End Dump

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Lego Peterbilt 379 BricksonWheels RC

The Lego Car Blog Elves, as has been well documented on these pages, like bright colours, shiny things, and remote control. Today therefore, was a Good Day, as one of their number rode triumphantly into the office atop this; a stunning fully remote controlled Peterbilt 379 complete with a working MAC end dump trailer.

It’s the work of Master MOCer Dennis Glaasker aka Bricksonwheels, who returns to truck building after some time away from his most favoured subject. Built from around 5,000 LEGO bricks (over 500 of which have been beautifully chromed) and measuring well over a metre long it’s one of the larger models that we feature here at TLCB, and such impressive scale allows for some simply incredible detailing.

It also enabled us to give some of the Elves a ride around the office in the trailer, which they enjoyed immensely, before we dumped them all in a strategically placed bowl of soapy water (it’s for their own good, honest). You can check out more of Dennis’ spectacular build on Flickr via the link above (you won’t end up in bowl of soapy water, we promise), and you can also check out Dennis’ excellent book ‘The Art of Lego Scale Modeling’, which features other models like this one, by clicking here. You could even win it and other goodies as part of TLCB’s ‘Review My Set Competition’ – click here to learn how!

Lego Peterbilt 379 & MAC End Dump

To Finish First…

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Lego Nissan R89C

…First you must finish. Unfortunately for Nissan their strikingly designed 1989 R89C Group C racer was uncharacteristically un-Japanese when it came to reliability, with all three Le Mans entries retiring before the race was over. Sadly the R89C fared little better in the World Sports Car and Japan Sports Prototype Championships, suffering from chassis and engine issues throughout the season.

The R89C is not exactly a legend of endurance racing then, but just look at it! Making almost 1,000bhp from its twin-turbo 3.5litre V8 engine the R89C packed quite a punch when it was working too.

This gorgeous Model Team replica of the classic Nissan racing car is the work of Alexander Paschoaletto and he’s recreated the R89C’s magical shape (and Nissan’s famous late ’80s – early ’90s livery) beautifully in brick form. You can see more of his build on both Flickr and MOCpages – click on the links to take the trip to ’89.

Lego Nissan R89C

Scorpion

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Lego Technic RC Grinnall Scorpion III

This three-wheeled oddity is a Grinnall Scorpion III, a BMW-bike engined track-car built by one of the UK’s many weird sports car companies that most people have never heard of. Well this one isn’t of course, it’s a Lego version, built by Flickr’s James Tillson, and it’s quite a neat bit of kit. With all-wheel-suspension, RC steering and a Buggy Motor driving the single rear wheel James’ Scorpion replica looks like a riot to drive on a slippy lino floor. You can see more images of the Grinnall on Flickr here, and you can see it in action on a slippy lino floor at Eurobricks here.

Lego Technic RC Grinnall Scorpion III

The Killer Years – Historic F1 Picture Special

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Lego Lotus Ford 72D JPS

Every so often we receive a suggestion here at TLCB that makes the whole office stop what it’s doing (which today seemed to mostly be Google-imaging attractive Rio Olympics athletes) to gaze in wonder at the creation/s found. This was definitely one of those moments.

Lego Ferrari 640 Formula 1

These incredible Model Team classic Formula 1 replicas have all been built by newcomer Idihnab Szalab from Hungary, and he’s uploaded all four to MOCpages in one go. Each is an exquisitely detailed creation that perfectly captures one of the Formula 1’s most famous and iconic cars in Lego form.

Lego Williams-Honda FW11

From top to bottom Idihnab has built; the dominant 1972-75 Lotus-Ford 72D in John Player Special livery, Ferrari’s 1989 640, the double World Championship-winning 1986-87 Williams-Honda FW11, and lastly the beautiful Lotus-Ford 72C from 1970-71 in magnificent Gold Leaf livery.

Lego Lotus Ford 72C Gold Leaf

We can’t recommend paying Idihnab’s MOCpage a visit enough – click here to view all four incredible creations and to step back in time to Formula 1’s greatest era.

8081 Extreme Cruiser Review

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Lego Technic 8081 Extreme Cruiser Set Review

The Lego Car Blog Set Review Library is packed with over seventy sets, but we want mooooah! This is where you come in, as we’re looking for TLCB readers to add their own sets to the Review Library, and in doing so you could even win some loot! You also get to become a TLCB writer for the day, with literally none of the privileges that you’d expect this to offer you. Still, this hasn’t put off friend of TLCB Thirdwigg, who has joined us here at TLCB Towers to add one of his favourite sets to the Review Library. Yes, we said favourite. We’ll let Thirdwigg explain…

8081 Extreme Cruiser gets a bad rap. It’s not extreme. It’s not a 4×4. It has a funny engine. It’s black. On and on it goes. Blah Blah Blah.

I love it.

