Moon City

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Lego Steampunk City

We do not understand steampunk. Effectively what sci-fi would look like if it were devised in the late 1800s, it’s a genre so alien to TLCB staff it may as well be the plot of ‘Keeping Up with the Kardashians’. The creations that steampunk produces however, are not like the Kardashians at all. They’re wonderful.

Lego Steampunk City

This is one such build, the Moon City originating from the mind of Dwarlin Forkbeard, which is filled with such gorgeous detail that we want to move straight there and get a job mining cheese. Complete with a marvellous motorised train (although the journey does look a bit samey), working elevators, and a rotating orrery, Dwalin’s city is packed with ingenious movement too. Click on these words to head to the moon sometime in the 1880s…

Lego Steampunk City

8880 Supercar Reloaded

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Lego Technic 8880 Redux

LEGO’s 8880 Technic Supercar of 1994 is one of the brand’s most iconic and legendary sets. The largest model ever sold (at the time), 8880 featured all-wheel-drive, all-wheel-steering, all-wheel-suspension, a working gearbox, functioning steering, pop-up headlights, adjustable seats, and a V8 engine, becoming the blueprint (and inspiration) for probably every Technic Supercar MOC that this site has ever featured.

25 years after the original release, newcomer Hitchhiker has updated 8880 for the modern age, using the latest studless parts and building techniques, whilst retaining the dimensions, colour-scheme and functions of the original set.

Suggested to us by a reader, there’s more to see of Hitchhiker’s stunning 8880 Reloaded via ReBrickable, where a full gallery, video, and the all-important parts list and building instructions are available too. Click the link above to take a look.

Lego Technic 8880 Redux

Fine Ford

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Lego Ford GT

Another day, another Elf returns to the TLCB Towers in the hope of a meal token. Today’s Elf will earn just that, thanks to this splendid 8-wide Ford GT by KMP MOCs. Despite its diminutive size it’s rather wonderful to look at (the Ford not the Elf), being an instantly recognisable miniature of Ford’s 2005 blue collar supercar. There’s more of KMP’s GT to see at both MOCpages and Flickr – click the links to make the jump.

Ferrari Before Ferrari

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Lego Alfa Romeo P3

‘Scuderia Ferrari’ have been around longer than you might think…

Founded by Enzo Ferrari in 1929, Scuderia Ferrari were winning races decades before their own cars would wear the famous prancing horse shield. The young Italian began his career driving for Alfa Romeo in 1920, winning the Coppa Acerbo in 1924. By 1929 Enzo took a step back from racing himself to manage the Alfa Romeo team, which became known as Scuderia Ferrari and wore the crest of Enzo’s friend Count Francesco Baracca, a logo which has now become synonymous with Ferrari cars.

Enzo’s partnership with Alfa Romeo gave his team access to the best racing car of the era, the glorious eight-cylinder supercharged  P3, and they translated this into a string of victories. However by 1938 Alfa Romeo wanted to race under their own name, and an unhappy Enzo decided to leave to build his own cars. Mussolini had other ideas though, and racing was duly halted during the kerfuffle whilst Enzo’s factory was converted to build military tooling.

After the war ended Enzo Ferrari finally got the chance to build and race his own car under his own name, and… Alfa Romeo won absolutely everything – in 1950 Enzo’s Italian rivals won all eleven races. However in 1951 the unbelievable happened; the ex-driver-turned-manager beat his old team, winning the 1951 British Grand Prix and becoming the first team to break Alfa Romeo’s dominance in over a year.

Ferrari would compete in every Formula 1 Championship thereafter, making them the only team in the sport’s history to do so, whilst the once mighty Alfa Romeo exited Formula 1 just a year later.

This wonderful diorama containing one of Scuderia Ferrari’s first race-winning cars (even though it’s not actually a Ferrari) comes from previous bloggee and TLCB regular PixelJunkie, whose stunning recreation of the Alfa Romeo P3 – complete with Scuderia Ferrari crest – is one of the finest mini-figure scale vintage racing cars we’ve seen. There’s more to see of this Ferrari-before-Ferrari on Flickr at Pixel’s photostream – head back to the early 1930s via the link above.

