Bore-mula One

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Will the 2020 Formula 1 season be less dull than the last few that have proceeded it? We think it’s about as likely as Lewis Hamilton making it a year without using ‘#blessed’, but we can dream.

We have to admit that Formula 1 is – like quantum mechanics – mightily impressive, but like the aforementioned physical theory, impressiveness does not necessarily equal entertainment. Until Formula 1 relaxes the rules a bit and stops awarding Grand Prix’s to car parks in the desert with no grass roots motorsport whatsoever, we suspect its impressiveness will continue to go unnoticed by many.

Which is a shame, because the engineering behind the current cars is pretty spectacular. The best of the bunch is of course team Mercedes-AMG, and their ridiculously-named ‘Mercedes-AMG F1 W10 EQ Power+’. Which is a moniker that sort of sums the whole sport up really.

Anyway, this neat replica of Mercedes-AMG’s 2019 title-winning Formula 1 car comes from previous bloggee Noah L, who has recreated it beautifully in Lego form. There’s more to see at Noah’s photostream where a link to instructions can also be found; take a look via the link above, whilst we run an office sweepstake on how long it is before Lewis uses #blessed to caption a picture of him in his boxers.

‘Peacemaker’

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Is there a more ironically named aircraft than this? The Corvair B-36 ‘Peacemaker’ was introduced in 1948 as an intercontinental strategic nuclear bomber, originally conceived to bomb Germany from the U.S should Britain fall during the Second World War.

With the largest wingspan of any combat aircraft ever built (a truly enormous 230ft), the B-36 could travel for 10,000 miles carrying a nearly 40,000kg payload and is still the largest mass-produced piston engined aircraft in history, a title it will likely always hold.

Those piston engines were often not sufficient however, and four turbojets were later added to help the giant bomber get airborne. They didn’t help enough though, and the arrival of the jet age meant the Peacemaker was phased out just ten years after its introduction, replaced by the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress with all bar five of the nearly four-hundred aircraft built scrapped.

This amazing recreation of the short-lived yet still slightly terrifying nuclear-carrying monstrosity is the work of previous bloggee BigPlanes, whose magnificent Boeing 747 Air Force One appeared here last week. BigPlanes’ astonishing B-36D measures 6ft across, includes a complete mini-figure scale cockpit, and features functioning bomb bays, and there’s loads more to see at Big’s photostream via the link above.

One Man Went To Hoe

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This slice of yellow brilliance was discovered by one our Elves on Flickr today, and – whilst we know it’s early in the year – for a model of this size this is going to take some beating!

Damian Z aka Thietmaier of Flickr is the builder behind this utterly brilliant Caterpillar 432E backhoe, which not only looks about a billion times bigger than it really is, it kinda functions too.

A huge variety of ingenious building techniques have been deployed to enable the Caterpillar’s buckets to be as positionable as those fitted to the real thing, and you can see all of the images at Damian’s Caterpillar 432E album by clicking here whilst we congratulate ourselves on making it the entire way through a post about hoeing without mentioning your Mom.

Damn.

Electric Egg

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Today’s title may sound like something your Mom uses on the bus whilst reading Mills & Boon books, but it is in fact a car so ahead of its time they only made one.

Designed by French engineer Paul Arzens in 1942, the ‘L’Oeuf Electrique‘ (electric egg) was an incredible looking electric two seater with a range of 100km at 70km/h. That’s comparable with today’s electric city cars. In 1942! Sadly it never got made, but fast forward to 2020 at in many parts of the world it would do very well indeed. Just not in our home nation because it’s not a generically bland SUV. Sigh.

Found on, er… The Brothers Brick (TLCB Elves won’t look us in the eye at the moment), TLCB debutant aido k is the builder behind this marvellous Lego recreation of L’Oeuf and there’s more to see of Yesterday’s City Car of Tomorrow at his photostream via the link.

[Hoonitruck]

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This is the ‘Hoonitruck’, Ken Block’s ridiculously powerful all-wheel-drive, twin-turbo Ecoboost V6-engined classic Ford F-150 pick-up truck, and it’s glorious. You might now be expecting us to say ‘well, this one isn’t obviously, this is Lego…’ but we won’t, because this really is ridiculously powerful, all-wheel-drive, and comes with with a twin-turbo V6.

