This remarkably neat 6-wide muscle car by Angka Utama hides a cunning secret beneath its exterior curves.* Yes, underneath the white bodywork is another complete car, and it’s equally neat too. There’s more to see of Angka’s ingenious creation/creations on both Flickr and MOCpages – take a look via the links.
*Make your own joke.
Lasse Deleuran (aka gtahelper)’s stunning Chevrolet Corvette C7.R has appeared here at The Lego Car Blog before, and now he’s made another. OK, that doesn’t warrant a re-post, but the arrival of free instructions does! You can build your own incredible Lego replica of the Corvette C7.R in 2017 Le Mans GTEPro spec at either Eurobricks or Flickr – click the links for the details.
The Elves’, who go hungry unless they successfully find a blog-worthy creation, seem intent on continuing the mobile snack theme started yesterday. Maybe they’re trying to tell us something? Whatever, this brilliant hot dog truck by Flickr’s LEGO7 is a magnificent example of vehicular cuisine, and you can grab yourself a snack via the link!
After a hard day at work, subduing rampant rampaging Elves and occasionally writing a bit of copy, there’s nothing TLCB’s editors enjoy more than relaxing with a tin of chilled beverage. Because of this, DOGOD Brick Design’s can shaped truck instantly caught our eye on Flickr. Vitali is a popular drink in Taiwan, with a fleet of delivery vehicle shaped liked its tins of drink. Disappointingly for us, it turned out that Vitali is non-alcoholic but we still enjoyed the nicely filled interior and custom stickers.
Scrolling through the Brick Badger website can be a dangerous business, especially if you haven’t bought any new bricks for a while. It was a dull Sunday afternoon at TLCB Towers. The Elves had decided to find out which colour of 32009 Technic beam could do the most damage when beaten against a colleague’s head (medium lilac apparently). We were wandering the interweb and spotted the 42062 Container Yard was nearly 40% off on the famous riverine retailer.
The set contains 631 pieces, including a selection of beams in LEGO’s standard blue and orange colours, plus eight, grey 64782 flat panels. Not owning the 42056 Porsche 911, a source of orange Technic pieces is always welcome and the grey panels looked like they’d come in handy for making neat bases for MOCs. There’s also one of the new worm gears and a good number of 18654 (15, plus spares). LEGO insists on calling these 1×1 beams, despite the pieces obvious inability to perform this engineering function. The most obvious new pieces in the set are the 18942 and 18940 Gear Rack & Housing. It will be interesting to see what use MOCers come up with for these parts. The set continues Technic’s trend of axles coming in a variety of colours: red, yellow and brown in this case.
Building the models is the usual, enjoyable adventure with Lego. There is a very nicely produced instruction book for both the main build and the B-model. The different colours are well differentiated and the days of dark grey and black getting confused are long gone. The parts come in numbered bags; building the tractor unit, the trailer and finally the telehandler. It took us a couple of hours of building and tea-drinking to complete the build. Builders at the youngest end of the suggested age range might find this quite a marathon of building and concentrating. Perhaps an advantage of this set is that you can build the lorry (and pause to play with it), build the trailer (and pause to play with it) and finish off with the telehandler. We certainly did!
As you would hope from a set with two different models, there are a good variety of mechanisms for young (and old!) engineers to build and play with in this set. Each vehicle has a different steering mechanism, plus the four-bar linkage that raises the arm on the telehandler, which also uses that new worm gear. Purists might be annoyed that the A model doesn’t use the gear rack to extend the telehandler’s arm. However, the B model does and the A model uses an interesting camming mechanism similar to the locking mechanism found in early repeater rifles. The container grabbing claw is another very neatly implemented version of a locking knuckle. For a set with a relatively small number of pieces there’s a lot here to inspire amateur engineers to experiment and build their own machines.
Sadly, the one thing that this otherwise excellent and exciting looking set doesn’t do so well on is its playability. Compromises have had to been made to keep the set within a certain price range, which is understandable. Continue reading
LEGO’s 42056 official Porsche 911 GT3 RS set is a spectacular flagship for the Technic range. It’s just a shame it’s mostly spectacularly priced, rather than spectacularly engineered. Here’s what 42056 could have been, Paave‘s brilliant medium scale 911 GT3 RS.
