Cats are best when they’re dozing. Because then they’re not scratching something, killing wildlife, or crapping on your lawn.
Dig at cats in general complete, we can tenuously link to this Cat ‘dozer, a Caterpillar D6N LGN as built by regular bloggee Damian Z. Building instructions are available and there’s more to see of his wonderfully detailed creation on Flickr via the link.
If you like trucks, this post is for you! Specifically, if you like 1980s DAF FA and FT trucks this post is for you, but that’s probably a bit niche. Still, there must be a DAF fan club somewhere.
Anyway, this suite of DAF trucks was discovered by one of our Elves on Flickr, and it’s now hoping for five meal tokens.
Previous bloggee (and, unsurprisingly, DAF-building specialist) Arian Janssens is the man behind it, having constructed a DAF FA 95.380 ATI sleeper cab transporter and trailer, plus a DAF FA 800, FT 2100, FT 2500, and a DAF 400 flatbed for it to haul. That’s a lot of ’80s Dutch trucking.
All are excellent recreations of their real-world counterparts, and there’s more to see of all five Model Team DAFs at Arian’s ‘DAF FA 95.380 ATI Truck Transporter’ album. Click the link above to join the DAF fan club.
…Is not Forza, Gran Turismo, or some other ultra-lifelike simulator. It’s Mario Kart, specifically on the ancient N64 console. Because where else can a dinosaur annihilate an Italian plumber with a dead tortoise? Exactly.
Flickr’s cshowd has captured the vintage Mario Kart madness wonderfully, and although his characters from the iconic video game are only built in digital form, if anything their slightly pixelated appearance is more appropriate!
There’re more to see of Bowser, Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Mushroom and the other Mario Kart characters at his photostream – click the link above and fire that green shell!
Blue suede shoes, white rhinestone jumpsuits, cheeseburgers, and pink Cadillacs. Just some of the things the great Elvis Presley was famous for besides his captivating musical performances.
Elvis’ first pink Cadillac was a ’54 Fleetwood that he purchased in 1955, and it lasted all of a few months before the brake lining crapped out and the car was incinerated by the ensuing fire. Undeterred, Elvis bought a ’55 Fleetwood in blue, and had it repainted in custom pink by a neighbour, before he gave it to his Mom as a gift.
Now Mrs. Presley didn’t have a driver’s license, which meant Elvis continued to drive the Fleetwood through ’55 and ’56 (which sounds like a rather cunning ‘present’ to us), during which time it was repainted again due to an accident whilst in the hands of his guitarist.
After completing his military service in 1960, Elvis lent the Caddy to his friend and road-manager, buying himself a new ’61 Cadillac Coupe deVille, before the Fleetwood was parked up in a carport.
Many white rhinestone jumpsuits and cheeseburgers followed, the latter of course contributing to Elvis’ untimely death on the toilet at his Graceland home.
The musical world mourned his loss, and Graceland became a museum to Elvis’ life. Fortunately the ’55 Cadillac Fleetwood that Elvis had purchased, painted, gifted, crashed, painted, and lent had somehow survived, and it was saved to go on permanent display in the Graceland museum.
This lovely homage to that car, and the home in which it rests, comes from Joey Klusnick, who has recreated it beautifully in Miniland scale. A complete album of images can be found at Joey’s photostream, and you can head to Graceland in a ’55 Pink Cadillac via the link in the text above.
LEGO have produced some legendary vehicle sets over the years. The 8880 Technic Supercar. The 10220 Creator Volkswagen Camper. And, the all-time high of the Model Team range, the 5571 Black Cat truck.
Launched way back in 1996 and featuring and over 1,750 pieces, 5571 is now worth approximately a $billion, putting it well out of reach of even TLCB’s Editor, who – rumour has it – owns a private island entirely staffed by TLCB Elves.
Today however, we have a Black Cat that is rather more attainable. If a little smaller…
This ‘Micro Black Cat 5571’ is Flickr builder -Brixe‘s entry into a LEGO Ideas competition, celebrating 90 years of The LEGO Company. Instantly recognisable as a miniaturised version of the 5571 set (even without the printed tiles…), -Brixe’s model captures the aesthetic of the original model wonderfully, and you can check it out at both their photostream and at LEGO Ideas via the links in the text above.
Now, how does this writer get himself an invite to the island…
This is resolutely not this TLCB Writer’s kind of car. But the rest of the staff are ‘busy’ in the corridor doing something with a remote control bulldozer and some Elven ‘volunteers’, so it falls to him to write about a pink drift-pig BMW.
That said, whilst this model is based on a real and eye-searing car, Fuku Saku‘s brick-built homage to the sideways E36 is thoroughly excellent, being both instantly recognisable as an E36 3-Series Coupe, and managing to replicate the drifty modifications of the real thing.
The doors and hood open to reveal further cleverness within, and there’s more to see of Fuku’s E36 Drift Car at his album of the same name on Flickr. Click the link above to go sliding about in something pink.
15,000 pieces, 4½ years, and 1.8 metres. A few of the astonishing statistics associated with Ciamosław Ciamek‘s breathtaking 1:38 scale Second World War U-Boat.
Constructed in six sections, each with a removable sides to reveal the spectacular detail within, Ciamosław’s incredible mini-figure scale replica of a German ‘Typ VII C U-Boot’ accurately recreates the control room, front and rear messes, bow, engine rooms, and stern, all of which were designed digitally before being built from thousands of LEGO pieces.
A crew of dozens of mini-figures are shown throughout the interior of the boat, many operating the equipment, engines, and weaponry, whilst others are off-shift in the mess.