But it took me some time. When I bought it for $60 through LEGO, I tagged it onto my 8110 order as an afterthought. I was decidedly more excited about 8110. After 8110, I got to work on 8081. Opening the box, you find a number of bags, wheels and tires, and a number of loose instructions books (ugh). There are a lot of black parts, and some red parts, but the set really has no new parts among the 590 included. However some interesting pieces include the newer frames, four pistons and cylinders, suspension parts, a bunch of black panels. There are also instructions included for a B Model. You’ll like A better.

The builds starts with the frame of the 4×4. LEGO uses red for the chassis, which seems silly at this point. You add the knob gears for the steering, and add the rear suspension. The suspension is a single pivot design like we saw in the car from 8042. But there is a differential (clap, clap), and the structure is solid. We can let it slide. You then build the engine and the front suspension. You build a V4?! What is this, a motorcycle? Then the front suspension. Independent setup with no drive?! On an Extreme Cruiser? Who named this set?

Yep, no four wheel drive, and an anemic engine.

The bodywork comes next with the second bag, and the model is finished with bag three. Redemption for 8081 is starting. The structure is solid and cohesive. The black works well, and the execution comes together as the Technic panels fill gaps and lead your eyes to a quite a pleasing overall shape. The hood is long, as is the roofline, and 8081’s stance looks great; balanced and not too heavy. The tires fill out the wheel wells appropriately. The doors, hood, and tailgate all open – simple, nice features to include. The blue seats are basic, yet they look good and compliment the aforementioned red, which highlights the chassis well.

Lego 8081 Extreme Cruiser

When it’s all done you cannot help but like the cute little SUV. Continue reading →

Not a Car

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Lego Steam Train

The Lego Car Blog Elves didn’t find any cars for us to blog today, but they did find this; a lovely Town-scale replica of a German BR23 Epoch II steam locomotive. It’s been built by omega3108, it’s driven by Power Functions, and there’s more to see via the link above.

French Fighter

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Lego Dassault Rafale-M

This magnificent Dassault Rafale-M complete with carrier-deck was found on Flickr today. Previous bloggee Kenneth Vaessen is the builder and he’s recreated France’s current maritime fighter beautifully in brick-form.

Designed to replace France’s various military aircraft with a single multi-role fighter, the Rafale was introduced in 2001 and it’s been in action over Syria, Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan since, most notably launching strikes on the utter shitbags that are Daesh (otherwise known as Islamic State).

There’s lots more to see of Kenneth’s top-quality recreation of the French fighter at his Flickr photostream – click the link above to take off.

Stalowa Wola L34 – Picture Special

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Lego Stalowa Wola L34 Front Loader

This beautiful machine is a Stalowa Wola L34 front loader, built from the mid-70s until the 2000 in Poland and now recreated in stunning accuracy by Zbiczasty of Brickshelf.

Lego Remote Control Front Loader

Featuring Power Functions all wheel drive, articulated steering and a pneumatically operable front bucket Zbiczasty’s model is much more than a detailed display piece. Zbiczasty has also created the Stalowa Wola L34’s front-mounted grab which can be fitted in place of the bucket, allowing the vehicle to become a foresting tractor.

Lego Stalowa Wola L34

There’s lots more of this hugely impressive model to see via Zbiczasty’s Brickshelf gallery, where there are nearly twenty spectacularly good photographs available. Click the link above to make the jump to Brickshelf.

Lego Remote Control Front Loader

Tiny Dancer

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Lego Peel P50 RCThis is the Peel P50, built on the Isle of Man between 1962 and ’65, and pretty much an unknown ’60s oddity until Top Gear decided to feature the car in 2007 (although this TLCB writer was sad enough to know about it).

Said film instantly turned the P50 into one of the most famous vehicles on the planet, and values have since skyrocketed – if you have one of the 47 P50s made squirrelled away somewhere then send Jeremy Clarkson a Thank You card!

This dinky Lego recreation of the world’s smallest production car is the work of previous bloggee vmln8r, and it’s a miracle of packaging. Concealed (mostly) inside are a drive motor, steering motor, battery box and infrared receiver, giving vmln8r’s P50 full remote control drive and – being so small – grin-inducing manoeuvrability.

It’s so small in fact, that when the Elf responsible for discovering this model ploughed it into a group of its unsuspecting colleagues in the office today they all just got up and ran after it, rather than having to be scraped up by TLCB Team and taken to the ‘Elf Hospital’, aka the toilet flush.*

There’s lots more of vmln8r’s Peel P50 to see at his Flickr photostream or via the Eurobricks forum, where there’s also a video available of the model in action. But that’s not the only Peel P50 video you want to see…

Lego Peel P50 Remote Control

*Not really. We wouldn’t do that. Unless things were really bad.

Not a Car…

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Lego Mitsubishi Zero

…but probably the most popular plane to appear here at The Lego Car Blog. Lego builders love the Mitsubishi Zero, and they keep finding new ways to recreate Japan’s most famous fighter. This version comes from MOCpages’ James C, and he’s captured the Zero’s iconic shape beautifully. There’s more to see at his MOCpage – click the link above to fly over.

Spaceballs

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Lego Concept Car

With the proper Lego blogs becoming increasingly hysterical about the latest rehash of a 35 year old movie we thought TLCB better have some Space Trek Wars content too, so here’s our attempt!

