Category Archives: Lego

Boring in Space

Leave a reply

Amazon just sent Katy Perry to the edge of space to promote her new album or something. Which shows we’re pretty close to space travel becoming as banal as flying to Bakersfield for a business conference.

Of course we know why Amazon sent Katy Perry into space; because it takes it one step closer to plundering its riches. Space’s, not Katy Perry’s. And riches there are, even on the lumps of rock hurtling around our planet, which are filled with rare earth metals including gold and platinum worth literal quadrillions.

Cue the ‘I.E.A Andromeda’, an enormous asteroid mining rig built to bore into the rocks of space in order to extract their valuable innards, built by Chris Malloy, and photographed in spectacular detail.

An astonishing feat of brick-built engineering, LEGO’s red rollercoaster track, giant gas-filled orbs, microscale spaceships, communication equipment, and a whole lot of rock all feature, with over thirty incredible images taken to capture the complete model.

A goldmine of photos is available to view at Chris’s ‘I.E.A Andromeda’ album, and you can join Jeff Bezos’ girlfriend, a morning TV host, and Katy Perry promoting her new music in space via the link above.

Mario Kart World

Leave a reply

There’s a new Mario Kart on the horizon, and even though its pixels are yet to be played by anyone outside of Nintendo, Flickr’s Clement has managed to recreate a trio of characters from the available gameplay footage. And if a cow on a scooter doesn’t get you excited, nothing will! Smash that crate, drop a banana skin, and fire a green shell via the link above!

Alpine Past

1 Reply

Alpine are back from the dead, with new production cars, a re-badged Renault Formula 1 Team, and re-badged Oreca Le Mans Hypercars. Which is nice and all, but they were cooler the first time round. Particularly when they built this; the 1978 Le Mans-winning Renault Alpine A442B.

Only two manufacturers competed for outright victory in ’78, but with the other being Porsche and Alpine’s Didier Pironi and Jean-Pierre Jaussaud completing a record distance over the twenty-four hours, the victory was still an immense achievement.

This fantastic Speed Champions recreation of the ’78 race winner comes from Flickr’s SFH_Bricks, whose catalogue of classic Le Mans racers is both extensive and beautifully constructed.

A wonderfully accurate livery adds to the realism (which TLCB Elves like too for some reason…) and you can see more of SFH’s glorious Renault Alpine A442B at his album of the same name via the link above.

Little Dump

Leave a reply

Sometimes you don’t need a big dump, and a small one will do you just fine. Cue ER0L‘s Peterbilt dump truck, which at only 8-studs wide is indeed rather small. It kinda works though, with both a tipping dumper and sort-of-suspension on the rear wheels. Neat detailing and excellent presentation prove it doesn’t have to be big to be blogged, and you can take a small dump on Flickr via the link above.

Ready Player 2?

Leave a reply

‘Player 1, Player 2, Choose your fighter!’ is the title of this space-based build by bradk918. Although it hasn’t escaped our notice that the starfighters are actually numbered one and three… No matter, because we don’t understand sci-fi anyway, and Brad’s builds are seriously good.

Top flight building techniques and stellar presentation make these well worth a closer look, and you can get your coin in the slot before the count-down ends at Brad’s photostream via the link above.

Wooden it be Lovely

Leave a reply

All is not what it seems today. Because this lovely Brio-esque wooden train is not a lovely Brio-esque wooden train at all, but a lovely Lego one.

Built by Maxx Davidson, this fantastic scaled-up wooden train runs on LEGO’s rail system, yet looks at first glance identical to the wooden railways that will be immediately familiar to anyone who has kids, has had kids, has been a kid, or has been anywhere near anywhere that has kids.

You can take a closer look at your childhood via the link above, whilst we eagerly await a Hot Wheels track, a red plastic boat, and one of those wire bead thingies that seem to be in every doctor’s surgery waiting area.

Flight of the Pterosaur

Leave a reply

Uh oh. Sci-Fi. The genre about which we know nothing. Fortunately the creator of this spellbinding ‘Pterosaur Ship’, which to us looks like the beautiful combination of a bat and a dying butterfly, has bequeathed it with a description; “Just an average guy traversing planets in a spaceship to share inter-galactic news with the local crocodile-riding tribes.”

Well that clears that up. There’s more to see of this bewitching build courtesy of Oliver Barrell, and you can traverse the planets with an average guy, sharing inter-galactic news with the local crocodile-riding tribes via Oliver’s ‘Pterosaur Ship album at the link above.

Boxing Clever

Leave a reply

The Lego Car Blog Elves have the vehicular tastes of Russian millionaires, favouring vehicles that are fast, loud, and obnoxious. Preferably with rocket launchers attached.

We however are… ok, somehow simultaneously weird and boring, so we like creations like this, a humble Iveco Daily 35S16 box van. In white.

Still, even if you’re of a more Elven persuasion, you can see this Iveco Daily 35S16 is beautifully constructed, with some ingenious techniques used to replicate the seemly simple but actually subtly tricky design. Keko007 is the builder behind it and there’s more to see of his humdrum white box on Flickr via the link above.

Le Mans Matra

Leave a reply

Matra. The greatest car manufacturer most have never heard of. Formula 1 World Champions, three-time Le Mans Winners, and creators of hugely influential production-car successes like this, segment-pioneering inventions like this, and colossal failures like this.

