Carbon Fiber Lego Wheels

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Carbon Fiber. (Or ‘Fibre’ if you spell it correctly. Ed.) The wonder material from which Formula 1 cars, the Ferrari F40‘s bodywork, the Lexus LFA‘s tub, and fancy road bikes are all made.

Which also means that, inevitably, carbon fiber fakery is everywhere too. Car interior trim, vinyl wraps, even wallets, laptops and suitcases can all be found in finest farbon ciber, mostly looking terrible.

But today we have the real deal, because this is the world’s first genuine carbon fiber Lego wheel. It may not look much, but it’s bona-fide carbon fiber, and its maker PlasticGear has detailed how he constructed it.

Take a look at PlasticGear’s pioneering project in the video above, you can join the discussion at the Eurobricks forum, and don’t even think about wrapping your wing-mirrors/spoiler/centre console in fake carbon, because we’ll laugh at you.

Monster Fight

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This writer was busy watching the nineteen of the world’s best drivers (and Lance Stroll) trying to handle the rain at the British Grand Prix, when a commotion erupted from the Elves’ cage room. Sigh.

After traipsing in, the cause was obvious; two Elves, each with a cartoon-esque monster truck, fighting in the middle of a circle formed of their compatriots. Mr. Airhorn duly separated the pair and dispersed the onlookers, and thus their two finds could be assessed.

Each creation comes from Flickr’s ianying616 and is a cartoon-version of a real Monster Jam truck. Both are blog-worthy two (which meant the Elf fight was pointless) and you can see more of his ‘tooned’ ‘El Toro Loco’ and ‘Silverado’ at his photostream.

Take a link via the link above whilst this writer tries to get back to watching the F1…

Highboy

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Well this is a lovely thing isn’t it? An early-’70s Ford F-250 ‘Highboy’ tow truck, Sseven Bricks‘ creation is as humble a workhorse as you can get. Yet here, in Lego form, it’s one of the most beautifully life-like small-scale models we’ve seen in ages. Top-tier building techniques create some exquisite details (just look at that tiny gap between the cab and the bed) and you can take a closer look at Sseven’s superbly presented creation at his photostream via the link.

Folgore Flop

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If you’re in the market for a Maserati you’re likely to be the sort of customer who’s willing to overlook wildly variable panel gaps, wobbly interior stitching, haphazard ergonomics, and intermittent electric faults because of one thing; the engine.

Usually a shared with Ferrari, the soul of a Maserati is what’s under the hood, so you’d have to be a unique customer to decide you’d like a car with Maserati build quality, but without a Maserati engine to off-set it. Cue the GranTurismo Folgore, which swaps Maserati’s ‘Nettuno’ twin-turbocharged V6 for three permanent magnet radial motors and a 92kWh battery.

With an additional 200bhp over its petrol twin, 0-60mph in under three seconds, and capable of over 200mph, the GranTurismo Folgore has been a sales… disaster. So much so that Maserati have cancelled the ‘Folgore’ version of their MC20 supercar. Because if you want a Maserati you want one with an engine.

Which means the only Maserati GranTurismo Folgore we’re ever likely to see is this one, built by Flickr’s 3D supercarBricks, and replicating both the gorgeous looks and non-existent sound of the real car perfectly. The doors, trunk, and hood open, there are more superb images available to view, and you can take a look at 3D’s photostream via the link above.

Dodgy Camping

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Yoga-practicing, vegan-dieting, top-knot-wearing bus / camper life douchebags are everywhere. Well, as long as everywhere has good WiFi, so they can upload their latest ‘adventure’ to their followers. Urgh.

We try to avoid such content of course, but so too would we steer clear of the owner of this battered ’70s Dodge B100 van and Shasta trailer. Decidedly un-Instagram friendly, we suspect its inhabitant’s diet would be more road-kill than ethnic-peace-crisps, and healing crystals would be swapped for actual, um… actual crystal.

Which leads neatly on to today’s second dodgy camper, a Dodge-based ’77 Winnebago that’s almost guaranteed to be a meth lab. An update to his previously blogged ‘Minnie Winnie’, 1saac W. is the builder of both recreational vehicles, and you can head to the abandoned parking lot on the edge of town to check them out via the link above.

