Category Archives: Lego

Space Race

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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

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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

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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

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‘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

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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’

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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

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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.