That last one bankrupted the company, which disappeared forever in 2003, so we’ll jump back to 1972 when Matra where on top of not just their game, but everyone else’s, taking the first of three Le Mans wins in a row.

They did so with this, the wild Matra Simca MS670, which won the race by eleven laps in the hands Henri Pescarolo and Graham Hill, with another MS670 in second. This superb Speed Champions recreation of Matra’s ’72 endurance racer is the work of SFH_Bricks of Flickr, who has added it to his ever-growing roster of Le Mans cars.

Authentic decals and fantastic presentation make SFH’s MS670 a worthy homage to the oft-forgotten champions, and you can take a closer look at his brilliant build via the link above.

Quicky’s T

Leave a reply

It’s nearly Easter, when – as is tradition – we remember the Easter Bunny who brought chocolate eggs to all of mankind. Or something. Yay consumerism. Anyway, in celebration here’s an all-year chocolate-bringing rabbit in the form of Nesquik’s mascot, which LEGO mini-figured in 2001 for some reason.

The face (and ears?) of Nesquik since 1973, ‘Quicky’ has fronted a variety of chocolate-based products over the last fifty-two years, including a breakfast cereal launched in 1999 that – thanks to the nerve of the brand’s marketeers trolling their own customers – looked exactly like rabbit droppings.

Cue today’s brick-built bunny, at the wheel of a wheelie-ing Ford T-Bucket hot rod, courtesy of regular blogger _Tiler. A nonsensical comic strip accompanies the build and you join Quicky on his mission to sell his own poop to the world’s children via the link above!

Vice ‘Vette

Leave a reply

Things are not always what they seem. And not just in today’s terrifying world of AI, but in decades past too. Because the ‘Ferraris’ used in the famous TV series ‘Miami Vice’ were not actually Ferraris at all, but Chevrolet C3 Corvettes.

Cunning modifications transformed the then-ageing Stingrays into prancing horses, but we think we actually prefer the ‘Vettes to the Italian supercars they became. This one comes from previous bloggee Sseven Bricks and there’s more to see of his Speed Champions C3 on Flickr. Click the link above to take a look.

Schneider Trophy

Leave a reply

Just a decade on from the aeroplane’s invention and there were already international races occurring. One of the most famous was the Schneider Trophy, in which teams from across Europe sent their finest flying inventions to race a course to glory.

Racing ceased in 1914 due to an international disagreement, but returned again in 1919, when said dispute had been mostly-kinda-not-really-resolved. The aforementioned wrangle had continued to dramatically further the development of the aeroplane though, so that was nice.

Cue these two superb brick-built entrants into the Schneider Trophy, as constructed by TLCB debutant Hod Carrier of Flickr. Above is the Sopwith Tabloid, Britain’s valiant entry into the 1913 Monaco event, whilst below is the remarkable Italian Savoia S-21 floatplane, which went on to be flown by a cartoon pig for some reason.

Each recreates its real-world counterpart beautifully in miniature, and there’s more to see of both aircraft, plus other Schneider Trophy entrants in both digital and real-brick forms, at Hod Carrier’s album of the same name. Click here to race through the skies above a European sea over a century ago!

Bike Carrier

Leave a reply

This might be overkill…

Still, Sseven Bricks‘ bicycle looks safe and secure being transported by his Kenworth K100 and 40ft Fontaine trailer combo.

There’s more of the rig to see, including some more appropriately sized loads, on Flickr. Take a look via the link.

Humble Beginnings

Leave a reply

The Lego Car Blog is a site with humble beginnings. We’re not famous Lego Show exhibitors, Lego User Group leaders, or even upstanding members of the Online Lego Community. Nope, this site was created by idiots, but look how far we’ve co… Wait, that probably isn’t a good example.

But there are great examples of automotive humble beginnings, including two now-titans of the German motor industry; Porsche and BMW.

Porsche’s first car (depicted above) was the 356, which looked a lot like the Volkswagen Beetle, because… well, it kinda was one. BMW on the other hand began by making aero engines during both World Wars. Fortunately for this site’s home nation, the military machine to whom they were supplied didn’t win either of them, and strict metal rationing after Germany’s defeat meant creating cars like the one depicted below, the tiny BMW Isetta ‘bubble car’.

They were simple, slow, and not very expensive, and both shown here are the work of TLCB debutant Filippos Tsialidis, who has created them rather humbly too, using just a handful of pieces for each. They join a host of other classic cars at his ‘Cars’ Flickr album, and you can take a look at beginning of Porsche, BMW, and many others too via the link above.

Going Dutch

Leave a reply

The Dutch get erroneously associated with quite a lot in our home nation. English slang includes ‘going dutch’ (everyone pays), ‘double dutch’ (unintelligible gibberish), dutch oven (farting under the bedcovers before sealing your partner inside), and ‘dutch rudder’ (which we can’t write here)).

Whilst we can’t take responsibility for decades of English verbal tomfoolery, we can ensure the Dutch are adequately represented here at The Lego Car Blog, which we’re doing today via the medium of SFH_Bricks‘ excellent Mercedes-Benz Sprinter ambulance in funky Dutch emergency services livery.

With a complete interior accessed via the twin rear and side sliding doors, SFH’s Sprinter is as detailed inside as out, and you can go Dutch via the link to Flickr above.