The Coolest Fire Truck

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Lego Technic Tatra T815 Fire Truck

All fire trucks are cool. OK, maybe not this one, but pretty much everything else. The coolest of the lot could well be this, the awesome Tatra T815-CAS32. With six-wheel-drive and a 360-degree rotating turret-mounted water canon, there’s nothing we’d rather put out a fire with.

This fantastic Technic replica of the Tatra fire truck comes from previous bloggee Horcik Designs of Flickr, and not only has he nailed the exterior of his T815, he’s engineered a fully-working miniaturisation of the Tatra’s drivetrain, suspension and fire-fighting apparatus underneath too.

Horcik’s model features six-wheel-drive courtesy of LEGO’s Power Functions Motors, with remote control steering, powered hose-reel winches, an on-board compressor, and a motorised elevating and rotating turret.

There’s more to see of Horcik’s superb creation at his photostream, including a money-shot of how all of that lot has been squeezed in. Head to Flickr via the link above to dial 911.

Bricks in Wheels

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Lego Chopper Motorbike

Flickr’s Redfern1950s is one of TLCB’s favourite builders, thanks to builds such as this one. This beautifully constructed hardtail chopper motorcycle is packed full of excellent detailing and brilliantly minimalist design cues, making it not just worthy of appearance here but – far more impressively – of display at The LEGO House in Billund, where it’s been on show to the public.

All of that is very cool, but where this build really scores is its wheels. Not satisfied with any of LEGO’s designs Redfern has created his own brick-built eight-spoke turbine-effect wheels with more ingenious building techniques contained within them than many builders achieve in a year of uploads. There’s more to see of Redfern’s brilliant wheels – and chopper they’re attached to – at his photostream; take a look via the link above.

The Flickr Photo Snafu

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Lego Bigfoot

Flickr?

The Lego Car Blog Elves search far and wide for the very best Lego vehicles that the internet has to offer. Eurobricks, MOCpages, Brickshelf and others all have little Elven footprints across them, but by far the most common source of blog-worthy finds is Flickr.

Previously owned by Yahoo, Flickr – whilst not a dedicated Lego-sharing website like those mentioned above – has proved the default destination for much of the online Lego community, with free image hosting, a mail/message feature, and vibrant community groups.

In 2018 the overlords at Yahoo decided to cash in their Flickr cheque, and sold the site to SmugMug (nope, us neither). SmugMug have wasted no time in redecorating their new house and promptly announced a raft of changes to the site, the chief amongst which is a new 1,000 photo limit for each user.

Uh-Oh Spagetti-O

This new limitation means that from this week many Lego builders will be unable to upload any more images without either opening another account or paying to upgrade to SmugMug’s subscription service. It also means that builders who have already exceeded the 1,000 photo limit will see their images automatically deleted, starting from the oldest.

Lego Bin

Impact on blogging sites

The knock-on effect for sites such as TLCB is that images may be deleted that have been used in past posts, breaking the link to the builder. Our apologies, this means that it’s likely that some links in our past posts will no longer function, and will instead return an error message like this.

Sites that use Flickr to host their images will see any deleted content disappear from their own pages too. The Brothers Brick is one such site where this would have occurred, however they have announced that they will now store all images used in their posts locally, including all past posts – so that even if an image is deleted on Flickr if it’s been blogged at The Brother Brick it will be saved.

What about The Lego Car Blog?

We’re in the fortunate position that all of our images are, and have always been, hosted here – hooray! This means that not a single image will be deleted from TLCB’s archives and that all images blogged here, whether they were found on Flickr or not, are safe.

What next?

We’ll have to see what impact SmugMug’s changes to Flickr have on the Lego community there. Perhaps very little, perhaps a lot, but either way surely the time is right for someone to fix MOCpages…

Wet and Dirty

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Lego Schwimmwagen SdKfz 2 Kettenkrad

This is a Volkswagen Type 166 Schwimmwagen and NSU SdKfz 2 Kettenkrad, and we’re going to simply call them the Schwimmwagen and NSU from here on in, because although they were opposing sides during the Second World War the Germans could give the Soviets a run for their money when it came to ridiculous vehicle names.

The Schwimmwagen was designed under Ferdinant Porsche (he of VW Beetle and, er… Porsche fame) to help settle the argument that Germany, Italy and Japan were having with the rest of the world during the 1940s. Over fifteen-thousand Swimmwagens were produced, making it the most numerous amphibious car in history, each powered by a 25hp flat-4 engine that could drive either all four wheels or a propellor for when things got wet.

