This funky looking arrangement is a Sennebogen 821, with its electromagnet poised over a container full of scrap metal. It’s a good thing we don’t work in a metal recycling yard because we would be so irresponsible with a giant magnet, but the driver of this one appears to be very sensible. Ricecracker is the builder and there’s more to see on Flickr via the link.
The inline four-cylinder petrol engine is the most commonly fitted engine to cars the world over. The optimum balance between smoothness, power, efficiency, and er… cheapness, the inline-4 needs only one cylinder head, there are always two cylinders going down as two go up, and when mounted transversely it takes up little space.
Despite all those worthy attributes however, these days the inline 4-cylinder can be seen as a bit dull, despite the efforts of the world’s best engineers to liven it up. Back in the earliest days of motoring though, it was anything but.
Bentley’s amazing ‘Blower‘ racing cars used 4-cylinders, and so too did Fiat, who – in 1911 – fitted a four-cylinder engine to their S76 World Record Car of twenty-eight litres capacity. The result was quite fiery, and allowed the ‘Beast of Turin’ to hit an unofficial top speed of over 130mph.
It’s this car that Joe Maruschak‘s ‘Vintage Race Car’ most closely resembles, itself being fitted with a working 4-cylinder engine utilising LEGO’s suitably vintage square pistons and featuring pushrod-operated valves.
A hidden Power Functions motor brings Joe’s creation to life and there’s more to see of his mighty 4-cylinder racing car on Flickr via the link above.
Ever wondered what an off-road Cessna would look like? No, us neither. But literally everything exists on the internet somewhere, including an off-roader fitted with the wrecked body from a Cessna aircraft.
Supercharged Chinchilla stumbled across the aforementioned creation and decided to create it for himself in Lego form. Cue this, um… thing, which we want to own more than almost any vehicle that this site has ever published.
There’s more of Chinchilla’s off-road Cessna to see on Flickr; take a look via the link above whilst we scour TLCB Towers to see if there’s anything we can fit to the office Rover 200 that’ll make it as cool as this…
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.
Ask the internet any sports car question and the answer is always ‘Miata’. Except when it’s ‘Put an LS in it’. Although sometimes the answer is both.
Today’s answer is Miata too, courtesy of David Elisson‘s neatly recreated version of the iconic Japanese sports car in its fourth (ND) generation.
There’s space for two mini-figures, the doors and hood open (the latter revealing a well detailed engine underneath), and – rather impressively – the convertible roof works too.
Click the link above for the obvious answer.
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.
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…
The snow around TLCB Towers is melting away, however TLCB Master MOCer Mahjqa appears to still be enjoying it wherever he is, with the most accurately titled video on YouTube. ‘Lego truck driving through snow whilst synth music plays’ is available to view above, or at Eurobricks here.
This Elves are very excited today. Not only does this excellent 1970 Dodge Challenger feature a hood scoop (Elf points), many drag racing modifications (more Elf points), and a brick built nitrous kit (even more Elf points), it’s fully remote controlled too, with LEGO’s monstrous Buggy Motor driving the rear wheels.
A Servo powers the steering, not that you’ll really need that at the drag strip (in this case TLCB office corridor), there’s working suspension (independent front and live-axle rear), plus opening doors, hood, and trunk.
It’s a mega bit of kit and one we fully intend to drive up and down the corridor to much Elven whooping until the battery is flat. Whilst we get on with that arduous testing you can check out more of Michael217’s awesome creation at both Eurobricks and Bricksafe – click the links to take a look!
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.
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.
We’re cheating a bit today, but whilst this creation by Flickr’s L E G O Z ; ) is digital, being ‘built’ in Bricklink Studio 2.0, it’s also awesome. Called the ‘SPARKY’ High Mobility Salvage Rover, it’s based on the concept art of John Wallin Liberto, and features only genuine (digital) LEGO pieces plus some rather neat photoshopping. The result looks mega and there’s more to see via the link above!
The United States of America very much proclaims itself to be the greatest country on earth. And it’s true the U.S economy is still (presently) the largest. America also manages to top the world in gun ownership, prescription drug costs, incarceration rate, and by being the only developed nation (and one of only three countries in the whole world) not to mandate paid maternity leave. However in almost every other respect it’s China that’s No.1.
China’s incredible progress over the last few decades is astounding (if a little frightening) to see, with the People’s Liberation Army now around 50% larger than the U.S. military by number of personnel.
The People’s Liberation Army Air Force has also upped its game somewhat, with third-generation all-weather fighter aircraft like this, the Chengdu J-10 ‘Vigorous Dragon’.
Not only does it have a great name, the Vigorous Dragon is equipped with air-to-air missiles, air-to-surface missiles, laser-guided bombs, glide bombs, satellite-guided bombs , 90mm unguided rockets, and a gun. All of which it can use in the People’s Republic of China’s mission to be as much of a dick as possible.
You see China is managing to overtake America in one other league table; international intimidation, by antagonising pretty much every other nation in the South China Sea, Taiwan, India, Tibet, the residents of Hong Kong, and their own Uighur Muslim minority.
Still, what’s the point of spending $260billion on a military annually if you’re not going to use it?
China’s budget – unfathomably colossal though it is – does mean that America remains No.1 at something though, with a military expenditure greater than the next ten largest budgets combined (of which China are a very distant second). If only the U.S would spend some of that on maternity pay…
Oh yeah, we’re a Lego blog… this excellent mini-figure scale recreation of the Chengdu J-10 -complete with accurate decals and a variety of explody things mounted under the wings – comes from John C. Lamarck, who has captured the Chinese fighter brilliantly. An opening cockpit and working landing gear feature too, and there’s lots more to see at John’s ‘J-10B’ album on Flickr.
Click the link above to threaten an East Asian nation of your choosing.
We don’t get bobcats here in TLCB’s home nation. We used to have the eurasian lynx roaming about, which is like a bobcat only three times the size, but we shot all of those. Along with pretty much everything else. Yay humanity.
Thus the only bobcats we’re going to see are the excavatorial types, such as this Bobcat S130. Constructed by Brick_Builder19, this neat Technic recreation of the skid-steer loader includes a working piston engine, a linear actuator operated lift arm, and a mechanical tipping bucket.
Full details of Brick’s Bobcat S130 are available on Eurobricks, where you can also find a link to the model on LEGO Ideas. Grab your gun and click the link above to take a closer look.
‘Semi’ means something rather different in the TLCB’s home nation…
No matter, in the U.S. at least, it seems to relate to trucks, as demonstrated by this ‘American Semi Truck’ by The G Brix of Flickr. Constructed in Speed Champions scale it features opening doors, a detailed interior (with living space), an engine under the opening hood, and there’s more to see via the link.
