The school-run arms-race is alive and well around TLCB Towers, where giant black 4x4s are seemingly in a competition to be the most unnecessary child transportation method.
This would be our repost, Horcik Designs‘ ‘Rattrax’; a Blacktron buggy with a giant space laser mounted on the roof, which seems more than capable of one-upping Liliane’s Range Rover. Or at least blasting it into a fine powder.
Head to Flickr via the link above to join the fight.
Ninety-five year old Spanish motorcycle manufacturer Rieju make some great looking off-road mopeds. And so too does previous bloggee Mathjis Bongers, who has recreated their MRT PRO ‘motard’ in Technic form, complete with working suspension, steering, and a replica of the Rieju’s tiny 50cc engine, which likely makes a disproportionately loud noise in relation to the forward movement in provides. Mathjis’ version is therefore our preference, despite how cool the real thing looks, and there’s more to see at both his ‘Rieju MRT PRO‘ album and via the Eurobricks discussion here.
Honda’s NSX broke new ground when it launched in 1990. Whilst not the fastest or the most exotic supercar, it brought reliability and usability to a vehicular segment that had – in some cases – completely ignored these attributes in favour of silly doors.
This of course meant that the NSX was seen as a bit boring at the time, or even ‘not a super car’, at all, but time has been kinda Honda’s experiment, and it has become one of the most revered and iconic ’90s cars ever, with prices exploding in recent years.
This puts the NSX out of reach for most of us, but fortunately regular bloggee SP_LINEUP has constructed one that’s far more attainable, and just as awesome looking.
A detailed interior behind opening doors, a beautifully accurate engine under an opening cover, and – get this – working pop-up headlights via a lever in the cabin(!) all feature, and there’s much more to see of SP’s superbly presented build on Flickr. Click the link above to make the jump!
Much of crime now occurs online. From serious stuff like bank fraud, trivial stuff like calling someone names on Twitter, or absurd stuff like teaching a pug to nazi salute, the internet is a cesspool of scumbagery. It is, of course, where The Lego Car Blog is based, which probably just adds to the argument for closing the whole thing down.
Fortunately (apart from in that pug case), there are cyber police attempting to control the online douchbaggery, and in our minds they travel around in things like this.
Appropriately digitally rendered by TLCB debutant cixpack, this ‘2069 Polara’ NYC Police hover car looks like something in-between the Blues Brothers and Fifth Element; and would be suitably terrifying if it turned up outside a troll’s abode to administer a kick to the balls (TLCB’s favoured proposed internet policing style) whenever they used the internet as a toilet.
There’s more to see of cixpack’s virtual NYPD hover car on Flickr – click the link above to take a look. Just remember to be nice!
The original Fiat 500 was so called because it was powered by a rear-mounted 500cc two-cylinder engine. Back in ’50s Europe though, you could go even smaller.
This is the Vespa 400, so called because – you’ve guessed it – it was powered by a rear-mounted 400cc two-cylinder engine, which came from a Piaggio motorcycle.
Said powerhouse afforded the 400 a top speed of just over 50mph (if you mixed the oil with the fuel correctly as it was two stroke), and like the 500 it could just about fit four people inside and featured a convertible canvas roof incase they were wearing tall hats.
This rather lovely Model Team recreation of the Vespa 400 comes from previous bloggee monstermatou, who has constructed it only from the parts found within the Creator Expert 10271 Fiat 500 set.
Monster’s got form too, with several of his ace alternates appearing here previously, one of which very nearly won the TLCB Lock-Down B-Model Competition.
There’s more to see of the Vespa 400 B-Model as well as monstermatou’s other alternates at his photostream, and you can do just that by clicking these words.
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.
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.
Being green is very fashionable these days, so here at TLCB we’re jumping on the green bandwagon with a V8-powered hot rod.
Built by TLCB regular SP_LINEUP, this ’41 Dodge hot rod pick-up is based on a real vehicle, in fact being constructed for the builder behind the full size version
There’s more of the model to see at SP’s photostream along with a host of other superb Speed Champions creations – click the link above to go green.
The Lego Car Blog’s home nation isn’t good at many things, but track cycling is a rare exception.
Cycling quickly in circle in a big group, cycling slowly in a circle with someone else, before suddenly cycling quickly, cycling in a circle behind a weird electric scooter thing… we can do all of them. It’s a good thing there are so many ways to cycle in a circle too, otherwise we wouldn’t win half the number of medals.
Previous bloggee George P angeleno (aka ZetoVince) pays homage to cycling in a circle with this fantastic kinetic sculpture, with a slithery track cyclist at the bottom of the banking and a motorised mechanism hidden underneath to bring it to life.