Previous bloggee Lachlan Cameron is the builder behind it, whose recreation of Block’s ‘Hoonigan’ Ford Mustang was TLCB’s most viewed creation of 2018, and his latest build is every bit as awesome.

A pair of third-party BuWizz bluetooth batteries delivery up to eight times the power of LEGO’s own system, with each hooked up to its own Technic Buggy Motor, the most powerful motor that LEGO have ever produced.

The result is… well something that a Lego model shouldn’t really be capable of, and thankfully Lachlan has fitted fully independent suspension and all-wheel-drive to try to manage that power.

The model also features a complete (and superbly accurate) exterior wrap courtesy of fellow previous bloggee Jaap Technic, plus a wealth of chromed parts via Bubul, and – to pre-emptively answer the question we’re sure to be asked – Lachlan has a habit of making instructions for his creations available too, so keep an eye out for the arrival a link.

In the meantime there’s much more of Lachlan’s spectacular build to see at both Flickr and Eurobricks, plus you can watch what all-wheel-drive and eight times the power can do via the video below…

YouTube Video

 

Pole Star

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The name your Mom went by when your Dad met her. You know, before she put on all that weight. Polestar is also the name of Sweden’s coolest new car company, and Volvo’s in-house tuning arm, who launch their new minimalistic-titled ‘1’ later this year. Built in China (as Chinese giant Geely own Volvo these days), the ‘1’ is powered by a 2.0 turbocharged and supercharged in-line four plus a pair of electric motors (yup, it’s a Hybrid), and is expected to produce a combined 600bhp.

We can also expect an astronomical price-tag before more normal (and all electric) Polestars follow, with just 1,500 units of the ‘1’ planned for production. Make that 1,501, because Davanchi M of MOCpages (and a previous ‘Featured TFOL’ here at TLCB, back when that was a thing) has decided to build one more. It’s not just any ‘1’ either, as he’s chosen the insane Khyzyl Saleem edition from the latest ‘Need for Speed’ video game to recreate in Lego form.

With some considerable aero, yellow paint, and a rear wing(s) that resemble a park bench, the Khyzyl Saleem edition somehow makes the standard ‘1’ look rather ordinary. It basically looks like it’s been designed by our Elves. It’s also available on LEGO Ideas should you like it as much as they do and you can find a link to Ideas and all the images at Davanchi’s MOCpage by clicking here.

Godzilla’s Return

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Nissan have joined LEGO’s awesome Speed Champions line-up for 2020 with a set that’s a bit… stickery. The official 76896 Nissa GT-R NISMO set will no doubt fly off the shelves, seeing as seven-year-olds a) love the GT-R and b) love stickers, but we’re not sure that using decals for even basic shapes such as headlights is really the point of LEGO. Flickr’s Simon Przepiorka (now known by SP_LINEUP) agrees, and as such has created his own 1:24 scale R35 GT-R with bricks* rather than sticky pictures. Matching LEGO’s own 8-stud wide Speed Champions sets, Simon’s Lego Godzilla looks far more appealing than the one you can buy, and you can take a closer look at his photostream via the link above.

*Save for a red pin-stripe and the fact that the images look suspiciously digital…

Lo lo lo lo Lola

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A song about gender fluidity way ahead of its time, and also a seriously cool British race engineering firm that built pretty much everything from the 1960s all the way up to 2012, and whose remnants now form much of the Haas Formula 1 team. This was one of their later creations, the Lola-Aston Martin B09/60 LMP1 endurance racer from 2008.

This spectacular Technic recreation of the mad Le Mans prototype comes from Leviathan / Nico Lego of Flickr, and it’s a properly brilliant Technic Supercar. With a working V12 engine, double clutch gearbox, in-board pushrod suspension, working steering, and superb swooping bodywork it’s a model that’s well worth a closer look. Around thirty high-quality images are available to view at Leviathan’s Aston Martin Lola LMP1 Flickr album – click the link above to make the jump.

