Category Archives: Model Team

Building Broncos

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This is a classic 1960s Ford Bronco. And so is this. Yup, we have two brilliant brick-built Broncos today, each of which looks stunningly accurate, and yet the two are constructed entirely differently, such are the infinite possibilities of the LEGO brick.

The blue ’68 Bronco is the work of Michael217, whose Model Team style creation deploys a raft of ‘Studs Not on Top’ techniques to recreate the iconic shape. There are opening doors, a raising hood, a removable hardtop, and a two-piece tailgate, behind each of which are beautifully detailed internals.

Built in exactly the same scale, but using traditional studs-up techniques, is FanisLego’s red ’65 Bronco, which also includes opening doors, a raising hood, a removable hardtop, and a two-piece tailgate, again behind each of which are beautifully detailed internals.

Fanis’ Bronco also deploys a few more ‘Creator’ style techniques, including ‘glass’ for the windows, and the smoothing of nearly every visible stud.

Michael217 has chosen to omit the glass in his windows, but there’s rather more hidden underneath the chassis of his blue ’68, where a complete remote control drivetrain has been packed in. All-wheel-drive courtesy of two L Motors, Servo steering, and all-wheel-suspension all feature, without a hint of the clever engineering within being revealing visibly.

Each Bronco is fantastic example of the versatility of our favourite plastic bricks, using two completely different compositions to deliver an identically scaled highly realistic creation packed with with features.

Both Broncos are presented beautifully on Bricksafe, with Michael’s blue ’68 available to view here (and on Eurobricks too), whilst FanisLego’s red ’65 available to view here. Check out each superb model via the links!

Hook*

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TLCB’s thought for the day; 1970s trucks all looked like toys. This primary-coloured block of magnificence is a classic DAF NAT 2800 hook-lift truck, as created by previous bloggee Arian Janssens, and it proves said thought wonderfully. Check it out on Flickr via the link, and then come back here later to learn other gems such as ‘Why Pandas are Pointless’ and ‘How the Pontiac Aztek is be the Most Underrated Car of all Time’.

*Today’s deeply catchy title song.

My Other Car is a Camaro

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Ford and Chevy people seem – as is so often the way – so be very separate communities. Which is a shame, because without the unnecessary tribalism, both products can be appreciated together.

Cue TLCB Master MOCer Firas Abu-Jaber, who has constructed this excellent Ford Mustang Shleby GT500 from only the parts found within the official LEGO 10304 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 set. Plus a set of more appropriate wheels in the image above.

Converting a Camaro into a Mustang may be considered sacrilege by certain quarters of the Chevrolet community, but fear not, Firas turned the 10265 Ford Mustang set into a Dodge Charger in the past too. See, there’s no bias here!

There’s more to see of Firas’ Camaro-based-Mustang B-Model at his ‘10304 Shelby GT500’ album on Flickr, and you can check out his previously-blogged Mustang-turned-Charger via the link in the text above if you’d rather see a Mustang taken apart than put together.

Box Fresh

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This is a Siemens E-House, a prefabricated electrical substation used for power distribution, pictured here sitting atop an incredible previously-blogged MAN TGX truck and 10-axle Broshuis trailer, as built by TLCB Master MOCer Dennis Bosman.

Dennis recently started work for Siemens after an absence of fifteen years, and created this amazing load for his ‘Van der Vlist’ liveried heavy-haulage truck, and his Siemens colleagues.

You can check out the E-House, and the spectacular truck that’s carrying it, at Dennis’ refreshed ‘MAN TGX “Van der Vlist”‘ album by clicking here, plus you can click the link above read Dennis’ Master MOCers interview here at The Lego Car Blog to learn how he builds dazzling creations such as this.

Three Little Pigs

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We’re going to have a very fat Elf today. One of our mythical little workers brought back these three blogworthy Porsche 356s, meaning it receives three meal tokens. Will said Elf spread them out in order to moderate its intake, or binge on all of them on one go? We all know the answer to that…

Anyway, the three models are appropriate for the aforementioned piggy Elf, as each is a glorious Porsche 356, as built beautifully in Model Team form by ZetoVince of Flickr. All have opening doors, a detailed interior, and passive steering, with the red version available to buy in this year’s Creations for Charity fundraiser.

