Category Archives: Town

Small-Scale Sixties Sunday

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We had a three-way Elf fight here at TLCB Towers today, as a trio of intrepid internet investigators returned with three sixties classics. This inevitably led to a fight over whose was best, but as all three are being blogged they’re all winners, much a like a pre-school sports day.

The first of today’s small-scale replicas is 1968 Mercury Cougar, in a rather fetching turquoise. Regular bloggee Jonathan Elliott is the builder and there’s more to see at his photostream.

Our second sixties classic is rather more exotic, being the first miid-engined supercar and arguably Lamborghini’s finest hour, the magnificent Miura. Moritz Ziegler is the builder behind this excellent orange Speed Champions recreation and there’s more to see at the link.

The final car in today’s trio steps down from Speed Champions to Town scale, yet somehow manages to be even more detailed.

Built by 1saac W, this brilliant late ’50s to early ’60s Nash Metropolitan is a refinement of a previously blogged build, enhanced with some clever chrome stickerage and really rather clever roof design.

There’s more to see of 1saac’s updated Nash via the link above, plus you can see the appearance of the original, which includes the backstory of this unusual car, by clicking here.

You Know the Title

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Entitled simply ‘Spaceship!’, to quote an irritatingly over-used meme from a certain brick-based movie, this creation by Flickr’s GolPlaysWithLego makes up in building-techniques what it lacks in naming originality, with some wonderfully inventive design elements. Head into Neo-Classic Space via Gol’s ‘Spaceship!’ album via the link above.

Oldtimey Thursday

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OK, there’s no such thing as ‘Oldtimey Thursday’, except perhaps at Shady Oaks nursing home where every day is oldtimey. But today is a Thursday and we do have some oldtimey vehicles!

TLCB Elves of course, do not like oldtimey winga-dinga vehicles one bit. They’re slow, they don’t have racing stripes, and they look silly. But the Elves don’t write these posts, we do (they can’t write at all really. We tried giving them a box of crayons once but they ate them), and on occasion we do quite like oldtimey winga-dinga vehicles.

These excellent oldtimey examples all come from Łukasz Libuszewski of Flickr, and are (from top to bottom); a Ford Model T in convertible and pick-up variants, a lovely 1920s postal truck, and a Cadillac V16.

Each is built and presented beautifully and there’s more to see of these, plus lots more brick-built oldtimers, at Łukasz photostream. Click the link above to make the trip. Winga-dinga…

Space Cat

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We featured an earth-based Bobcat last week, and now we have one in space! Of course being a space Bobcat this one has a great many levers to enable it to conduct complex spacey things, controlled by a pink Classic Spaceman in a bubble canopy. TLCB regular Horcik Designs owns the mind being it and there’s more to see here.

Big Heart

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It’s Valentines Day, and the office here a TLCB Towers is filled with piles of cards from our admirers.

Wait, that’s not right. We mean it’s filled with messages from ‘instructions plz’ enquirers. That and ‘Get cheap Cialis here’ comments which we have to delete by the dozen. We suppose that those are kinda Valentine’s-related though?

Anyway, in other tenuous Valentines-linked news, this is PleaseYesPlease‘s wonderful Renault Dauphine rat rod, which is based on a real-world car by Instagramer ‘Oxtaco’.

Oxtaco transplanted a Volkswagen VR6 motor in place of the tiny original 845cc Renault engine, giving his Dauphine a much bigger heart (see, Valentines!).

Plus there’s probably a joke about putting something large inside something small, but with this writer and your Mom it’s the opposite, and either way we’ll probably have to delete more Cialis comments.

There are more images to see of PleaseYesPlease’s lovely Lego recreation of Oxtaco’s VR6-engined Renault Dauphine on Flickr, some of which even include Valentines-appropriate pink blossom.

Click the link above to see more, whilst we forward the latest batch of ‘Cheap Cialis’ messages on to The Brothers Brick.

GrilleNerd

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We don’t think the previous management of BrickNerd thought much of us here at TLCB. And they’d be right not to, because we’re idiots.

However despite us not being with the ‘in’ crowd of famous Lego-y types, we did rather like BrickNerd’s little mascot Nerdly, contrasting with our utter hatred of that bloody lemur over at The Brothers Brick.

Now under new management, BrickNerd’s bespectacled brick Nerdly is popping up all over the place, including here, mounted to the front of Martin Harris‘ ‘Space City Cruiser’.

We’ve thought about doing something similar to a number of our Elves over the years, although that particular plan involved the front of a bin lorry, but so far we’ve refrained. So far…

Whilst this TLCB Writer dreams of tying Elves to bin lorries you can see more of Martin’s ‘Nerdly Strikes Back!’ at his photostream via the link above.

We’re Going to Need a Bigger Cracker

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Everybody knows the moon’s made of cheese. Which means that the ‘Moonmouse MkII’ makes perfect sense to us. Horcik Designs owns the mind behind it and you can check it out on Flickr by clicking these words.

The Future Belongs to the Nerds

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In fact the present probably does too.

Is it engineers and racing drivers that develop cars today? Of course not, it’s software developers, writing a billion lines of code. Every part of modern life is controlled by code writers, and even those that seem cool now got to where they did by being massive nerds, however much they try to reinvent the person of their past.