2020 A.D.

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2020 A.D. sounds terrifically futuristic doesn’t it? Our forbears predicted it would be the age of commercial space travel, flying cars, holograms, and nuclear apocalypse. Instead we have hashtags, SUVs, the woke movement, and the Kardashians. Oh well, at least we’re a step closer to the nuclear apocalypse as of yesterday thanks to Donald Trump.

Flickr’s Angka Utama has been a bit more realistic than the futurologists of the past as his ‘2020 A.D.’ concept looks both probable and really rather good. Except of course it isn’t an SUV, so in reality it’s about as likely in 2020 as the Kardashians pioneering commercial space travel. No matter, see more at the link, where you can contemplate mankind’s inexorable slide towards an SUV-filled doom.

Ageing Orange

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Nope, not a play on words for this abomination in America’s history, nor the current President of the United States (we’ve done him already today), but this spectacular classic DAF N2800 truck from previous bloggee and truck-building legend Nanko Klein Paste. Nanko’s creation replicates the 1980s DAF heavy-hauler beautifully, using the livery of a Belgian sand and gravel company ‘Fa. Maes’.

The truck also includes Power Functions motors, allowing it to drive, steer, and tip the chunky container (with its load of c2,500 ‘rocks!) thanks to a motor-driven linear-actuator, plus it includes LED lights, custom decals, and a wonderfully detailed interior too. There’s much more to see of Nanko’s superb classic DAF at his photostream – take a look via the link in the text above.

Car Surfing

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Car surfing is Darwinism in action, and long may it continue. Still, if you’re not a complete moron you can still surf in your vehicle, and all without ending up as a thin veneer on the asphalt, thanks to Versteinert‘s ‘Aedelsten’ classic convertible. With surfboards for doors, binoculars for side-lights, and a windshield mounted, er… kinda diagonally upside down, Versteinert’s creation is bursting with brilliant building. See more via the link.

This is like, totally the best plane in the world. Just the best. Totally the best. Bigly.

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“In fact it is so good you might think it was built by tiny little hands. So tiny. The inside allows me to fulfil my great and unmatched wisdom, with 24/7 access to Twitter, a machine that makes the best covfefe, the very best, and a bedroom with a golden shower. So very golden.” Donald Trump

Mini-figure Donald seems pretty pleased with his new wings, and so he should be; it measures 6ft long, has a 5½ foot wingspan, includes functioning landing gear, flaps, stairs, and complete interior and exterior lighting courtesy of Brickstuff.

BigPlanes of Flickr is the creator behind this astonishing build, and you can join the orange-in-a-toupee en-route to his next impeachment hearing via the link in the text above. Bigly.

2019 | Year in Review

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Well it’s been quite a year. TLCB’s home nation had yet another election, President Trump became the third U.S leader in history to be impeached (not that it means anything at all), Greta Thunberg led the world’s children on strike over climate change, during which time the world’s leaders literally fiddled whilst California and Australia burned, and Russia were thrown out of the Olympics for mass state-sponsored doping (again).

It’s been a busy year for the automotive world too, with PSA and FCA merging to create, er… PSFCAA(?), Nissan-Renualt-Mitsubishi boss Carlos Ghosn’s arrest (and current exile in Lebanon after smuggling himself out of Japan whilst on bail), Elon Musk inadvertently smashing the windows of his own truck live at its unveiling, Volkswagen revealing the most ambitious ‘we’re not evil, honest’ plan since Italy swapped sides in World War 2, and flying cars still not becoming a thing despite Blade Runner now being set in the past.

But enough on the criminality of the President, Carlos Ghosn, Russian athletics, and Volkswagen, what about The Lego Car Blog? Well the good news is we’ve not done anything criminal…

Stats:

The bad news is we saw a drop in visitors for the second year, after six consecutive years of growth, and will end the year at about two thirds of a million. That’s still a lot of people mind, and we’re still surprised that anyone at all likes this site enough to visit it, so if you’re reading this; thank you. Those numbers don’t include visits to our Facebook page either, where all posts now also appear.

Search engines brought around 200,000 visitors, with Pintrest and Facebook the next greatest referrers. Our most popular page was, as ever, the Review Library, which now holds over one-hundred reviews of official LEGO sets, books, and third-party products such as BuWizz and SBrick.