Pictured alongside the Swimmwagen is the NSU which, whilst not quite as at home in the water, was incredible in the mud – being essentially a tank with handlebars. Both serve to remind us that whilst the Axis Powers thankfully lost the Second World War, the engineering they produced during the conflict was remarkable.

These marvellous mini-figure scale recreations of two of Germany’s weirdest and most brilliant World War 2 military vehicles comes from TLCB favourite Pixel Fox, who has built each vehicle beautifully and pictured them in his trademark diorama style. There’s more to see at Pixel’s photostream – click the link above to get wet and dirty.

Supercar Designer

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Lego Concept Car

LEGO bricks are a superb medium for design. Used by architects and engineers, our favourite little plastic blocks can be utilised to create prototypes and design studies for almost anything you can think of. We’re not sure if LEGO bricks are used in this way within the automotive industry, but if they are we imagine the results would look a little something like this.

Lego Concept Car

This beautiful creation is the work of Flickr’s Alexander Paschoaletto, who has designed a spectacular supercar from a raft of yellow bricks. The wonderful shape is facilitated by some ingenious building techniques, with the curvature of the roof in two directions simultaneously being a particular highlight amongst TLCB Team. Head over to Alexander’s photostream via the link above, and if you’d like to design your own car, try picking up some LEGO bricks – you might be amazed at what you can do!

Lego Concept Car

Silvestros Supercar

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Lego Technic Silvestros Supercar

Nope, us neither, but apparently the Silvestros is a concept design by freelance automotive designer Marco van Overbeeke who – it turns out – is one seriously talented guy.

So too is previous bloggee Jeroen Ottens, who has reimagined Marco’s design in Technic form to create the stunning supercar you see here. A V10 engine lives up front, there’s a working transmission, all-wheel suspension, and functioning steering too.

You can see all the images of Jeroen’s brilliant model at his photostream via the second link, and you can check out more of Marco van Overbeeke’s amazing automotive designs via the first.

Lego Technic Silvestros Supercar

Bumblebug

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Lego Transformers Bumblebee VW Beetle

Before Michael Bay, Megan Fox and General Motors sponsorship, Bumblebee wasn’t a Camaro. He was in fact a humble Volkswagen Type 1 Beetle, a car that regular bloggee Ralph Savelsberg aka Mad Physicist recreated beautifully some years ago. Using – we assume – magic, Ralph has now turned his original (and perfect) Beetle design into a fully transforming Bumblebee autobot. Take a look at the scarcely-believable image below and then join us in amazement at Ralph’s photostream by clicking here.

Lego Transformers Bumblebee VW Beetle

B is for Bomber

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Lego Avro Lancaster B Mk.1

It’s the 3rd of January and we still haven’t posted a car. No matter though, because just look at today’s find! This jaw-droppingly beautiful creation is a near-perfect replica of the Avro Lancaster B heavy bomber in Mk.1 specification, as built by Plane Bricks of Flickr.

The Lancaster was the RAF’s primary bomber during the Second World War, with over 7,000 built from 1941 to ’46. The aircraft was powered by four Rolls Royce Merlin liquid-cooled V12 engines, each making well over 1,200bhp, and was capable of carrying the largest payload of any bomber during the war, including the 10,000kg ‘Grand Slam Earthquake’ bombs and the amazing ‘bouncing bombs‘ used to take out German dams.

Lancaster bombers completed around 156,000 sorties during the Second World War, dropping bombs totalling over 600,000 tons, destroying dams, ships, bridges, railways, and armaments. The aircraft were also deployed to drop food aid over occupied Holland, preventing the starvation of thousands of people (a fine hour indeed), but also to indiscriminately fire-bomb the cities Hamburg and Dresden, resulting in their complete destruction and the deaths over 65,000 civilians (a less fine hour…).

Almost half of all the Lancasters built were lost during the war, with only thirty-five completing more than a hundred missions. Today seventeen Avro Lancasters survive of which two are airworthy, flying in Canada and the UK. For readers further afield Plane Brick’s stunning recreation of the Mk.1 Avro Lancaster offers a chance to see this war-defining bomber in incredible detail. With custom decals, superb brick-built camouflage, working land-gear, and a fully detailed interior, Plane Bricks’ mini-figure scale Avro Lancaster B is definitely worth a closer look. Join the fight on Flickr by clicking here.


