Aarrrgh, this be a fine vessel. She be a twenty-four gun barque, plain to the eye yet a beauty where it counts, from her Harrrry Potter wand rigging to her 12-pounderrr cannons. She be captained by Sebeus I and you can request to join her crew on Flickrrrr.
Britain has a long tradition of making crap cars. This is widely considered to be one of them.
The Reliant Robin has been the butt of jokes in TLCB’s home nation for years. Cheap, slow, and missing something that is taken for granted with almost every other car (a fourth wheel), it was derided for decades.
However, the humble Robin (and its Rialto and Regal forbears) was actually phenomenally successful. The second most mass-produced fibreglass car in history, the Robin’s success came from its ability to exploit loopholes, as with Germany and France’s microcar classes and Japan’s kei cars.
Three wheels meant the Robin could be driven on a motorcycle license, drivers paid less tax, and the oil crisis of the 1970s caused sales to rocket. It was this success that led to the derision, as there were actually loads of British three-wheeled microcars but no-ones heard of any of the others.
This brilliant Technic recreation of everyone’s (least)favourite British car comes from previous bloggee Danifill, who has not only replicated the Robin’s inline 4-cylinder engine, the steered and suspended centre wheel, and the live rear axle, he’s also equipped his Robin with a third-party BuWizz bluetooth battery and three (appropriately) Power Functions motors.
An XL Motor drives the rear wheels, a Servo powers the steering (which also turns the steering wheel), whilst a Medium motor controls a two-speed gearbox. There are also opening doors with functioning locks, an opening hood and tailgate, plus working head and taillights too.
It’s a great build of a crap but somewhat unfairly derided car and there’s more to see of Danifill’s ’90s Reliant Robin at the Eurobricks forum, where there’s also a video in which you can watch all three wheels in action.
Not all race-winning Mercedes racing cars are silver. This is the famous ‘Red Mercedes’, the 1924 winner of the immense ‘Targa Florio’ road race across Italy, rumoured to be painted red to stop nationalistic fans throwing rocks at it, in case it was an Alfa Romeo.
Powered by a supercharged two-litre four cylinder engine, the ‘Red Mercedes’ began Mercedes-Benz’s journey with forced-induction racing cars that culminated in the amazing SSK in the early 1930s.
This utterly beautiful Technic replica of Mercedes’ 1924 race winner comes from Nikolaus Lowe, who has equipped it with a working four-cylinder engine (with a functioning hand-crank), period-correct leaf spring suspension, steering, and a two-speed gearbox.
Nikolaus has photographed and presented his creation superbly and there’s more to see of this stunning build at his ‘Mercedes Targa Florio 1924’ album on Flickr. Click the link above to take a closer look.
After over 50 years of service, Boeing’s mighty 747 is starting to be retired from fleets around the world. The 747 first entered service with the now defunct Pan Am airline in 1970, after they commissioned Boeing to build a plane 2.5 times larger than their existing airliners.
The aim was to reduce expenses by a third per passenger to bring long-distance air travel to the masses, and the 747 fulfilled its brief so well that over 1,500 have been produced to date, with the design single-handedly defining the ‘jumbo jet’ era.
747 production finally ceases next year, as the industry has moved away from ‘jumbo’ aircraft in favour of smaller more fuel efficient airliners, with two-engined planes now capable of flying just as far as their ageing four-engined counterparts.
Anything that reduces air travel pollution is a good thing, but we’ll miss the old ‘jumbo’. Flickr’s saabfan2013 will too by the looks of it, and has created this neat brick-built homage to the 747 in double-decker configuration and Iberia livery.
There are more images of saabfan’s excellent Iberia Boeing 747 to see on Flickr, where you can also find a link to the model on LEGO Ideas should you want the opportunity to place the iconic Jumbo Jet on your desk too. Click the link above to take off.
Green has traditionally (and logically) been LEGO’s colour of choice for flora, being used for trees, plants, and grassy baseplates. It also features as a stripe in fictional energy company Octan’s livery, but that’s about as far as it went for green pieces for decades.
In recent times though, LEGO’s range of green hues has expanded massively, with ‘sand green’, ‘lime green’, ‘dark green’, ‘blueish green’ and, as here, ‘olive green’.
Despite increase in variety of greens however, the pieces within each hue are often still rarer than evidence of humility from Donald Trump, which explains why Rolands Kirpis took a year to find all the olive green parts required for his Ural 375D. Find them he did though, and his 12 month search paid off as his Ural looks stunning.
Underneath the olive green exterior Rolands’ truck is fully remote controlled, with three L motors driving all six wheels, a Medium motor powering the steering, along with working suspension, opening doors and hood, plus a detailed interior and engine bay.
There’s loads more of Rolands’ brilliant build to see at his photostream – click the link above to go (olive) green.
We’re not sure why whales are renowned for having such a good time, but we guess their partying reputation fits with the matra ‘Go Big or Go Home’.
Whatever the reason, Porsche decided that their 911 could do with being a bit more whaley in the 1970s, and fitted it with a huge ‘whale tail’ spoiler. And a turbo.
Said turbo added to the whaley fun, providing absolutely no power at all for a long time, and then suddenly all the power at once. This meant ’70s 911 Turbo drivers did indeed have a whale of a time right up until the point when they were upside-down in a field. That’s ‘Go Big or Go Home’ again we suppose…
This brilliant Porsche 911 Turbo comes from barneius, who has recreated the whale-tailed classic superbly in 8-wide Speed Champions scale. There are more beautifully sharp images available to view on Flickr, where you can also find a link to building instructions so that you can recreate chronic turbo lag and snap oversteer in miniature at home!