Hamm It Up

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Longstanding readers of The Lego Car Blog will know that our workforce of mythical Elves have a penchant for extreme violence, which is normally manifested by squashing one-another with the vehicles they find.

Constructed by previous bloggee Keko007, this Hamm 3412 HT road-roller looks perfect for that task. However despite Keko’s creation being hyper realistic it’s actually rather smaller than it first appears, thus there’s no remote control motorisation going on here. Hooray! There’s more of the model to see on Flickr, including a wider set of construction vehicles that accompanies it, and you can roll on over via the link above.

And if you’re disappointed that there’s no Elven squishery today; firstly you don’t have tidy up afterwards, but this ought to satisfy your own penchant for extreme violence with a steam roller…

Unnecessary Tinkering

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For every motorcycle on the road there seems to be another two in a garage somewhere being fixed. Which means they’re kinda like Range Rovers. We suspect it’s more of an unnecessary tinkering situation with bikes though, rather than a catastrophic electronics failure.

Whatever the reason, TLCB newcomer DePin0 has constructed a medley of motorcycles in their natural habitat, with an array of tools and removable bits so they can be tinkered with unnecessarily. There’s more to see at DePin0’s photostream and you can tweak the timing / adjust the outer sprocket / fine-tune the mixture / decombobulate the flux-capacitor via the link above.

Ampere Romeo

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Ripping the piston-engined heart out of a classic Alfa Romeo to replace it with batteries and an electric motor is either a brilliant modernisation or an abominable travesty, depending on your school of thought. Now we’ve started that fight, here’s an example of a car that’s done just that (at least, a stunning Lego Technic replica of one); this is Zeta Racing‘s fantastic Totem Automobili Alfa Romeo Giulia GT Electric.

Replicating their jaw-dropping resto-mod of Alfa Romeo’s classic sports saloon, Zeta has recreated every curve of Totem’s wonderfully restyled Giulia GT brilliantly in Technic form, with working steering, suspension, and a superbly detailed interior too.

The hood raises (although of course there’s no engine underneath it), and the doors and trunk open too. In fact Zeta has photographed his incredible creation in the front trunk of the real Totem Giulia GT Electric (where its engine once lived), making us wonder if he could build a smaller version of his own model to place under its hood…

Travesty or brilliance, Totem’s electric Alfa Romeo is certainly exquisitely engineered, and you can see more of the real car plus this equally spectacular Technic replica at Zeta Racing’s photostream. Click the link above to go electric.

Nightrain*

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This – according to its talented maker AlienCat! – is ‘New Hashima District 8’s Shipping Yard 81’, where immense hover trains depart the, um… station(?) pulling their wares of spacey goods. OK, we’re well out of our depth here, but it’s a) a phenomenal build, and b) it’s allowed us to tenuously link to peak Guns ‘n Roses. There’s more of Aliencat!’s ‘District 8’ to see on Flickr, and you ride the Nightrain (never to return) via the link above.

*Today’s wild title song. Of course.

Little Green Man

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Why is it depictions of aliens are always little green-ish grey men with big black eyes? Answer us that Science. Anyway, this little green man is not the standard depiction of an otherworldly being, but a simple vintage tractor by the now-truck company MAN.

Christoph Ellermann is the builder behind it, and he’s constructed it beautifully. Pictured atop its full-size counterpart there’s more to see at Christoph’s photostream. Click the link above to visit Area 51 and take a closer look…

Origins

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The BMW M3 is now in its eighth generation. Powered by a 470bhp turbocharged inline-6, weighing 1.7 tons, and fitted with the largest nostrils in the automotive industry. Which means it interests us not one bit.

But rewind nearly forty years and the M3 interests us very much indeed. Launched in 1986 the ‘E30’ generation M3 was built for German Touring Car Championship (DTM) homologation, featured a multitude of bodywork and chassis adaptations, plus BMW’s new S14 2.3 litre 4-cylinder engine making around 200bhp.