Inspired by the official set, only downsized, Paave’s black GT3 features independent suspension, opening doors, hood and engine cover, adjustable seats, and – in lieu of the set’s (mostly hidden) flat-6 piston engine – a suite of Power Functions remote control goodness.
An on-board LiPo battery powers twin L Motor drive whilst a Servo motor allows for precise steering, all cunningly hidden away underneath the realistic bodywork. There’s more to see of Paave’s remote control Porsche 911 GT3 RS at the Eurobricks forum – take a look via the link above.
Fortunately not a Monday night in front of the tele with eighties’ comedy duo Syd and Eddie but a ravishingly beautiful, small-scale version of Lego’s 42056 Porsche 911 GT3 RS. Master interpreter of the Porsche in Lego form, Malte Dorowski is the creator of this 42056 in a smaller scale. Stay tuned to TLCB for another small version of 42056 tomorrow…
Thump. It was just before Christmas, and a brown package slammed onto the hallway floor of TLCB Towers. A dozen TLCB Elves immediately ran towards it, but thwarted by its weight were unable to make off with their prize. A lot of post goes missing here.
Fortunately this TLCB writer is considerably bigger than a TLCB Elf and thus was able to pick up said package and, with some Elves still attached, retreat to the TLCB ‘staffroom’ (an ancient sofa in the corner of the office).
Usually heavy packages received here at TLCB Towers are ‘Cease and Desist’ notifications wrapped around a breeze block from The Brothers Brick, but this time we had a present! No Starch Press; we like you!
No Starch have been in the Lego book game for a while, consistently churning out books about our favourite plastic building blocks for some years. Their latest publication is this, the 230-page ‘The Lego Trains Book‘ by Holger Matthes.
In compact landscape format and produced in No Starch’s usual glossy high quality form ‘The Lego Trains Book’ really is surprisingly heavy, but does the content live up to the cover?
‘The Lego Trains’ book begins, after a brief Forward and Acknowledgements section, with a chapter detailing the history of LEGO’s official Trains line, following the range from its beginnings in the 1960s, through the battery era, live rail era (this writer’s favourite), to the latest remote control Power Functions sets. It’s a comprehensive compilation of the LEGO Trains history and one that’s sure to be of interest to anyone who loves the theme, although it is perhaps a bit too in-depth for the more casual Lego builder.
Chapter two is entitled ‘Basic Principles’, and it’s brilliant. Detailing building techniques and parts ratios it’s perfect for any builder of any theme (not just Trains) looking to create more advanced Lego creations. Utilising well-chosen digital depictions the author makes even the more complex techniques easy to understand, and whilst these aren’t quite as high quality visually as LEGO’s own they are good enough to make for useful teaching-aids.
Chapters three and four build upon these techniques with practical application, detailing the considerations and choices available when designing your own train models. This is a very thorough chapter offering insights into a variety of scales, how to ensure models can handle tight corners, how to connect carriages to one another, how to create realistic steam train mechanisms and such like.
It’s a gloriously nerdy section and as such Holger includes links to third-party products and design software that can help a builder reach the utmost level of realism. This may be a bit too in-depth for most builders (ourselves included), but it’s usually better to have too much information than too little.
The final chapter, which at 100 pages long makes up nearly half the book, is where ‘The Lego Trains Book’ comes alive. Continue reading
There’s a lot of music this writer would like to have been old enough to hear first time around. Elton John’s ‘Nikita’ is not one of those songs.
Elton’s 1985 hit probably says something poignant about the Cold War and oppression behind the iron curtain, but to the casual observer it could appear as though he’s being chauffeured to a Communistical border post in a bright red Bentley just to mock those on the other side.
Whatever, this neat Lego replica of Elton’s Bentley Continental convertible – complete with Elton himself – comes from previous bloggee Ralph Savelsberg aka Mad Physicist and it’s a superb recreation of the car (which was Elton’s own) from the music video.
