Febrovery’s weirdness continues, and this is right up there in the weird stakes. Entitled the ‘Hexapod Rover’, Pascal‘s spindly spider design is probably eliciting some primal emotions in some of our readers. Place a glass over it and slide some paper underneath, or scream and smash it with a tea-towel, depending on your persuasion, at the link above.
Back in the ’80s, motorsport rules were… loose. Group B rallying created monsters beyond anything seen before, and Dakar… well that was even wilder. Entered in the late-’80s, DAF’s unbelievable eleven-ton TurboTwin 95 X1 was powered by two engines with three turbochargers each, producing a combined 1,200bhp, and which – as this infamous helicopter footage from the 1988 event shows – made it so fast it could overtake the leading cars.
Piloted by Dutch legend Jan de Rooy, the TurboTwin won the truck category in 1987, before an awful 180km/h crash killed one of Jan’s teammates the following year, causing DAF to immediately halt all motorsport activities and withdraw the TurboTwin mid-competition.
Sadly we’d not see its like again, but we can still get up close to DAF’s astonishing Dakar racer courtesy of previous bloggee Nanko Klein Paste, and his spectacular brick-built replica.
Constructed in 1:16 scale, Nako’s TurboTwin recreation includes those two triple-turbo engines, complete with intake pipes, radiators and intercoolers, pressure vessels and ancillaries, a removable body liveried with superbly replicated decals, a hugely detailed interior behind opening doors, and full LED lighting from Brickstuff.
On display at the DAF Museum in Eindhoven later this year, there’s more to see of Nanko’s amazing creation at his ‘DAF TurboTwin 95 X1’ album on Flickr, and you can overtake a Dakar-winning Peugeot rally car at 200km/h in an eleven ton truck via the link above.
This is an X-28 Landspeeder, and… um, that’s all we know. We’re not Star Trek Wars people. But we do like racing stripes and rooster-tail dust-clouds, and this has both! Ordo (Fabian B.) is the builder behind it and you can take a look via the link above.
The Lego Car Blog can be accused of many things. Incompetence. Wilful ignorance. Childish humour. But Only-Blogging-Thousand-Brick creations isn’t one of them. Proving that point today is Nikolaus Lowe‘s delightfully simple half-tracked Febrovery entry, complete with a smiling Benny the Spaceman and a Storm Trooper at the handlebars. Which is an interesting play on these sorts of machines’ original drivers. Join in the space Naziism via the link to Nikolaus’ photostream above!
The chances are that the item on which you are sitting, reading these words, or wearing travelled at some point in the back of a truck like this.
Founded in San Francisco in 1969 (with its name being an initialism of the founders), DHL is now a subsidiary of German state-owned Deutsche Post AG, and forms part of the largest logistics company in the world. Billions of items are delivered every year, with DHL trucks such as this Volvo FH 750 and Schmitz Cargobull trailer common sights on the roads across Europe.
This excellent brick-built recreation of what keeps the world moving comes from Keko007, who has captured the truck, trailer, and iconic DHL font brilliantly. There’s more to see at Keko’s ‘Volvo FH 750 & Schmitz Cargobull Trailer’ album on Flickr, and you can click the link above to be delivered there.
Despite not even being a sperm at the time, this TLCB Writer is of the opinion that seventies cars were all vastly better than anything made today. A point proven by the Ford Capri, which was once a superb coupe for everyone, and is now an insipid electric crossover for people trying to pay less company car tax.
This splendid ’70s Ford Capri RS2600 comes Versteinert, whose yellow Mk1 Capri appeared here earlier in the year, and who has now updated his original model into the high power twin-headlight derivative of Ford’s classic European coupe.
Immaculately presented, there’s more to see of Versteinert’s beautiful RS2600 on Flickr, and you can jump back to when the Capri badge wan’t on the boot of a tragic electric crossover via the link above.
Today, Lancia make just one car; an electric / hybrid supermini based on a Peugeot with as much dynamic ability as your Mom. And she’s really fat.
But back in the ’70s Lancia had rather more verve, with a range of dynamic drivers cars capped by this, the wild rally-engineered and Ferrari-engined Stratos.
This lovely 1:16 brick-built example comes from previous bloggee danielsmocs, and includes opening doors, front and rear clamshells, a detailed engine and interior, plus working pop-up headlights.
There’s more to see at the Eurobricks forum and you can jump back to when Lancias were cool via the link above.
What do you get if you cross a Polish Star 660 military truck with a Waryński KM-251 excavator?
This absurd contraption is a KS-251, which did just that, mounting the superstructure of the aforementioned excavator onto the bed of the 6×6 military truck. Honestly we have no idea why, but it looked so cool, particularly in the baby-blue pictured here.
This fantastic recreation of the KS-251 comes from Maciej Szymański, who has captured its magnificent weirdness beautifully, and engineered his model to function too. A suite of third-party CaDa electronics provide remote control drive and excavator operation, and there’s much more of Maciej’s tremendous creation to see at his ‘KS-251′ album on Flickr. Take a closer look via the link above!
It’s the 29th of December 1944, and RCAF Squadron 411 is in a battle with a group of Luftwaffe fighters over Osnabrück in western Germany.