There’s more to see including a video of the cyclist in action at George’s photostream. Click the link above to follow the weird electric scooter thing.
LEGO’s new Technic 42122 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon looks cool, although on close inspection not all that accurate, but is something of a disappointment technically. It does include plenty of decent parts though.
M_longer of Eurobricks has used every single one of them in the creation of his 42122 B-Model, turning the Wrangler into a trophy truck complete with working steering, pendular front and trailing-arm rear suspension, opening doors, and even a pair of jerry cans for longer off-road excursions.
Building instructions are available and there’s more of M_longer’s 42122 alternate to see at the Eurobricks discussion forum.
OK, we might be as bad with farm equipment as we are with Star Wars, but we’re pretty sure we’ve got this red and yellow contraption by Flickr’s Damian Z right.
Damian’s wonderfully intricate Mechanised Spaghetti Twirler is being pulled by a Mercedes-Benz Trac 1600, a Unimog-based tractor manufactured in the ’70s and ’80s before the design was sold on to Werner-Forst-und-Industrietechnik, who still produce it today.
Clever detailing abounds on both the MB Trac and the Maximum Penetration Autopump behind, and there’s loads more to see of both the tractor and the Industrial Decombobulator in tow at Damian’s ‘MB Trac 1600’ album by clicking here.
Seriously though, we know it’s a Uniformly Regulated Simultaneous Ice Cream Dispenser. Obviously.
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.
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.
Mitsubishi Motors make precisely nothing that we would ever want to buy, drive, or ride in.
That Mitsubishi’s recent emissions fraud in Japan meant their share price dropped low enough for the Renault-Nissan Alliance to buy them (and then confirm they were pulling the brand out of Europe altogether) only makes us pleased, because there’s less chance of us having to look at the back of one of these.
Which makes it all the sadder that Mitsubishi Motors used to make some rather excellent cars, such as the mid ’90s Galant, the weird FTO, and this, the Lancer Evolution.
With all four wheels driven by a two-litre turbocharged four-cylinder, the Lancer Evo and its Subaru Impreza WRX rival were way ahead of the European and American competition in the ’90s, as demonstrated by Japan’s utter dominance of the World Rally Championship at the time.
Both Subaru and Mitsubishi developed their cars every year or so too, with the latter handily applying roman numerals to the nameplate so it was easy to see who had the latest version.
This particular Lancer is a ‘V’, which appeared for just one year exactly halfway through the Evo’s development. Previous bloggee Fuku Saku has captured the Evo V brilliantly, using some properly clever techniques to recreate the late ’90s performance car icon.
There’s loads more of Fuku’s build to see at his ‘Mitsubishi Lancer Evo V’ album on Flickr; click the link above to make the jump, and remember a time when Mitsubishi made more than just air-conditioning units. And this.
Aston Martin have always been on the brink of financial ruin. However the late ’00s proved something of a renaissance for the firm. Out from Ford control they created some beautiful and rather good supercars, which – in an unusual turn of events – actually made them some money.
The cars have got even better since then, but sadly the financial woes have returned. Hopes are pinned on the new DBX SUV, which is sad state of affairs but we suppose the Cayenne saved Porsche, and – horrible though it is – selling SUVs allowed the brand to survive and keep making 911s.
Aston Martin have also received some new investment, firstly from Mercedes-Benz AMG, who now supply their engines and electrics, and secondly from Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll.
If that name’s familiar to you it’s because he’s F1 driver Lance Stroll’s father, who ‘coincidentally’ now owns the team his son drives for, Racing Point, previously Force India.
Racing Point will become ‘Aston Martin Racing’ for the 2021 season, which fills us with dread (remember Ford shoving Jaguar into Formula 1 back in the early ’00s?…), but we guess it makes marginally more sense than their pointless current sponsorship of Red Bull Racing, who use Honda engines and have absolutely nothing to do with Aston Martin whatsoever, besides banking a cheque that could be better spent on literally anything else.
Anyway, we hope it works out, because Aston Martin can still build some wonderful cars, such as this; the AMG-powered V8 Vantage.
This excellent Model Team recreation of the 2018 V8 Vantage comes from previous bloggee Alexander Paschoaletto, and he’s captured the real car brilliantly. Opening doors and hood reveal a detailed interior and engine bay respectively, and there’s more of the build to see at Alexander’s ‘Aston Martin V8 Vantage’ album on Flickr.
Click the link above to take a look, and cross your fingers for Aston Martin in 2021…