There’s lots more to see of the Bentley and Ralph’s other cars at his photostream via the link above, and you can try to work out what the hell Elton John is up to by clicking here.
This lovely classic cream pick-up truck comes from TLCB regular _Tiler, who proves you don’t need a billion bricks to appear here. See more on Flickr via the link.
Digging cats. It normally means they’re doing something horrible in your garden. Not today though, because this CAT 434E backhoe is something rather wonderful.
Built by Zbiczasty of Brickshelf it’s near a perfect functioning replica of Caterpillar’s real 4×4 backhoe, complete with no less than fourteen working functions.
The all-wheel-drive is remotely controlled, including remotely operable pneumatic differential locks, pendular front suspension, and three steering modes (front, all, and crab), exactly as per LEGO’s own brilliant 42054 Claas Xerion 5000 tractor set.
Of course there’s a working front loader – also powered by remotely controlled pneumatics – with both bucket and boom movement, and a fiendishly complicated pneumatic backhoe with five different movements from elevation to slewing.
Finally there are pneumatic stabiliser legs mounted at the rear and a suite of LED lights. It’s a remarkable machine and one of the most realistically engineered Lego creations that we’ve ever come across.
There’s a whole lot more to see of Zbiczasty’s Caterpillar 434E backhoe at the Brickshelf gallery via the link above, but the only way to really appreciate how well this model works is to watch it in action – check out the video below to see just how good it is.
YouTube Video
This little red box is a 1980s 3-door Mitsubishi Pajero, and we want one. Launched long before the SUV/crossover craze arrived, the humble Pajero came from a time when Japanese off-roaders ruled, and they really could go off-road. This made them horrible to drive on-road of course, but back in the ’80s if you bought a Pajero there was probably a good chance that you did actually want to take it away from the black stuff.
This brilliant Technic recreation of one of the finest ’80s 4x4s comes from Kevin Moo of Eurobricks, and not only does it look absolutely spot-on it’s packing some neat functionality too, with remote control drive and steering, LED head and tail lights, working suspension, and an opening hood, doors and tailgate. There’s lots more to see of Kevin’s remote controlled Mitsubishi Pajero model at the Eurobricks discussion forum – Click the link above to make a jump to 1982.
Our Elven workforce couldn’t resist this nicely detailed mining lorry from Flickr’s LEGO 7. As well the detailing, the “Giant Dump Truck” has some nice play features, including an opening cab & tipping function. Depending on how you choose to read its name, it could also be a bit rude. Perfect for our Elves and sadly perfect for us too. Click the link in the text for more photos.
Large, old, and full of a flammable liquid. Nope, it’s not your Mom, but this absolutely wonderful art deco gas tanker from Flickr’s Redfern1950s. Based on a real Dodge Airflow used by Texaco in the 1930s, Redfern’s beautiful model captures the spirit of the original brilliantly in Lego form.
With opening doors, hood, side hatches plus a variety of pumping paraphernalia there’s loads to see at Redfern’s photostream. Head over to Flickr via the link above for the full gallery of top-quality imagery.
We don’t often publish sci-fi builds here at The Lego Car Blog. This is mostly because we’re a Car Blog, but partly because we understand sci-fi about as well as Kim Kardashian understands plumbing.
Today though, we are posting about sci-fi – and we do understand it – because this kids, is Classic Space!
Classic Space (or just ‘Space’ at the time) was LEGO’s hugely successful sci-fi theme in the 1980s. Colours were blue, grey and trans-yellow, missions were exclusively science and exploration – never conflict, and everyone was always smiling.
Sadly the theme ended before this TLCB Writer was old enough to walk, but it paved the way for such gems as Futuron, M-Tron, Blacktron and Space Police. Today though, we’re remembering the original, thanks to Jon Blackford’s wonderful Neo Classic Space Hanger.
Complete with an LL221 spacecraft, a variety of classic space vehicles, a multitude of classic spacemen, and some beautiful-looking blue lighting, Jon’s build is the prefect homage to LEGO’s long-dead theme. It uses some truly brilliant building techniques too that are well worth further investigation.
Take a look for yourself at Jon’s Flickr album and via MOCpages.