At the controls of his Supermarine Spitfire IXe, Fight Lieutenant Dick Audet has an FW190 in his sights. The Spitfire’s guns tear into the enemy aircraft, until – after a moment – it rolls over and plunges downwards to destruction.
Audet watches for a few seconds, before snapping back to the fight raging around him, and turns his sights to the next German fighter. Over the next five to seven minutes Audet destroys a further four enemy aircraft, astonishingly becoming both an ‘Ace-in-a-Day’ and the only Spitfire pilot to achieve Ace status in a single sortie.
Audet would go on to fly over fifty sorties, claiming eleven enemy kills, before he too was killed in action, brought down in March of 1945 by the anti-aircraft defences of the German train he was strafing.
This spectacular homage to Fight Lieutenant Dick Audet was discovered by one of our Elves on Flickr, and comes from crash_cramer, who has recreated Audet’s glorious Supermarine Spitfire IXe in massive 1:9 scale.
Measuring over a metre long and with a 120cm wingspan, this incredible brick-built replica doesn’t look like LEGO at all, such is its phenomenal realism. Admittedly, that might be because a few components are not in fact LEGO, with the propellor spinner, exhausts, wheel caps, guns, aerial, and outer-wing leading edges meticulously 3D-printed, whilst the cockpit canopy is vacuum-formed.
A green vinyl wrap recreates the Spitfire’s camouflage, with superb decals replicating the roundels and squadron markings of Audet’s fighter.
The result is very probably the most accurate aircraft that this site has ever featured, and you can find all of the stunning imagery, plus read more about the build and the amazing story of Fight Lieutenant Dick Audet, at crash_cramer’s photostream. Join us there via the link in the text above.
Febrovery has barely begun and we’re already deep into weird purple trees and anthropomorphicised breadbins. Amongst the peculiar biology is Frost (aka TFDesigns!)‘s fantastical rover, a unique dome-canopied 6×6 piloted by the famous adventurer Kepler Van Allen himself. There’s more to see of Kepler, his rover, and the sentient toasters on Flickr, and you can rove the planetary surface for yourself via the link above.
The Technic 42043 Mercedes-Benz Arocs is one of the highest rated LEGO sets of all time. Now a decade old (where did that time go?), the 2015 flagship united Power Functions and pneumatics into one of the most technically advanced sets ever released.
Today’s creation pays homage to LEGO’s original masterpiece, only rather smaller. Constructed in 1:35 scale (vs. 42043’s 1:17), TechnicMOCer‘s half-size tribute features twin-axle steering, three-axle pendular suspension, a working piston engine, tipping bed, and mechanically-operated crane and outriggers.
Building instructions are available, to which you can find a link, as well as further imagery, at the Eurobricks discussion forum. Click the link above to shrink your Arocs.
Not all American police cars were big, lumbering Ford Crown Victorias. Because this is a big, lumbering Dodge Cornet. It’s was a rather lovely thing too, with _Tiler‘s 6-wide Highway Patrol iteration looking as good as its 1972 real-life counterpart. Take a look on Flickr via the link above.
The third generation Toyota Supra. The greatest sports car ever made, a car with Ferrari-beating performance, and capable of a million wheel-horsepower on stock internals. At least if the internet is to be believed…
This superb Model Team scale A80 Supra captures the mid-’90s fanboy favourite brilliantly, with previous bloggee Mihail Rakovskiy‘s creation including opening doors, tailgate and hood, a life-like chassis and drivetrain, and a replica 2JZ engine. With a million wheel-horsepower on stock internals. Beat some Ferraris in the greatest sports car ever made via the link above!
It a Transit van double here at The Lego Car Blog today, with two rather different examples of Ford’s ubiquitous workhorse.
First up (above) is Versteinert‘s wonderful 7-wide 1970s face-lifted Mk1 Transit camper, wearing some slightly mismatched wheel-arch and sill repairs, a roof-rack loaded with adventure equipment, and being a thousand times cooler than the default Volkswagen Transporter. It joins several other Mk1 Transits in Versteinert’s photostream, and you can finn them all via the link above.
Four decades later, the Mk1’s great-grandson is here in the form of this 5-wide 2010s face-lifted Mk4 Transit crew-van (below) in ‘Abnormal Load Escort’ configuration. Make your own ‘Your Mom’ joke. Regular bloggee Ralph Savelsberg is its creator and there’s more to see of his excellent Transit, and the abnormal load it’s escorting, via the link above.
It’s the first of February, which means the annual build-a-thon ‘Febrovery’ is back for another year! Before enthusiasts of old British cars get excited, Febrovery is not a homage to long-dead Brit car-maker Rover (Aww. Ed.), but instead expands upon one of LEGO’s earliest set staples, the lunar rover. Although we say lunar, but planetary is fine too.
We’re only on Day 1, yet an array of roving machinery has already been uploaded to the Febrovery Flickr group, including this wedgy orange example from prolific sci-fi builder David Roberts.
Looking rather like the weird ’70s British microcar, the Bond Bug (Hooray! Ed.), David Roberts’ creation points the way to a plethora of rovers sure to follow, and you can check out his orange wedge at his photostream via the link above, whilst this TLCB Writer tries to avoid our editor before he starts talking about crap British cars again…