My Other Car’s a Boat

LEGO’s 42093 Chevrolet Corvette set spawned several B-Model entries into our 2020 Lock-Down B-Model Competition, including off-roaders, sports cars, and even a Formula-E racing car. This is Grohl’s 42093 alternate, and he’s decided to create something altogether more buoyant.

The Corvette’s body panels have been repurposed into a rather neat looking speedboat hull, inside which is a V8 engine turned by hidden wheels, which drives the rear propeller. Said propellor is also synchronised with the rudder and concealed steering front wheel, so they all work beautifully as the model is pushed across the floor. You can see how it works on YouTube here, and you see further imagery – plus a link to building instructions – at Grohl’s photostream by clicking here.

Simply Flying

This odd contraption is a gyrocopter, a sort-of-helicopter with an un-powered lift rotor, which instead spins in the wind as the rear propellor drives the vehicle forward. It looks terrifically dangerous as only the maddest (and usually cheapest) form of transport can, with paave‘s minimalistic looking Technic version being pretty much as robust and complex as the real thing.

Paave’s version includes complete flight controls with the main rotor pitch and yaw controlled via the joystick, the rudder via pedals, and a working two-cylinder piston engine linked to the propellor.

Head to Eurobricks to see more, and you can see the controls in action via the video below.

YouTube Video

Lest We Forget

Lego Red Flower

We Will Remember Them

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Banned from McDonald’s

A burn-out in the car park is as sure a way to get banned from your local McDonald’s as bringing TLCB Elves in for a Happy Meal. Not that that’s ever happened. Moving on, the mini-figure at the wheel of Faber Madragore‘s ‘Drag Rod’ is about to strike another fast food outlet off the list, spinning the tyres in a brick-built cloud of smoke that’s only surpassed – oddly – by the brilliance of the brick-built car park. Join Faber in the McDonald’s parking lot via the link above!

My Other Car’s a Fiat

Fiat’s original 500 was small, very cheap, and designed to mobilise the the masses, with over 3.5 million built during a production run that lasted two decades. The beauty of LEGO of course, is that you can turn anything into anything, as published author Peter Blackert (aka Lego911) has proven with his beautiful 1935 Auburn 851 ‘Boat-Tail’ Speedster.

Produced for the super wealthy for just one year and in tiny numbers, the Auburn 851 Speedster is about as far removed from the diminutive Italian peoples’ car as it’s possible to get. With a 4.5 litre straight-eight (and an optional supercharger), the Auburn Speedster’s engine was nine times larger than the Fiat 500’s with four times as many cylinders, and provided it with a top speed double that of the Fiat.

However Peter’s wonderful replica of the Auburn 851 Speedster has more in common with the little 500 than it may appear, as it uses only the recycled parts from the official 10271 Creator Fiat 500 set in its construction, even repurposing the Fiat’s canvas sunroof to form the Auburn’s convertible top.

It’s a superbly diverse alternate and there’s lots more to see of Peter’s brilliant Auburn Boat-Tail B-Model at his photostream. Click the link above to turn your Fiat into something altogether more dashing!

Fly Like an Eagle*

This blueish greyish entity is a McDonnel Douglas F-15C Eagle, constructed rather neatly by Dornbi. Detailed landing gear, an array of exploding thingies under the wings, and custom decals are all included, and there’s more to see on Flickr via the link.

*Today’s title song.

Interceptor Utility

American police cars are cooler than those we have in TLCB’s home nation. Oh sure, we have the occasional fast pursuit car (which include some surprisingly awesome models), but it’s mostly economy hatchbacks. Not so in the USA, where police cars have names like ‘Charger Police Pursuit’ and ‘Interceptor’. It’s the latter we have here, a Ford Explorer with an Ecoboost V6, all-wheel-drive, and a bar on the front for ramming criminals. Ralph Savelsberg is the builder and there’s more to see of his excellent NYPD Ford Interceptor Utility by clicking here.

Hungarocamion Budapest

This superb RABA 2800/3300 truck, effectively a re-badged DAF, comes from previous bloggee Arian Janssens, who says these were common sights on European roads in the 1980s. Recreated in beautiful detail, Arian has constructed a RABA 2800/3300 complete with a ‘curtain side’ load area and an additional drawbar trailer, for hauling even more Hungarian exports. There’s lots more to see at Arian’s ‘RABA’ album on Flickr; take a look via the link above.

