Category Archives: Lego

Concordeski

Leave a reply

This is a Tupolev Tu-144D, and if looks like Concorde, that’s because it kind of was. Only much, much worse.

Rushed into the skies to beat Concorde to supersonic air-travel (which – by a few months – it did), the Tupolev Tu-144D flew just 102 commercial flights between the sixteen aircraft built, of which only 55 – for just seven months in 1977-78 – carried actual passengers. Which means that half of all the total Tu-144D flights only flew cargo. Supersonic cargo. Yay communism.

By 1983 the Tu-144D programme was halted completely, due to the aircraft’s unreliability, crashes and development issues (although weirdly NASA used the Tu-144D for supersonic testing up to 1999), and the aircraft were put on display around the Soviet Union, where they remain today.

This one however, is on display on SvenJ.‘s desk, having been beautifully constructed in brick form. Ingenious building techniques, detailed landing gear, and an accurate ‘Aeroflot’ livery make Sven’s Tupolev Tu-144D a wonderfully realistic replica of the Soviet supersonic airliner, and there’s more of the model to see on Flickr.

Click the link above to buy your supersonic ticket. Or perhaps just take a look, and then fly Concorde instead…

Grey Pig

Leave a reply

Almost every modern car on the roads of TLCB’s home nation is grey. And an SUV. Except that is, for one very specific category of owner. The YouTuber.

No, the YouTuber chooses a whole different aesthetic, based on ‘views’, and ‘clout’, and other insufferable influencer nonsense. Which invariably means that their heavily-financed supercar will be covered in some hideously lurid wrap, with the words ‘I’ve TRANSFORMED’ my [Insert Supercar Here]’ emblazoned in bubble-writing across the accompanying ten-and-a-half-minute video.

An exhaust that also ‘TRANSFORMS’ the car will follow, before the finance agreement is terminated early – much to the insincere sadness of the YouTuber doing it – to fund the next pointless cycle of Buy-Wrap-Exhaust-for-views.

Thus, if we had enough money for a supercar, we’d get it in grey. Because that way no-one would think we’re a talentless YouTube douchebag.

Cue previous bloggee Fuku Saku’s superb Porsche 911 GT3 RS, which is not only brilliantly constructed, it’s also quite fantastically grey. Ingenious techniques recreate the 911’s notoriously tricky shape, and there’s more of model to see at Faku’s ‘GT3 RS 991.1 Gray’ album on Flickr.

Click the link above to take a look, and don’t give the YouTuber supercar douchbags your views.

Fresh Donuts

Leave a reply

2023 sadly saw the loss of one of the motoring world’s greats, when Ken Block was killed at the start of the year, when his snowmobile landed atop him.

One of the founders of DC Shoes, Ken raced in motocross, rallycross, rallying, and the X-Games. The top step of each of those championships eluded him, despite some moderate successes, but where Block became a household name to millions was via his utterly brilliant ‘Gymkhana’ videos.

Perfectly designed for the viral-video age, Ken’s ‘Gymkhana’ series took increasingly outrageous one-off vehicles, astonishing car control, and a whole load of sponsorship money, to create some of the most tyre-shredding back-to-back stunt scenes ever recorded, racking up hundreds of millions of views in the process.

Following his death there is only one more of Ken’s ‘Gymkhana’ films to be (posthumously) released, after which we may never see his like again. However Flickr’s Clemens Schneider has created his own ‘Gymkhana’ of sorts, with his unique motorised donuting Mustang vignette, in which Block’s ‘Hoonicorn’ drifts around a donut shop car park.

There’s more to see of Clemens’ tribute – including a video of the motorised Mustang circulating the donut car park in a cloud of brick-built tyre smoke – by clicking here, plus you can see the trailer for Ken Block’s last ever movie via the link in the text above.

Wiiilsoon!

Leave a reply

This spectacular creation is a Scania R143 heavy haulage truck, as operated by H.C. Wilson of Elmswell in the UK, and created by truck-building legend Dennis Bosman (with the phenomenal decal work of fellow previous bloggee JaapTechnic).

Dennis’ model is a near perfect replica of H.C. Wilson’s restored classic Scania, complete with a ballast box for traction, behind which would be an enormous trailer when the truck was in use.

Dennis’ incredible Model Team replica also includes a suite of motors hidden within, powering two drive and two steered axles.

It’s an astonishing build that is absolutely worth a closer look, and you can find all of the beautiful imagery and further details at Dennis’ ‘Scania R143 H.C. Wilson’ album on Flickr, plus you can find out how he makes amazing creations just like this one via his Master MOCers interview here at TLCB.

