scene, depicts a works Alitalia-liveried Stratos scything through a muddy forest.

Forced-perspective foliage and an array of mini-figures – including a driver and co-driver and some hardy spectators – add to the ambiance, and you can join them trackside c1975 via the link in the text above.