TLCB staff have no imagination whatsoever. Like, at all. This is why we blog nice, neat, real-world cars, and also why we have no clue about anything science fictiony. The inside of captainsmog‘s head then, is somewhere that would probably leave us quietly rocking in a corner. Thankfully the captain can navigate the strangeness of his own mind rather skilfully, and the resultant produce – such as the creation appearing here – can be utterly beautiful.
This whimsical contraption is a Mobile Mechanised Tesla Cannon (apparently), and it is – as you can see – completely wonderful in every way. The mini-figure at the controls looks like he’s having a riotously good time too. We don’t know what it’s for, or how it came to be, but we do know it’s worth a closer look. Join us inside the captain’s head at his Flickr photostream via the link above.
Automobile manufacturers have long used animal names for their products. From Cobra to Cougar, Ram to Raptor, and Stag to Stingray, it’s the fiercest and most dangerous of the animals that seem to catch the eye of marketing departments.
However Chevrolet decided not to go down the deadly-animal route when picking a name for their new luxury sedan in the late ’50s, instead choosing to name their new car after a medium-sized antelope from Africa that’s the favoured food of lions and cheetahs.
Despite Chevrolet’s new car not being called something big and scary, nor sharing a single characteristic with the light and nimble Impala that provided its name, it was a roaring success, becoming the best-selling car in America in the mid-60s. Although powered by a typical inline-6 or a V8 engine the Impala was uncharacteristically forward-thinking for an American barge, and included such developments as cruise control and fuel injection.
Of course in the ’80s and ’90s the Impala had become – like every American car from the time – total crap, but let’s not dwell on that automotive wasteland and instead focus on the Impala’s golden age, with this wonderful sky-blue 1960 example from Flickr’s Ralph Savelsberg.
Featuring opening doors, hood and trunk, and a detailed engine-bay and interior there’s lots to see – click on the link above to visit Ralph’s photostream for all of the images.
This is not a car. But it is awesome, and thus it’s appearing here. SweStar is the builder, appearing here for the first time, at you can see more of his ‘AE-97 Blaze of Glory’ here. Meanwhile, TLCB Elves are under strict instructions to find a car, what with it being in the blog title and whatnot…
We quite liked ‘Star Wars – The Force Awakens’, but the plot was… well, we’re just going to say it – totally and completely recycled from the previous films. Still, it’s understandable that new owners Disney probably don’t want to take too many risks with their fattest cash-cow.
The spacecraft in ‘The Force Awakens’ had been seen before too, from a reacquaintance with the Millennium Falcon to a new and still easily-blow-up-able Death Star via this; another incarnation of the X-Wing fighter.
This most excellent mini-figure scale version of the latest iteration of X-Wing comes from previous bloggee Yubnub, featuring movable wings, a neat cockpit, and space for that football-wearing-a-hat type thing that rolls around for most of the movie.
There’s more to see of Yubnub’s T-70 X-Wing on Flickr – use the force on the link above, or alternatively give it a click.
This immaculately detailed and beautifully photographed creation was discovered by one of our Elves on Flickr. It’s a Kamaz Master Dakar-spec rally truck in full Red Bull livery and it looks, as you can see here, rather special. Silva Vasil is making his TLCB debut with this build, and there’s lots more to see at his Flickr photostream – click the link above for more stunning imagery.
All of these brilliant Town-scale hot rods were discovered by one TLCB Elf, an Elf who is by far the luckiest in TLCB history, and who is soon likely to be the fattest in TLCB history too.
They all come from Flick’s Tim Henderson, who has designed a neat modular chassis to which a variety of body-styles and engines can be quickly and easily attached.
To demonstrate his systems’ flexibility Tim has built nine hot and rat rods using the same common architecture, and every single one looks thoroughly excellent. If there was any idea ideally suited to, er… LEGO Ideas, this is surely it.
Tim’s platform can be constructed in a variety of lengths to suit different applications, and it can fit both a traditional mini-figure and a Friends figurine behind the wheel.
…Long Live the King. Manufacturing of the the world’s fastest production car ceased last year, and with Bugatti now readying a replacement we thought we’d take a look back at the car that re-wrote the rulebook on speed…
The Bugatti Veyron was launched by the VW empire back in 2005, when the group decided to showcase their engineering talents by designing a car to meet some outrageous targets: 1000bhp. 250mph. And in car that anyone (with very deep pockets) could drive.
Signed-off in 2001 the Veyron arrived four years later, powered by an eight-litre quad-turbo W16 engine making 1001bhp, all-wheel-drive, and with an all-important top speed of 253mph. Now, after 10 years and what felt like hundreds of special editions, the sun has finally set on the world’s first 250mph+ hypercar, thus clearing the way for the new Bugatti Chiron that is due to be unveiled later this year.
The final Veyrons produced power well in excess of the original car’s 1001bhp, and hold the current record for the world’s fastest production car at 267.7mph. This fantastic recreation of one of those later cars comes from pipasseyoyo of Brickshelf, and whilst it probably won’t do 267.7mph (no matter how hard you push it) it does feature some brilliant engineering in its own right, with all-wheel-drive, a W16 engine, working steering, adjustable suspension, a 6-speed gearbox, an adjustable spoiler, and opening doors, trunk and hood all featuring.