This curious vehicle comes from chumuhoul of Brickshelf, and its inventive design features the ingenious repurposing of one of LEGO’s most pointless pieces, the giant grey Death Star sphere. Packaged neatly into the rear, chumuhoul’s simply-titled ‘Future Car‘ employs this piece in a similar way to a Dyson Ball vacuum cleaner, which means that the Technic figure at the controls can easily navigate table legs and other household obstacles (not that TV advertising works on us…). Click the link above to roll over to Brickshelf for the full gallery.

A Mini Monster Mog

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Mog 01

Both we and the Elves are big fans of the Unimog, here at TLCB Towers. We’ve blogged various shapes and sizes of Mercedes’ classic 4×4 utility vehicle over the years. Small, Technic, official and cute have all featured here, to name but a few. We also all know that orange Smarties are the best.

You can therefore imagine the excitement throughout the executive editorial penthouse when a hoard of frantic Elves rolled in with their latest discovery. There were celebrations! There was joy! There was pandemonium! There was chaos! There was the first ever deployment of our Judge Dredd style riot foam. Happily this meant that we got to eat all of the orange Smarties whilst we freed our immobilised workforce.

Click this link to Flickr to see more of this, and other excellent vehicles in the series, on Gene 3S’s Photostream.

Mog 02

Thunderbirds Are Go!

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F-16 Thunderbird

Neither Brains nor Lady Penelope but the United States’ Airforce aerobatic display team feature in this model from Jme Wheeler. Whilst other militaries use lightweight trainer aircraft to equip their teams, the USAF and the US Navy have traditionally used front-line fighters. At one point, both teams displayed using the large, heavy McDonnel Douglas Phantom II, a machine not exactly noted for its manoeuvrability.

This model is neatly chibi version of the current mount of the Thunderbirds: the Lockheed-Martin F-16. Jme Wheeler has captured the shape of the Viper in compact form, including its chines. He’s made a good choice in the big, bubble canopy that has allowed him to squeeze a minifigure into the cockpit too. It’s all topped off with a suitably abbreviated version of the Thunderbirds’ distinctive markings. Sadly, a group of Elves has got hold of the model and are busily trying to fly it across the TLCB offices by launching it from a high shelf. To get a view of the ‘plane when it was still in one piece, click this link to Flickr, where you can see more of Jme Wheeler’s Lego cars and ‘planes.

Nice Pair

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Lego Technic Porsche 911

This glorious Porsche 911 wide-body racer is part of the current LEGO ReBrick competition. Built by previous bloggee jorgeopesi it’s true Technic supercar, featuring working suspension, a flat-6 engine, all-wheel-drive and all-wheel-steering, and it looks… well it looks like that. Bloody brilliant. There’s more to see at the jorgeopesi’s Rebrick page – click the link above to see more on ReBrick, or here for the Brickshelf gallery.

The second part of today’s Porsche pairing comes from newcomer Jacob Lockett and is also built for LEGO’s ReBrick Porsche competition. Jacob has chosen to recreate one of Porsche’s rarest and most interesting cars, the mid ’60s flat-4 engined 904. Despite only having four cylinders and a two litre capacity, the 904 made almost 200bhp, and that was way back in 1964! Even today that’s a good figure for a two litre 4-cylinder. Jacob’s Technic recreation features working suspension, functioning steering, and a replica flat-4 piston engine. There’s more to see via ReBrick – click the link above to make the jump.

Lego Technic Porsche 904

75909 Speed Champions McLaren P1 Review

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Lego 75909 Speed Champions McLaren P1

The Lego Car Blog Review My Set Competition continues apace, and today we have our fourth reader-written Review to add to the ever expanding Set Review Library. Today’s set is one of the Library’s smallest, and it’s been written by 13 year old Nicholas and his 11 year old brother Alexander. Over to Nicholas and Alexander for their Set Review of LEGO’s 75909 Speed Champions McLaren P1…

The McLaren P1. McLaren’s latest hyper car. It is absolutely amazing. Everyone loves this beauty. So it’s pretty obvious what LEGO did considering its popularity. They made a set of it. Now the real question is, how well did they recreate the P1?

The LEGO set, part of the Speed Champions range, has a great use of stickers, colors, pieces and of course the mini-figure. The mini-figure is very simple and well done. LEGO really did a good job on making this McLaren driver mini-figure.

Now to the car. The LEGO McLaren P1 is a strong and sturdy build. The building experience was great; it’s a simple, yet an easy build that just works, although 75909 does come with several stickers that need to be placed carefully, so they can line up, and that might not be the easiest for children.

Lego 75909 McLaren P1 Review

The pieces are amazing. 75909 comes with several new parts that can be used for plenty of MOCs, and a cool feature is that the rims can be switched out if you prefer one style over the other.

The stickers are pretty good, I only wish they made the stickers with a clear background so you can remake this set in a different colour and still have the stickers’ details (Us too! Ed.). Continue reading →