Things were frosty between The Soviet Union and the United Kingdom back in the 1970s. Scary infomercials played on television explaining what to do in the event of a nuclear attack (die screaming we suspect), whilst every Bond Villain was an evil Russian.
However, political and economic differences aside, were West and Eastern Europe really so different? Take their approach to off-road workhorses for example. One is a simple, painfully slow, easily repairable vehicle of suspect build quality, designed for the state military but used the world over, and the other is, well… exactly the same.
We reckon that had the designers of the Land Rover Series 1 and UAZ 469 met they probably would have got along great. Perhaps there’s a lesson there… Anyhoo, these too charming mini-figure scale recreations of the Land Rover and UAZ come from Flickr’s Pixel Fox, and you can see more of each, as well as his other previously blogged off-roaders, via the link above.
Another day, another find, and another obscure British music reference for a title. You don’t get that at The Brothers Brick.
This brilliant garage scene comes from Flickr’s mike m., and it perfectly captures probably every garage in the land. Typical garage clutter is detailed in abundance, and we’re willing to bet that this single wonderful shot has done more to connect you with the days of your youth than anything else you’ve seen this week.
Look back with us courtesy of Mike’s photostream via the link above.
Oh great… another sci-fi build. We’re so bad at these. OK, this large space 8×8 truck comes from the mind of Andrew Somers, and it looks the perfect mobile laboratory for some scientific planetary exploration. Twin axle steering allows the truck to turn tightly and a large crane and grab mechanism allows samples to be gathered from inside the truck if it’s looking a bit dicey outside. Probably anyway, we’ve literally made all that up. Whatever, there’s more to see at Andrew photostream at the link above – click his name to make the jump.
This wonderfully weird contraption is a Northrop Grumman E-2C Hawkeye airborne early warning (AEW) aircraft, currently serving in the U.S Navy aircraft carrier fleet. First flying in 1960, the E-2 Hawkeye is not only still in service some five decades later, but is actually still in production, giving it the longest production run of any carrier-based aircraft.
The huge disc atop the Hawkeye is a 24-foot rotating radar dome equipped with long-range radar and IFF systems, the only carrier-based aircraft to possess such technology. This enormous eye/ear allows the E-2 to detect incoming threats long before they become a danger, allowing the carrier upon which it’s stationed to prepare defences.
This remarkably accurate replica of one the the U.S navy’s oddest aircraft comes from previous bloggee and TLCB Master MOCer Ralph Savelsberg aka Mad Physicist, and he’s used some absolutely genius techniques to recreate the Hawkeye’s unique shape. There’s lots more to see at Ralph’s photostream by clicking here – just know that the Hawkeye is sure to see you coming…
You don’t need a million bricks to appear here at The Lego Car Blog. A few hundred will do, especially if they’re yellow, and especially if they’re arranged as exquisitely as this. This gorgeous Legoland style ’70s Porsche 911 Carrera 2.7 RS comes from Flickr’s Peter Blackert (aka Lego911), and it captures the super-rare version of Porsches most famous model beautifully. There’s lots more of the Carrera 2.7 RS to see at Peter’s photostream – click the link above to make the jump.
Once every so often a car comes along that, for reasons mysterious and illogical, becomes more than just another metal box, a car that captures the imagination, and that becomes more than the sum of its parts. This is one such car, the legendary 1980s Toyota Corolla Levin AE86 / Sprinter Trueno.
If you’re a Japanese drift fan though, you might want to skip this next bit…
The Toyota AE86 was not a special car.
It was in fact a humdrum hatchback designed to take people from point A to point B reliably and at a reasonable cost. Just like every other humdrum hatchback at the time.
But it’s a manual with rear wheel drive we here you cry! It was indeed, but so was pretty much everything else on sale in Europe and Japan back then. So far so ordinary.
But then something strange happened. Moderately successful motorcycle racer / moderately unsuccessful car racer Kunimitsu Takahashi had started to throw cars sideways on track in Japan a few years earlier. Rookie racer Keiichi Tsuchiya liked what he saw, and applied the technique to the illegal street races that he was participating in, becoming a legend in the process.