Click the link above to have a whale of a time!
As has been well-documented on these pages, TLCB does not like Hummer. Today however we have a Hummer that is the exact opposite of what the hateful brand stood for; being both small, and really rather clever.
Built by Flickr’s Frantisek Hajdekr, this 10-wide Hummer H1 might only be Speed Champions-ish scale, but it includes both working steering and pendular suspension under the bright red bodywork.
An artfully placed rock shows the clever chassis in action and there’s more to see of Frantisek’s ace Hummer H1 build at his photostream. Click the link above to make the jump!
DAF-building extraordinaire Arian Janssens is back with another of the Netherlands’ finest trucks. This one is a 95XF Super Space Cab, which Arian has replicated brilliantly in Model Team form. Click the link above to see more.
It must have been beautiful but bleak navigating the Ardennes in 1944. Nicholas Goodman has depicted the scene beautifully, with his tank advancing through the mud and ice, wonderfully recreated in brick form. Head to Nicholas’ photostream for the full image, and – as we do from time to time – click here for the other side of war.
We don’t often feature micro-scale creations here at TLCB, let alone whatever scale this is. Micro-micro-micro-scale?
This is the Ever Given container ship, here measuring just six studs in length, the life-size version of which is currently blocking the Suez Canal.
At 400m (1,300ft) long, the Ever Given is one of the largest ships in the world, able to carry over 20,000 shipping containers. These are all currently wedged between the banks of the Suez – blocking the hundreds of other ships that were transiting the canal at the time – and creating the world’s largest homage to Austin Powers in a baggage cart.
Whilst the Egyptian authorities attempt to clear their canal blockage you can check out this micro-micro-micro-scale version courtesy of yu chris‘ on Flickr, plus you can read a bit more about why the Suez Canal is so important here.
Surprisingly we don’t think we’ve ever blogged a horse truck here at TLCB (and we’re reluctant to go into the Archives to check properly as there are rumours of a feral band of TLCB Elves inhabiting them).
Today doesn’t change that though, despite the title, as this lovely Dodge M-37 truck is not a horse truck per say, rather it’s here as ground support for [Maks] previously blogged UH-34D Seahorse U.S Navy helicopter.
That means no attractive horsey girls called Arabella, but still an ace scene that would have been commonplace in the 1960s U.S Navy. There’s more to see of [Maks] Dodge M-37 truck and superb Sikorsky Seahorse on Flickr – click the link above to take a look.
You might think that a pair of handcuffs has only one use, whether that be in their deployment by law enforcement or during your Mom’s illicit activities. However previous bloggee Oscar Cederwall (o0ger) shows that even the most seemingly single-use of LEGO pieces can be utilised far beyond its original intended purpose.
By placing several dozen handcuff pieces in a loop Oscar has created a beautifully smooth hub-less wheel, with the ‘Nice Parts Usage’ (NPU) continuing to an upside-down Duplo train/plane cockpit, a fort stone archway, and even a Duplo Train ‘action brick’ forming the rear swing-arm.
There’s more of Oscar’s ‘Cyberpunk Bike’ and the ingenious parts placement within it to see on Flickr – click the link above to put on the ‘cuffs.
This is a UAZ 3151, one of the Soviet Union’s many fantastically-boringly-titled, but actually very capable off-roaders. Built by Keymaker, this stunning fully RC recreation of the Russian off-roader not only looks the part in both standard and off-road modified forms, it’s absolutely packed with brilliant Technic engineering.
Drive for all four wheels comes from two L Motors whilst a Servo controls the steering. A Medium Motor operates front and rear remotely locking differentials, and not only are both axles suspended, the suspension height can be adjusted via an L Motor to vary the ground clearance.
These off-road mods are apparently inspired the video game ‘Snowrunner’, and Keymaker has gone further with his Technic model equipping it with a removable hardtop roof, removable bodywork, folding rear seats, an opening glovebox, opening and locking doors, a working inline-4 engine, and LED head and tail lights.
It’s an incredible build and one that’s definitely worth a closer look. Head to Eurobricks for full details and a video of the UAZ in action, and to Bricksafe for the complete image gallery, where you can find outdoor shots and pictures of the model in various states of off-road modification.
Riding a dirt bike on the road is the preserve of annoying scallies. However riding one in the dirt where they are meant to be is excellent in every way.
Cue Luis Baixinho, who has created this absolutely wonderful (and huge) motocross track, complete with starting gate, spectators, jumps, streams, rocks and various other motocross staples.
Spanning two 32×32 baseplates Luis’ vignette manages to convey the sand, mud and ruts created by the dirt bikes beautifully – we can almost smell the exhaust fumes and hear the BNEEEEEERRRR-ing.
There are loads more images to see at Luis’ ‘Motocross’ album on Flickr and you can join in the two-wheeled fun via the link above!
Cheap ubiquitous ‘Peoples’ Cars’ have a habit of becoming off-roaders. There are Baja Beetles, beach buggy Beetles, the Mini Moke, and – if those are too fast for you – the Citroen Mehari.
Based on the already off-road capable 2CV and ironically named after a fast-running camel, the Mehari kept the 2CV’s 602cc two-cylinder engine and added plastic body panels and a removable roof, creating a kind of off-road roadster. Just a very slow one.
This superb Speed Champions scale recreation of the plastic snail comes from TLCB regular Jonathan Elliott, which is both built and presented beautifully, and there’s more to see at the link.