There’s lots more to see of pipasseyoyo’s beautiful Technic supercar on Brickshelf, including high quality images of the chassis, drivetrain, suspension and interior, plus you can see more in the excellent (music aside) video below.
We continue today’s wintery theme with a truly astounding mini-figure replica of the RMS Titanic by Certified LEGO Professional Ryan McNaught. Built from 120,000 LEGO pieces this incredible model took over 250 hours to build and depicts the moment on that fateful night in April of 1912 – a few hours after an unseen iceberg ripped a gaping hole in the ship’s hull – when the cruise liner split into two.
There’s more to see of Ryan’s spectacular build, including photographs of the ship’s interior and the carnage within, at the link above.
The Lego Car Blog Elves, despite being mythical creatures usually associated with winter, hate the snow. Unfortunately for them they have to go out in it if they want to get fed. One of our more enterprising workers found a novel way to return to the office though, riding aloft this brilliant remote control tracked arctic exploration vehicle from previous bloggee Desert752 Krill, who has recently uploaded more images of this build to Flickr.
As is the way with our Elves, it then proceeded to run down and flatten any colleagues it could find until the controls were taken away by one of TLCB staff. Which means we’re now driving it, and we can say after much research that it is properly fun! You can see what we mean in the video below, or on Flickr via the link above.
There have been three Mad Max movies to date, and with the latest re-ignition of the franchise promising a few more films to come our Elven workforce, whose second love after Megan Fox in Transformers is post-apocalyptic violence, are very excited. The Elf that discovered this photo is something of a hero amongst its colleagues today then, and it has also earned itself three meal tokens. We have seen a couple of these builds from Flickr’s Tim Inman aka rabidnovaracer before, but they look damn cool together don’t they? You can see more of his three Mad Max – Fury Road vehicles at his photostream via the link above.
This spectacular Technic creation is an Alexander Dennis Enviro 500 bus, as used across the Chinese Island of Hong Kong.
Built by a small British company, rear-wheel-drive and with hybrid propulsion, the Envrio 500 is almost exactly the same as the McLaren P1 supercar. Apart from in every other way. This superb recreation comes from previous bloggee shinyu, and it’s packed with brilliant technical functionality. There’s remotely controlled drive and steering, active suspension that can raise and lower the entire bodywork to facilitate boarding, and motorised opening and closing doors.
You can join the discussion and see all the images at the Eurobricks forum – click the link above to buy your ticket.
Nissan’s current line-up is about as interesting as Kim Kardashian’s Twitter feed. But like said Twitter feed, it’s also very successful, with the Juke and Qashqai regularly entering into the top 10 best selling vehicles list in TLCB’s home nation. There was a time though when Nissan, whilst less successful financially, made cars that were far more interesting…
This is one such vehicle, the 180SX from the early 1990s. The SX has become a sought-after prize in tuning circles, and it’s a car that – thanks to the interchangeability of early ’90s Japanese parts – can be made to mix various bits of different ’90s Nissans rather well. This particular example is a ‘Sileighty’, which adds the front-end of a Silvia S13 with the rest of a 180SX. It’s also been fattened-up a bit by aftermarket tuners Rocket Bunny, and fitted with a hoofing great turbo.
Davanchi M is the builder behind it, and he’s done a brilliant job recreating the modified Nissan mix. There’s lots more to see, including an interior as good as the outside, at both MOCpages and Flickr – click the links to make the jump.
We don’t understand sci-fi here at TLCB, but we do understand good building, so here – despite us having no subject knowledge at all – are three sci-fi builds of much goodness.
First up is Dead Frog inc.‘s expertly engineered unofficial excavator Transformer that really, er.. transforms. There’s more to see on Flickr – click the link above to check it out.
Next up is another original design spun from a well-known nerdy franchise. Chris Maddison‘s ‘Incom T-47 Advanced Snowspeeder’ has been built to fit into the Star Wars universe, and it looks seriously swooshable. You can make the jump to see more via the link above.
Our third and final sci-fi build comes from Flickr’s Horcik Designs, and what his VTOL dropship lacks in swooshability (it is a word…), it more than makes up for with menace. Click the link above to visit Horcik’s phototream for more.
As well as being a terrifying (although also slightly comical) dinosaur and a rather excellent 1970s rock band, T-Rexs also come in a vehicular variety. This is one, built by MOCpages’ Desert752 Kirill, features 6-wheel-drive, 4-wheel-steering and some very green bodywork. You can see more of Desert752’s remote controlled Technic Dodge T-Rex 6×6 at the link above, plus you can see it in action in the video below.
Previous bloggee Vince Toulouse completely baffles TLCB writing team even when he’s making a car, so this gloriously whimsical Cruise Airship is so far outside of our comfort zone all we can do is post a link to something silly.
Despite our vernacular incompetence when it comes to anything without wheels (and, if we’re honest, most things with wheels too), we can say with confidence that Vince’s latest build is absolutely worth visiting – we could peruse this ship’s gorgeous detailing for hours. And so we probably will. See you at Vince’s amazing photostream.