It’s a jaw-dropping creation, with hundreds of images across two albums required to capture the model’s scale and complexity, and you can check out the first of these on Flickr via the link in the text above. Click it, sit back, and take in the most amazing World War 2 creation you’re likely to see in 2022…
Subaru don’t just make the WRX. In fact they’ve made all sorts of weird things, from trains and planes, to wind turbines and generators.
From a vehicular perspective Subaru’s products vary widely too, some of which are rather further from the WRX than you might think.
This is one of them, the dinky Sambar micro-truck. A ‘kei’ car in Japan also badged as the Daihatsu Hijet and Toyota Pixis, the Sambar first launched in the ’60s, and today is on its tenth generation, powered by a 660cc engine and available in a variety of body-styles.
This is the pick-up variant, as built rather nicely by Joey Klusnick in Miniland style, replicating a Sambar owned by his local model shop. There’s more to see at Joey’s Flickr album, where his model is pictured alongside its real world counterpart.
Click the link above for a Subaru that’s not driven by an irritating bro with a blow-off valve.
This is not a car. But it is Donkey Kong (and Diddy Kong) riding in a motorised mine cart, which means it’s absolutely getting blogged.
Built by Peter Zieske, Donkey and Diddy’s cart is based atop a LEGO train motor, meaning an entire mine track could be constructed for it to traverse…
Whilst we dream of that you can check out more of Donkey Kong’s cart at Peter’s ‘Donkey & Diddy Kong album’ via the link above!
In the late ’90s to mid 00’s, American car manufacturers went nuts. There was the Chrysler PT Cruiser, the Pontiac Aztek, the Chevrolet SSR, and this, the Plymouth Prowler.
Inspired by hot rods of the ’40s and ’50s, the Chrysler Corporation hoped the Prowler would reinvigorate the dying Plymouth brand, and the wild two-seat rear-wheel-drive sports car certainly made headlines upon its reveal in 1997.
Sadly though, like everything else coming from the Chrysler Corporation in the late ’90s, it was also complete crap.
A 3.5 litre V6 from Chrysler minivans – making just over 200bhp – mated to a four speed automatic gearbox (four!) did not an invigorating drive make, whilst interior and build quality was, well… typical ’90s Chrysler
Less than 12,000 Prowlers were sold before its demise, along with the entire Plymouth brand, in 2002, whilst Chrysler itself filed for bankruptcy just seven years later.
But here at TLCB we still applaud the Prowler, as we much prefer interesting cars to good ones (which is probably why we’re writing about cars and not managing a car company…). However it probably would’ve been better for everyone if the Prowler had been built by anyone other than late-’90s Chrysler.
Oh yeh, the model! This superb Speed Champions scale Plymouth Prowler captures the outlandish design brilliantly – no mean feat at this scale – and there’s more to see courtesy of Thomas Gion of Flickr. Click the link to take a look!
Some vehicles are more than the sum of their parts. They’ve transcended their original purpose to become, and stand for, something more. The Volkswagen Camper, the Toyota Prius, and the DeLorean DMC-12 to name a few, but each of those is still, at the end of the day, just a car. A car wrapped up in a million connotations, but a car nonetheless.
Occasionally though, a vehicle transcends its original purpose by actually, well… transcending it. These are rarely the cool cars. They’re the forgotten ones. The vehicles whose job as a vehicle has long been superseded in order to meet the more immediate needs of the owner.
Cue TLCB debutant pan noda, and their simply wonderful ‘RV House’, depicting a dead camper, extended, adapted and remodelled, to become a far better abode than when it was still rolling.
Gorgeous detailing and presentation abounds and you can click the link above to take a closer look. It’s not #vanlife. It’s something a whole lot more.
This wonderfully cartoonish Citroen Traction Avant was discovered by one of our Elves on Flickr today. Constructed by KMbricklab, a wealth of clever techniques have been deployed to accentuate the classic Citroen’s features, and there’s a whole lot more of the model to see on Flickr. Click the link above to forward yourself there.
Aaaand at the other end of the Chevrolet cool scale we have this; a dilapidated El Camino camper, cobbled together from assorted junk, inhabited by someone you’d expect to see throwing dice in an alley, and parked in a swamp. It’s TLCB of cars.
Which means we feel right at home posting ‘Florida Man’s El Camino & Cab-Over Camper’ by previous bloggee IBrickedItUp, and you can join us huntin’ ‘gators in the swamp via the link above.
Decidedly not a car, but thoroughly charming nonetheless, is Clemens Schneider‘s wonderfully whimsical horse and cart, entitled ‘On the way to Summer Joust’. A brick-built horse and knights add to the magic (although we’d definitely rather be the one in the cart), and you join them on their medieval journey at Clemen’s photostream. Head to the joust via the link above!
In recent years most military vehicles – such as these these American ‘Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected’ (MRAP) light tactical vehicles – seem to be painted tan, what with all the oil being in the desert. Er, we mean the ‘complicated political nature of the Middle East’, or something.
Of course a certain minimally-endowed despot has changed the landscape somewhat, bringing war back to the greeny-brown lands of Europe, and we suspect many national militaries will be re-painting a proportion of their equipment accordingly, even if they have no intention of joining in.
However the ’90s-2010s will be remembered, in a military context at least, for desert-based conflicts, and the tan-coloured vehicles that operated in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and other sandy locales.
Cue Robson M (aka BrickDesigners), and these excellent Middle-East spec MRAPs, armoured trucks, and personnel carriers. Each captures its real-world equivalent brilliantly, helped by custom decals and weaponry, and there’s more to see of all of Robson’s desert warfare vehicles on Flickr via the link.