The most viewed creation of 2019 was Lachlan Cameron’s awesome Ford Mustang [Hoonigan], which was also received the most clicks of any link we published whilst the video of the real [Hoonigan] Mustang tearing up the streets of LA at the hands of Ken Block was the most watched media. The second most clicked video link was altogether more silly.

The United States proved to be the most popular visitor country once again, perhaps as people try to escape the inane gibberish that seems to be going on there at the moment. Germany and the UK make up the rest of the top three, probably for similar reasons.

In all visitors from two-hundred countries visited The Lego Car Blog over the course of 2019, with several counties posting a visitor of number of one, including Iran, Liberia and Haiti amongst others. If you’re reading this and you’re that one – thank you, and you are part of something much bigger! There were also three visitors from Vatican City, which makes us kinda hopeful that one might be the Pope, but if it is we’d better stop making ‘Your Mom’ jokes…

Interviews:

OK, we forgot about these in 2019, with just one new builder added to the Master MOCers Hall of Fame. The wonderful Redfern1950s joined us for the twenty-first interview and you can find his page via the link above, plus read the twenty interviews that proceeded his via the main menu at the top of the page.

We’ll try to do better in 2020. Unless we forget again…

Advertisements:

Lastly, your visits and clicks here at The Lego Car Blog have continued to do good, with a few thousand dollars now raised in total via the adverts that you view. We don’t allow many ads to appear here, and whilst some are dubious in their content – ‘Local Mom makes $[insert ridiculous amount here] without working!’ is perhaps the most irritating – we hope they’re not too intrusive and we’re more than happy to take money from internet marketing companies and redistribute it to those that need it most.

As has been the case for some time we’re pondering whether we can and should do more with this platform, and should that ever happen we will of course let you know. For now though, things continue as they are.

2020:

As we enter a whole new decade The Lego Car Blog will continue to champion the best Lego vehicles created by the online community. TLCB Elves are searching Flickr, MOCpages, Eurobricks, Brickshelf and other creation-sharing sites as you read this, in the hope of uncovering the next blog-worthy model that will earn them a meal token.

If you’d like to suggest something they’ve missed you can continue to do so via the Feedback page, Contact page or on Facebook, where you can also let us know your thoughts (good and bad) about what we write.

Thank you for visiting us in 2019, and we wish you all a very Happy New Year!

TLCB Team

Technical Titan

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There’s just time to squeeze in one more creation of 2019 before our customary year-end roundup, and with a delightful circularity it has a whole lot squeezed into it. Suggested to us by a reader, this is Zbiczasty‘s awesome Mercedes-Benz Actros Titan 8×8 with Palfinger PK 150002 HDS crane, and it’s every bit as good as that impressive title suggests.

Firstly, it is indeed 8×8, with all eight wheels driven, all eight suspended, and the front four steering, all operable remotely via LEGO’s Power Functions IR system. That amazing drivetrain is just the start though, as this phenomenal truck features sixteen Power Functions motors, controlled by seven switches, four IR receivers and with three sets of LEDs thrown in too.

The motors drive everything from the stabilising legs to the incredible Palfinger PK 150002 crane mounted on the load bed, which unfurls like a coiled snake thanks to nineteen pneumatic cylinders and over ten metres of pneumatic hosing. We said it had a lot squeezed in…

Watching the crane in action is quite a thing to behold and you can do just that via this link to the YouTube video where you can also see the drivetrain, crane winch, and the stabilising legs doing their respective things. Take a look via the link above, plus you can see all of the images at Zbiczasty’s album on Brickshelf by clicking here.

Virtually Trolleyed

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We’re often asked why we don’t publicise more digital creations. The answer is most of them don’t look like this. Well, we don’t mean they’re not a Škoda 14TrM trollybus (although it is lovely), but this is the quality we need to be able to blog a rendered model. It comes from aaref1ev of Flickr who lives near to where these buses were built by Škoda under license during the late ’90s. Superbly well detailed, aaref1ev’s Škoda 14TrM has been rendered beautifully by liz_dewitt and there’s more to see of this digital delight at aaref1ev’s photostream via the link above.