Lego Avro Lancaster B Mk.1

Fly Bavaria

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Lego Douglas DC-3

It’s a grey January winter’s day here at TLCB Towers, and we’re already pondering sunnier climes. So too is Vaionaut of Flickr it seems, having built this wonderful Douglas DC-3 airliner. Launched in the 1930s the American Douglas DC-3 revolutionised air travel, becoming the default airliner for decades thereafter, and is – incredibly – still in use today. Vaionaut’s beautifully built model is pictured here in German Bavaia livery (complete with a neat 1972 Munich olympics decal) and there’s more to see of his gorgeous creation at his photostream. Click the link above to take to the skies.

Too Cool for School

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Lego Raleigh Chopper Bike

It’s early January, a time when kids everywhere shuffle despondently back into their crumbling educational establishments whilst their parents celebrate the survival of another Christmas.

Back in the 1970s this routine was exactly the same, only – if you were really lucky – you wouldn’t be shuffling to school, you’d be riding this; a brand new Raleigh Chopper bike!

Ludicrously styled, with a gear select lever mounted on the frame, high-rise ape-hanger bars, and oddly-sized wheels, there was nothing cooler in the whole world.

This glorious homage to one of the 1970s’ defining designs comes from Melan-E of Flickr, who has recreated not only the infamous Raleigh but also a few other ’70s icons to go with it, including a cassette tape boom-box and a retro backpack.

There’s much more of this brilliant creation to see at Melan-E’s photostream – click the link above to hang out with her behind the bike sheds.

Lego Raleigh Chopper Bicycle

2018 | Year in Review

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Lego 2019

The Lego Car Blog’s infamous New Year’s Party is fast approaching, so whilst we still have the capacity to write let’s take a look back on the year that was 2018. A cave rescue, a Royal wedding, Facebook douchbaggery, #MeToo, and one Presidential scandal after another, it’s been a busy year!

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Stats; The Lego Car Blog passed the 5 million visitor mark a few weeks ago! However as usual we weren’t paying attention and forgot to blog about it. 2018 saw another 900,000 of you joining us here, a roughly 10% drop on the last two years when the site surpassed 1 million visitors per annum.

We mused as to the reasons why this may be a little while back, looking at the rise of Instagram, the fall of MOCpages, and various other factors, but we’ve since realised we’ve written just over 10% fewer posts this year than last. Oops.

Search engines brought just over a quarter of a million visitors to these pages (who knows what they were searching for!), whilst Pinterest and Facebook another 50,000 combined. The rest of you – we assume – came here on purpose, mostly from the United States, with Germany, the U.K and the Netherlands the next post popular.

The Lego Car Blog

Creations; Hundreds of new cars, trucks, motorcycles, aircraft, and the odd spaceship were blogged here at The Lego Car Blog in 2018, albeit around 10% fewer than last year. Top posts were our reveal of LEGO’s new 42083 Technic Bugatti Chiron set, Leviathan’s own Bugatti Chiron creation, and – as always – our Set Review Library, which expanded this year to include the third-party Bluetooth devices SBrick and BuWizz – take a look at what we thought of them via the links.

Lego Master MOCers

Interviews; The Master MOCers series added another two of the world’s finest builders to the Hall of Fame, with Mahjqa and Nico71 earning a permanent place in the archives. Linus Bohman, the creator of the brilliant LEGO set review aggregator Brick Insights, also joined us here at TLCB Towers – make sure you check out his amazing website via the link above!

Lego Treasure

Advertising; In 2018 we continued to show limited ads via our hosts WordPress, with all profits donated to good causes. This really does mean that your views and clicks here at The Lego Car Blog can make a positive impact – thank you!

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So it seems 2018 has been quite a year for The Lego Car Blog too. We’ve added another 442 posts, written 77,060 words, received 260 comments (including 3 threats from Putin supporters), and raised $thousands for those in need.

For 2019 we aim to continue to showcase the very best Lego vehicles from all around the world, review more LEGO sets and third-party products, and bring you the latest LEGO news and exclusive interviews. Until then we’d like to thank you for joining us here at The Lego Car Blog, and we wish you all a very Happy New Year!

TLCB Team