Space Race

Leave a reply

This natty racing spaceship is one of the many creations now available to buy at this year’s awesome Creations for Charity store, where all the proceeds are used to buy LEGO sets for disadvantaged children this Christmas. Builder Cole Blaq has donated this creation and you can find it, and a whole lot more besides, at the Creations for Charity 2023 shop via the link above. Take home an amazing one-off creation and you’ll be doing something amazing for underprivileged children too. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Cubo Italiano

Leave a reply

Once known for their beauty, a bleak and resolutely right-angled 1980s meant that Alfa Romeo’s designs were looking rather un-Alfa-esque by the mid-’90s. The brand badly needed a more modern look, and more modern cars too.

Aiming to rectify this, Alfa began working a pair of new small cars in the early ’90s, hiring Chris Bangle (of later and rather more controversial BMW fame) as lead designer.

The resultant Alfa Romeo 145 and 146 were revealed in the mid-’90s, and began the brand’s return to the European automotive mainstream. Of course being Fiat-derived Alfas they weren’t exactly cutting edge, carrying over the interesting-but-ancient flat-4 engines used since the ’70s, and still wearing an element of cubism that was necessitated by the 1980s platform underneath.

Still, around half-a-million 145 and 146s were sold before being replaced by the far more successful (and much prettier) Alfa Romeo 147, and previous bloggee Fuku Saku is one of the few that remember the slightly odd mid-’90s hatchback, paying homage via this rather good Lego recreation.

The hatchback and doors open, whilst some neat techniques cleverly capture the Bangle design, and there’s more of the model to see at Fuku’s ‘Alfa Romeo 145’ album on Flickr. Click the link above to make the jump and see mid-’90s Alfa at its most mid-’90s-ish.

Crack Commando Corvette

Leave a reply

In 1972, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground, whereupon they bought a GMC van and a C4 Corvette, painted a giant red stripe down the side of each, and were somehow completely untraceable to the government.

No, we don’t understand how that works either, but no matter, because it allows us to publish this brilliant brick-built Chevrolet Corvette C4 (complete with a giant red stripe), as driven by the ‘A-Team’s Arthur Templeton “Faceman” Peck. Or someone rather more visually appealing.

Flickr’s László Torma is the builder behind it, instructions are available, and you can head to the Los Angeles underground via the link in the text above.

Hell Hath No Fury

1 Reply

‘Tis this season of scaring small children, taking candy from strangers, and dressing in little-to-nothing. But enough about this TLCB Writer’s plans for tonight, we’ve time for one final post before the Halloween spookiness begins. Cue Stephen King’s ‘Christine‘, a haunted ’58 Plymouth Fury containing the vengeful spirit of a past owner, and a taste for blood. Regular bloggee Jonathan Elliott has brought Christine back in brick form, and you can take a closer look on Flickr via the link. Just make sure you take good care of her…

Fifty Shades of Grey

1 Reply

The Lego Car Blog Elves, who are effectively mythical toddlers, like eye-searing colours. Yellow. Orange. Pink. A combination of all of them. If they could choose a car’s colour scheme it would probably look like this.

TLCB staff however, prefer far more muted hues. As do 95% human adults, judging the almost universally monochrome cars on the roads of our home nation. If a car isn’t black, silver, grey or white, it’s because the owner must be an obnoxious show-off.

Previous bloggee K P certainly shares this school of thought, creating this rather beautiful Jaguar-ish / Bentley-esque classic car from three monochrome colours, which are neatly reflected in the driver’s attire too.

The dog remains light brown though. The obnoxious show-off.

Inventive parts usage and excellent building techniques abound, and there’s more to see of K P’s lovely classic luxury car on Flickr. Click the link above to take a closer look, whilst we ponder why colour adventurism fades as we age, and consider if we should paint the office Rover 200 orange. And pink.

We’re Jammin’

Leave a reply

From kids not talking to one another except through social media, to deliberate misinformation, constant comparison, a mental health crisis, addiction to ‘likes’, the polarisation of debate, the threat of cancellation, and endless ‘influencers’ touting nothing but the lie that materialism leads to contentment, the world would be a better place if some of its signals were jammed.

Cue the ‘Teal 1’, a signal-jamming star-fighter collaboration published by previous bloggee Alec Hole, and designed to ‘interfere with transmissions’.

Complete with a crew of three, tilting engines, folding landing gear, and a superb landing pad built by fellow Flickrer Rogue Bantha, Alec’s signal-jamming spacecraft is an exquisite example of sci-fi creativity.

There’s more of the collaboration to see at Alec’s photostream; click the link above to check it out, and do the world a favour by jamming a few signals. We’d start by pointing it straight at TikTok.

*Today’s title song. Of course.

The Living Daylights

1 Reply

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

Leave a reply

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*

Leave a reply

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

Leave a reply

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

Leave a reply

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.