Keiichi went on to forge a successful professional racing career following his antics on the street, and the car from his illegal racing days, his humble Corolla Levin AE86, became a legend as big as the man that drove it.
Japan’s illegal drift scene exploded, and the arrival of the Initial D manga cartoon in the mid ’90s, featuring a hero driver at the wheel of a Toyota AE86, did nothing to lessen the legend of both the man and the car credited with creating it.
The result is that the little Toyota Corolla Levin AE86 has become one of the most iconic and sought after cars of the ’80s, and as such prices have gone stratospheric. Pretty good for a humble hatchback designed to go to the shops.
If, like us, you don’t quite have the loose change to get your hands on a real AE86, Technic builder RM8 might have just the answer. This is his beautifully engineered AE86 model, and it captures the details of the real ’80s Corolla Levin brilliantly in Technic form. It’s also as fun to drive as drifting a real AE86 up a Japanese mountain pass (probably), with a Power Functions L Motor driving the rear wheels, a Servo Motor powering the steering, and a third-party SBrick bluetooth receiver controlling the signals to both.
There’s lots more to see of RM8’s Toyota Corolla Levin AE86 / Sprinter Trueno at MOCpages and the Eurobricks discussion forum, but much like the real car RM8’s model is something more than the sum of its parts. Take a look at RM8’s enthralling video below to see why…
Looking like a cross between Star Wars, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the symbols that weird kid used to draw on his exercise books at school, Karf Oohlu‘s starfighter certainly seems to have something of the occult about it. Head over to Karf’s photostream to chant some spacey incantations and sacrifice a chicken.
Because who wouldn’t want a giant mechanical lunar elephant? Exactly. No-one. Head over to David Alexander Smith‘s Flickr photostream to show your appreciation!
A huge reputation, a legend of the car scene for almost as long as there’s been one, and incredible attention to detail… Firas Abu-Jaber and the Nissan GT-R have much in common.
This, as you may have guessed, is Firas’ latest build; a faithfully recreated replica of Nissan’s 2017 Nismo GT-R. The current GT-R is an old-age pensioner by car design standards, but like that elderly ex-marine at the bus stop, or your Mom in the buffet queue, you wouldn’t mess with it. Launched a decade ago in 2007, Nissan’s replacement for the much-loved R34 Skyline GT-R took the well known all-wheel-drive turbocharged formula and thoroughly Spinal Tapped it.
A hand-built 3.8litre V6 engine fitted with twin parallel Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries turbochargers gave the GT-R just under 500bhp at launch, a figure which when combined with Nissan’s trick all-wheel-drive system allowed the GT-R to obliterate almost any other car off the line and in the corners. Hypercars included.
Since its launch the GT-R’s power has steadily increased, with standard models up to 545bhp by 2012 and this, the 2017 Nismo version, reaching almost 600bhp. That extra 50bhp doesn’t come cheap though, as the Nismo GT-R costs around 50% more than the standard model, making it surely one of the worst value-for-money special editions in automotive history.
We’ll stick with the standard car thanks Nissan, which is genuinely still something of a bargain, and we’ll leave the Nismo GT-R, its mad carbon-fibre aero, and its even madder sticker price, to Firas Abu-Jaber’s spectacular Model Team recreation.
Firas has made an extensive gallery of stunning images available, including several showing the interior inside the opening doors, and the realistic twin-turbo V6 engine under the opening hood. See more of the legend for yourself at Firas’ photostream, and you can read our interview with the builder as part of the Master MOCers series by clicking here.
We have a happy TLCB Elf in the office today. Contentedly munching on an orange Smartie (they’re the best kind), it found this brilliant mechanical-only Technic Mercedes-Benz Arocs tipper truck. Yup, mechanical only – meaning Thirdwigg’s Arocs tipper has completely eschewed Power Functions remote control for good ol’ fashioned hand-powered gears. This meant no Elven mayhem, no smushing, and a quiet and peaceful day for all. The Elves even seem to be enjoying this unusual state of affairs, but we’re sure that’ll change soon.
Thirdwigg’s truck hasn’t eschewed functionality alongside electric power though, and it’s packed with all the working functions you’d expect a Technic model to have, including four-wheel steering, a working piston engine, a tilting cabin with opening doors, and a linear actuator controlled tipper mechanism.