Bobber

The Elves, under strict instructions to bring back a car, have brought back a motorbike. Sigh. Still, it is a rather lovely motorbike, being an Indian Bobber as built by previous bloggee Peter Schmid. There’s a working engine, steering and suspension and there’s more to see on Flickr via the link.

We’re 9 Today!

It’s a big week! Much of Europe is entering a second Coronavirus Lock-Down, two old men are having a fight in America over the postal service, and – more importantly than any of that – TLCB has reached that greatest of birthdays; nine!

Yup, nine years ago in a derelict tower block, the bolts were slid back on a handful of metal cages. Slowly, tentatively, the mythical creatures held within them crept out and disappeared into the shadows.

Frankly sometimes we wish they’d then stayed in the shadows, but annoying as the Elves are they have found some wonderful Lego creations over those nine years, with 2020 being no exception.

In addition to blogging the best Lego vehicles the world has to offer, this year we also ran only our third competition in nearly a decade, with dozens of builders entering TLCB Lock-Down Competition and two collecting some awesome SBrick prize bundles.

We’ve also managed to add a few American patriots to the ‘I’m never visiting this site again!’ commenters’ club, joining the Russian patriots who were outraged in 2018. However despite losing a few readers, more of you have joined us here at TLCB this year than last, and we still have November and December to go. We guess people must be really bored during COVID-19…

So whether you’ve been here for all nine years or 2020 is your first, thank you very much for joining us and supporting the Lego vehicle building community.

If you are new here and are yet to discover all the sections of this miraculously-still-functioning site, take a look at the links below, and remember that the small advertising revenue that your views and clicks generate goes directly to those who need it more than we do.

Until next time, thank you for visiting us.

TLCB Team

Stacking Votes

This is a Toyota Stacker, or ‘Forklift Truck’ as it’s known here at TLCB, and it’s been built rather brilliantly in Model Team form by recent previous bloggee Andre Pinto.

As the U.S Election hangs on the postal votes yet to be counted, the ballots inside the containers carried by this forklift are off to the counting centre, where they could well decide the outcome. Or they could be heading for a river if Donald Trump has anything to do with it, claiming first that postal Republican votes were dumped there, and now – ironically – that we should cease counting and dump the uncounted postal votes.

Whoever ends up in the White House we’re glad we’re far, far away here in TLCB Towers.

There’s more to see of Andre’s excellent Toyota Stacker at both Flickr and Eurobricks. Open the containers and start counting via the links above.

Star Salvage

Considering how rubbish we are at writing about anything that’s not a car, you might be wondering why the last six creations to feature here haven’t been cars. We’re wondering that to…

Anyhoo, this ‘not a car’ is apparently a DRAKE Vulture from the video game ‘Star Citizen’, a single-operator salvage ship recreated (rather wonderfully) by Flickr’s Volker Brodkorb in mini-figure scale, meaning it measures eighty-three studs long and over forty studs wide.

A complete interior, working landing gear, and opening loading ramps all feature, and there’s more to see at Volker’s photostream. Click the link above to take a look, whilst we instruct the Elves to find us a bloody car.

Flying Food

In Ninjago City and need some food on the go? Then fly on over to Parvel Artemov’s floating food stand! Visit Eurobricks or Flickr to place your order.

Bike Shop

Andre Pinto is the builder behind many of the motorbikes that have appeared here over the years, and he’s now built a workshop to house them. Complete with an impressive array of superbly detailed tools and equipment, including a ramp, compressor, pallet truck, tyre fitter, and – that workshop essential – a girly calendar, there’s more to see on both Flickr and Eurobricks. Get your bike serviced via the links.

Classic Space Pod Race

Ok, we’ll start out by saying we are absolutely not going to do these two brilliant podracers by Rubblemaker of Flickr justice. Knowing virtually nothing about Star Wars isn’t something we feel the need to correct, but it does make writing about Star Wars more tricky…

What we can say is that Classic Space themes Blacktron and, er… Classic Space look thoroughly awesome as Starwarsy racing thingumies, particularly when kicking up a cloud of brick-built lunar dust.

Rubblemaker’s inventiveness is evident throughout the builds, with Benny’s Classic Space podracer even using Star Wars Death Star pieces for its engine intakes, which we’re immensely pleased with ourselves for noticing.

That’s the limit of our Star Wars knowledge though, so we’ll leave this to the proper blogs at this point. Until they pick this up you can see of Rubblemaker’s brilliant creations on Flickr. Click the link above to pod race in Classic Space.