There’s more to see at Zeto’s photostream via the link above, and if you’d like to own the red car for yourself you can jump straight to the Porsche’s Creations for Charity page via this bonus link.

8859 Redux

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Technic used to look rather, er… basic., with early sets such as the 8859 Tractor a far cry from today’s ultra realistic (and complex) offerings.

Cue TLCB debutant Christoph Ellermann, who has recreated the primary-coloured 1981 set for the modern Creator era. Gone is the Technic functionality, replaced by a more realistic aesthetic, and yet hidden inside is a full remote control drivetrain.

There’s more to see at Christoph’s photostream, plus you can check out the original set – and see just how far Technic tractors have come in four decades – via the links in the text above.

Insert Acronyms Here

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You join us today at the Industrial Decombobulation International Operations Technostructural Station, where vital and complex work is performed via highly specialised machinery. Such important manufacturing can only be enabled thanks to the unique vehicles that operate within the facility, with three such examples depicted here, as produced by the great technical minds of Stefan Johansson and Robert Lundmark.

Each vehicle is perfectly engineered for its required task, from Thermoelectrometal Immunocytochemical Tetrachlorethylene Semidisintegration to Aerothermodynamic  Noninterchangeable Agammaglobulinemic Lipoinfiltration, and we don’t need to tell you how important those are. Grab your PHD and head into the facility via the link above.

Ghost Protocol

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Swedish hypercar manufacturer Koenigsegg have the coolest logo of any car brand. No prancing horse, raging bull, leaping cat, or angry snake here, because Koenigsegg use a ghost.

The spooky symbol isn’t some nod to the occult, but rather has its heritage in the building in which the cars are built; an ex-Swedish Air Force hanger, the squadron of whose jets were adorned with a little ghost motif.

Koenigsegg’s 2010s hypercar, the 1,500bhp plug-in hybrid Regera, took the ghosting a little further, with the addition of the $280,000 ‘Ghost Pack’. We thought this might be neon-lighting and a spectral paint job, but it in fact consisted of additional aerodynamic pieces to increase downforce by around 20%, meaning this is one ghost that definitely won’t leave the ground.

This spectacular brick-built replica of the Regera Ghost Pack by Flickr’s 3D supercarBricks uses a few 3D-printed parts to maximise the accuracy of those aero-enhancing extras, plus features opening clamshells, a wild orange interior, and opening scissor doors too.

It’s also – unlike every other image that purportedly captures a ghost – photographed beautifully, and there’s much more to see at 3D’s photostream. Click the link above to ghost on over.

Lego Lanz

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This is a Lanz HL12 Bulldog, a 1920s German tractor powered by a single cylinder ‘hot bulb’ engine that was so ubiquitous, in some parts of Germany tractors are still known as ‘bulldogs’.

‘Hot bulb’ engines featured very few moving parts, no carburettor, no cooling system, and – much like the flux-capacitor in Doc Brown’s time machine – could run on almost anything.

This one has been recreated wonderfully by Nikolaus Löwe, who has replicated not only the engine but the Lanz’s full suite of 1920s mechanicals, and there’s more to see at his ‘Lanz HL12 Bulldog’ album via the link above.

Business Express

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With TLCB’s home nation outlawing the sale of non-zero-emissions vehicles from the middle of next decade, some have wondered whether manufacturers whose brands are built on internal combustion will have a place. Porsche, famous for flat-6 power, have proved emphatically that they will.

The Taycan – Porsche’s first EV – is formidably fast, has a reasonable range, and – unlike Tesla – isn’t built like total crap. However all of that is secondary to the fact that in the UK, company car drivers can pay a tiny fraction of the tax that they would versus combustion engined vehicles.

As is sadly often the case, this means the poor – who can’t afford a £100k electric Porsche – will be subsiding the rich so they can get one on the cheap, but it has meant that the Taycan is a wildly popular company car in the UK.

Cue 3D supercarBricks, who has created the businessman’s favourite beautifully in appropriate Business Grey. The brick-built Porsche Taycan includes opening everything and top quality presentation, with more to see at 3D’s photostream.