We think Thirdwigg’s Arocs tipper truck would make a decent official Technic set, and you can see more of his build at both his Flickr photostream and via the Brickshelf gallery here.
This is a Ukrainian KrAz 255 6×6 off-road truck, launched in the late 1960s by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The KrAZ factory actually started out making bridges, then combine harvesters, before moving on to military trucks. Communism meant you built what you were told to…
KrAZ were good at trucks though, and in 1971 they were awarded the Order of Lenin (the highest decoration bestowed by the Soviet Union) for their successes, and their products were exported to several countries around the world.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union KrAZ are no longer under the control of the state, and – a little weirdly – are supplying vehicles to the Ukrainian army to defend Ukraine from invasion by their old masters Russia.
This superb Model Team style recreation of the Soviet-era KrAZ 255 is the work of xxtruck of Brickshelf, making his TLCB debut. Underneath the realistic exterior is a remotely controlled 6×6 drivetrain, working suspension on all wheels, a detailed engine and interior, and functioning head and tail lights.
There’s lots more of the KrAZ 255 to see via xxtruck’s Brickshelf Gallery – take a look via the link above.
This is a Jeep CJ5. It has no bluetooth, no parking assist, no duel zone air conditioning, no lane departure warning system, and no electronic terrain response system. But it’s a million times better than any of the SUVs and Crossovers that drive past the TLCB office in their hundreds, and we want one. Luckily TLCB regular Senator Chinchilla can give us our CJ fix, and there’s more to see of his Model Team version of the little Jeep at his photostream. Click the link above to make the jump for all the photos.
This spellbinding creation comes from one of The Lego Car Blog’s very favourite builders. Madoca1977 has appeared here numerous times over the years with his stunning Technic vehicles. His latest is one of the best loved 4x4s on the planet (and one of the most realistic Lego recreations of it we’ve ever seen); the glorious Jeep Wrangler.
Powered by two L Motors with a Medium motor driving the steering, Madoca’s Jeep is fully remote controlled, and it features a unique shock-less pendular suspension set-up to give it genuine off-road ability, despite both front and rear axles having an open differential.
The Wrangler also features LED lights, opening doors, hood and tailgate, and a detachable hardtop, and there’s loads more to see courtesy of the discussion forum at the Eurobricks portal, where there are also images of a black version of the model available to view, plus a link to building instructions. Tempted?… See what Madoca’s Jeep Wrangler can do via the video below…
The humble Japanese pick-up truck, almost always a Toyota Hilux, is the backbone of the terrorist transportation market. Tough, easily repaired, and able to withstand a machine gun being mounted in the bed, they’re seen in almost every conflict zone on the planet. Despite the Disneyfication of the world’s troubles by Fox (where there must always be ‘Goodies’ and ‘Baddies’), many such vehicles are used to fight one-another too, such is the complicated and tribal nature of war at the moment.
BrickMonkey’s creation comes right out of the U.S media’s ‘Terrorist Baddie’ playbook. White pick-up truck? Check. Dark-skinned occupants? Check. Machine gun in the back? Check. Definitely a ‘Baddie’…
Except we’re smarter than that here at TLCB, so we’re not going to adopt a lazy stereotype (except about the U.S media. Prove us wrong Fox News). Thus this particular pick-up truck is being driven by members of the Kurdistan Pershmerga, fighting to drive Islamic State from their territory and liberate the Kurds suffering under their oppression. So it’s a ‘Goodie’. Except in Turkey where the Kurds are fighting for independence and are the ‘Baddies’, even though Turkey are also themselves fighting Islamic State. See, war is complicated…
It’s been a summery weekend here at TLCB, and this writer has been enjoying the great outdoors. Spare a thought then for those working far away from the sun, bringing us the materials out of the ground that we use in everyday life. However, one upside to such a job is that someone gets to drive machines like this one; the huge mining excavators.
This one isn’t huge at all though, having been thoroughly miniaturised by builder Krall, yet it’s still packed with Technic functionality. A rotating superstructure, rolling tracks, a two-stage motorised arm and a motorised bucket all feature, and there’s more to see of Krall’s creation at his Flickr photostream and at the Eurobricks discussion forum.