Cue TFDesigns! aka Frost, who has entered this year’s Febrovery annual build-off (itself a pretty nerdy thing) with his ‘Futuron MoLab’; a big white box designed purely for science. What science we’re not told, but it looks really very nerdy indeed, so it must be important. Probably a new advert algorithm for Facebook or something.

Whatever it’s up to there’s more to see at Frost’s photostream – join the nerds writing the future via the link above.

Man of Iron

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Before Tony Stark became Iron Man (or maybe during – we’re not really in to the whole Marvel Universe thing), he also tinkered with hot rods, as depicted in this ace recreation of a scene from the first(?) Iron Man movie by Flickr’s Hans Dendauw.

A Ford flathead hot rod with a sweet flame paint-job takes centre stage in a build which includes a huge variety of workshop paraphernalia, bits of Iron Man suit, plus Tony Stark and Pepper Potts mini-figures. There’s more to see at Hans’ ‘Stark Garage’ album and you take a look here.

I Only Work In Black…

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Mini-figure Batman is looking particularly moody in this shot, no doubt pondering darkness, no parents, and upgrades to his sound system. KitKat1414 is the builder behind it and there’s more to see of his Tumbler and Dark Knight on Flickr here.

Smarter than the Average Bear

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Yogi Bear looks pissed. We’re not sure what the mini-figure behind the wheel of this Chevrolet K5 Blazer has done but we’re betting he’s hoping that rickety bridge holds up. It’s got a bit of extra weight to carry too, what with the Blazer being loaded with a variety of outdoorsy paraphernalia, and – oddly – a globe, which – unless your journey is really long and the details don’t really matter – seems a pointless thing to bring. Anyway, there’s more to see of Yogi’s revenge courtesy of Andrea Lattanzio on Flickr – click the link to take a look!

Forked from Behind

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This is a Renault Magnum, famous for being the squarest object in the known universe. It comes from Damian Z (aka Thietmaier), and whilst it’s excellent, what’s more interesting is the dropside trailer and trailer-mounted forklift behind it.

Such set-ups are commonplace in Europe, with the forklift sometimes cleverly doubling as the rear lights, number plate holder, and bumper of the trailer.

Damian’s forklift is a Moffett M4, and it’s as beautifully built as both the trailer that it rides upon and the truck that pulls it.

There’s lots more to see of Damian’s superbly presented Magnum/Moffett combination at his ‘Renault Magnum AE’ album on Flickr, where further details (including the rather neat pallets and their patio tile cargo) can be found. Click the link above for a good rear forking.

Chumdinger

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This gloriously grey steamer comes from Daniel Church of Flickr, whose ‘Chumdinger’ steampunk tugboat plies the dirty waters of a Victorian Thames. And what waters they are too, with Daniel creating the bow waves and paddle churn absolutely beautifully in trans tiles. That’s not a very ‘TLCB’ thing to write, as we’re normally focussed on engines and whatnot, but fortunately the Chumdinger has one of those too, with the pistons pumping and paddle turning brilliantly via a hidden Power Function motor. There’s more to see of Daniel’s superb creation at his photostream – click the link above to head to the past on London’s river.

Be One of the Good Guys

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It’s Classic Space which – out of all of the space themes – is remembered most fondly by subsequent generations. Perennially smiling, the mini-figures of Classic Space held no weapons, and placed science and knowledge above fear and power.

In contrast, the bullying Spyrius militants – who used violence and weaponry in an attempt to steal what they wanted – were no more than a flash in the pan, fading away as quickly as they arrived and proceeded to smash everything up.

In completely unrelated news there’s a Presidential Inauguration today, which is going ahead despite the arrival of a bunch of bullying militants – who used violence and weaponry in an attempt to steal what they wanted – and proceeded to smash everything up.

We believe in the power of voting for the good guys, and you can do just that at LEGO Ideas, where LEGO are holding a ballot to celebrate their 90th Anniversary, in which you can vote to bring back one of many beloved popular classic themes. And Time Cruisers for some reason.

TLCB’s vote will always go to the good guys, themes of which include Imperial Soldiers, M-Tron, Forestmen, Space Police, and – of course – Classic Space. You can vote for the return of your favourite theme via LEGO Ideas, and you can see more of the excellent Classic Space ‘Exo-Planet Surveyor’ by Flickr’s Pascal that’s featured in this post by clicking here.

We’ve Got Gas

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We’ve got gas today, courtesy of Dan the Fan, who is here making his TLCB debut.

It won’t be long before finding gas might be rather tricky, as gas stations – so integral to society for almost a century – are about to enter a period of mass extinction.

Ultimately that’s a good thing, but it’ll be shame for the many family-owned businesses that will close, and – sometimes – the gas stations themselves disappearing, as occasionally they can be quite interesting.

Dan the Fan’s in one such interesting gas station, complete with some rather excellent ‘Shell’ lettering, a gas pump, kiosk, elevated tank, billboard, and some cool-looking mini-figure bikers.

There’s more to see at Dan’s ‘Gas Station’ album on Flickr – click the link above to get gas.