That might not sound a lot today but it was a serious figure for the 1980s, particularly as it used no forced induction, and it only had 1,200kgs to move – a full half-a-ton less than the latest M3.

The result was (and remains) one of the finest drivers’ cars ever produced, and this brilliant homage to the original M3 was constructed as a commission for (we presume) one very lucky owner of the real deal.

Flickr’s Leo 1 is its maker, who has captured the definitive ’80s sports sedan perfectly in Lego form. Ingenious construction techniques replicate both the E30’s famous shape and interior, and you can recreate them for yourself as Leo has made building instructions for his M3 available.

Head to Leo’s photostream to take a look at all of the stunning imagery, and to find the aforementioned instructional link so you can create BMW’s best M3 for yourself.

My Baby Drove Up In a Pixel Cadillac*

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“Why don’t you post digital creations?” we get asked here at TLCB. Well mostly it’s because they rarely look like this.

These two spectacular ’59 Cadillacs come from serial bloggee 1saac W., who has put down his real pieces to painstakingly build each design in Studio before rendering it in Blender. As you can see here, the results look phenomenal, with ingenious parts choices and some deeply complex ‘SNOT’ techniques used in their creation.

Inevitably AI will soon be producing ‘Lego’ creations by the thousand that look like this, so enjoy the talent in these two at 1ssac’s photostream by clicking these words. These Caddies may be digital, but they’re no less magnificent for it.

*Today’s slightly butchered but nevertheless excellent title song.

Bleugh! Ads!

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Running a world-famous Lego website has its perks. Fame… Girls… Riches… Probably. Still, running this shed in the corner of the internet also has its perks, and we do earn a little from all your eyeballs and the ads they linger on.

Except for the last few days the ads have gone berserk. Now it might be because our equipment and operating systems are older than some of our readers, but nevertheless ads started to appear over images, over post text, and – in delicious irony – even over other ads.

If you’ve been affected by this ad explosion, rest assured we changed nothing to prompt it. But we have summoned all our technical prowess to correct things. Which basically means we’ve turned off advertisers’ ability to place ads anywhere they like.

This might mean that TLCB treasure chest is a little emptier than usual, but seeing as we give its contents to those who need it more than we do, and there won’t be any contents if you all get annoyed and leave, it’s the right thing to do.

Anyway, we hope it’s all fixed now. Let us know if not. And do please linger on the ads that do appear – it makes it all worth it.

TLCB Team

The Ultimate Driving Machine

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At the time of writing, everything BMW makes (and it’s a rather long list) is a very expensive, very heavy, overly powerful, visual assault. BMW’s tagline might still be “The Ultimate Driving Machine”, but their cars sure aren’t.

Which is why today we’re travelling back to the late-’60s to early-’70s, when BMW made joyous cars such as this, the fantastic 02-Series.

This one is a two-door 2002, being powered by BMW’s then-new ‘M10’ engine making between 100 and 120bhp. It was a peach of an engine too, becoming one of the first to offer fuel injection and turbocharging, and in production for a quarter of a century. It was also developed into BMW’s 1980s F1 engine, making an unbelievable 1,400bhp in qualifying trim…

But back the 2002, and this lovely Speed Champions scale example comes from The G Brix of Flickr, who’s captured the sporty compact sedan beautifully in brick form. There’s more to see at G’s photostream, and you can jump back to when BMW did indeed make “The Ultimate Driving Machine” (and not whatever this is supposed to be) via the link above.

Trail Blazin’

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Here in the crumbling edifice that is TLCB Towers, surrounded by mythical Elves and perpetual piles of spam comments, sometimes we just want to escape into the wilderness…

Cue this splendid mid-’70s Chevrolet ‘K5’ Blazer constructed by damjan97PL / damianPLE. On lifted suspension and running oversize tyres, Damian’s Chevy looks the perfect tool to make a break from the office.

Which is what Damian has done himself, photographing his creation on location at a lovely looking riverbank. Working steering and opening doors accompany the functioning suspension, building instructions are available, and three’s more to see at both Eurobricks and Bricksafe.

Take a look via the links above whilst this writer tries to sneak out of the office before any of his colleagues have read this post…