Click the link above to take a look – just note that if you decide to buy some LEGO bricks to build one yourself, you’ll pay more tax than an owner of the real thing.

Zuk but Nysa

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This is a ZSD Nysa 522, a Polish communistical van based on the FSC Zuk, only a little nicer (hence our terrifically amusing title!). The Zuk was itself based on an FSO, which was based on a GAZ, making the Nysa the last link in effectively one long chain of Iron Curtain automotive misery.

Said Iron Curtain meant the Nysa 522 remained in production – unbelievably – until 1994, by which time the newly democratic Polish government could elect to import vans that weren’t based on the design of a Russian passenger car from the 1940s.

This lovely Model Team recreation of the ZSD Nysa 522 comes from previous bloggee and weird-Eastern-European-communist-era-specialist Legostalgie, who has captured its characterful styling beautifully. There are opening doors, including a clever sliding one on the passenger side, a detailed engine, and a lifelike interior, and there’s much more to see at Legostalgie’s ‘Nysa 522’ album on Flickr, where a link to building instructions can also be found.

Click the link above to take a look, and the link above that to see all of the weird-Eastern-European-communist-era vehicles from Legostalgie that have appeared here at The Lego Car Blog to date. All are fantastic, but we think this one is even a little Nysa…

Monotone Mystery

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What’s in this excellent and delightfully-bland tanker truck? Milk… Petrol… Beer…? We can but hope it’s the latter. Previous bloggee Arian Janssens is the builder and there’s more to see of his magnificently monotone DAF XG+ 530 truck and equally nondescript tanker trailer on Flickr. Click the link to take a look whilst this writer heads to the fridge for a beer. Unless there’s just milk in there. Please let there be beer…

Life at the Top

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For those lucky enough to be fantastically wealthy, they’ll probably be slightly more so by the time you’ve finished reading this post. That’s because to make money, all you need is… money.

Take the Ferrari Enzo, a $660,000 car when it was new twenty years ago, and now worth just over $3million. Even inflation-adjusted that’s still an increase of $2.1million. That rise equates to $8,750 a month over the last two decades – double the median wage in America, tax free, and without working a day.

With a bleak economic forecast ahead we can expect many will suffer hardship probably not seen since the 2008 crash, but the new (unelected) Government of the TLCB’s home nation (it’s complicated…) has just slashed tax for the wealthy. Because to make money all you need is money. We’d make a joke about trickle-down economics, but 99% of readers wouldn’t get it.

Thus we won’t be previewing LEGO’s newly revealed $600 set, because it seems in rather poor taste at the moment (plus it’s Star Wars), and instead we’ll use this rather excellent recreation of an early-’00s hypercar by Flickr’s 3D supercarBricks to moan about the growing poverty in the sixth largest economy on earth.

So keep your eyeballs on the ads on this page, click them if you’re interested, and we’ll give away what we can of the proceeds. It might be needed more than ever this winter.

My Other Car’s a Camaro

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How many models can the LEGO Icons 10304 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 make? Lots, according to Tomáš Novák, who has already appeared here with his Chevrolet C10 pick-up 10304 alternate, constructed within days of the set’s release.

Tomáš has now converted his C10 truck, itself converted from the 10304 set, into this lovely early Porsche 911, which features opening doors, engine cover and front trunk, working steering, and a rather natty two-tone stripe necessitated by the source parts of the 10304 set.

Building instructions are available and there’s more to see of Tomáš’ 10304 B-Model at both Eurobricks and Flickr.

How’d You Like Them Apples?

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This gorgeous model is a 1965 DAF 1800 DS300 truck, built in incredible detail by p.vaderloo of Flickr. Photographed by fellow builder and previous bloggee Jaap Technic, p.vanderloo’s creation is one of the finest trucks we’ve featured here at The Lego Car Blog in ten years of publication, with its astonishing realism no doubt aided by close up access to the real 1965 truck.

Recreating every aspect of its life-size counterpart, p.vaderloo’s model replicates the livery, badging and even license plate, with a load of palleted apples on the twin-axle trailer completing the build. There are more stunning images to see at p.vaderloo’s ‘DAF 1800 DS300 1965’ album on Flickr, where you can see the model photographed alongside (and in) the beautiful original truck. Click the link above to take a bite.