This beautifully built International Harvester roll-back wrecker, complete with ’70s Buick, comes from TLCB regular Ralph Savelsberg aka Mad Physicist. There’s more to see at Ralph’s photostream, plus you can read his interview as one of the eleven builders in TLCB’s Master MOCers series by clicking here.
Mitsubishi might be best known for the Lancer Evolution (although we’re not sure if anyone’s actually buying them anymore), but it wasn’t a car that put the Japanese company on the map. It was this, the deadly A6M Zero fighter. This lovely recreation of the classic warplane has been built by Flickr’s LegoUli and you can see more at his photostream by clicking here.
LEGO’s vintage Technic sets may not have the visual or mechanical sophistication of today’s products, but their basic pieces and simple studs-up construction make them wonderfully playable.
Brickshelf’s tab models demonstrates this vintage versatility beautifully with his gallery of alternative builds, all built using the pieces from the ancient 851 Tractor set.
Amongst his creations are a motorcycle, road-roller, dragster, helicopter and lawn-mower, with many more available to view at his Brickshelf gallery. All include working features, and all prove you don’t need a Bricklink account to build a range of quality creations from our favourite brick-based toy.
Check out the full gallery of 851 Alternates on Brickshelf via the link above.
‘Boning’ and ‘Ploughing’ are both likely to bring up some interesting Google search results, but such is our maturity you won’t find any mention of that here, no sir. Anyway, this bone-driven post-apoc ploughing pick-up was found by one of our Elves on Flickr, it’s been built by nurunaunanai, and there’s more to see at the link above.
What with it being the first day of the New Year, The Lego Car Blog Elves think they are now living in the future. Because they’re idiots. It’ll wear off soon, but until then they’ve gone all sci-fi.
As such, here’s a slick Tron Light Cycle from Flickr’s MortalSwordsman, complete with a rather alluring rider, and a brilliant Classic Space lunar exploration vehicle from Flickr’s Alec Hole. You can see more of each via the links above.
TLCB opens the batting in 2016 with a suggestion from one of our readers. Found on his Facebook page, Crowkillers has returned with a tribute to the late George Barris, one of the greatest custom car designers of all time, who sadly passed away in November of last year.
Barris was a pioneer of the hot rod scene and created some of television’s most famous and outlandish vehicles, including the Munster Koach, and the Batmobile.
Crowkillers’ Technic homage is nearly as crazy as George’s best works, and features two supercharged V8 engines, a four-speed gearbox, working steering and suspension, a deployable wheelie-bar, and opening scissor doors.
You can see all the images of Crowkillers’ latest build on Brickshelf, and you can read our interview with him in the Master MOCers Series by clicking here.
TLCB has survived another year! Here’s our roundup of the last 12 months…
We wish you all a very Happy New Year, and we’ll see you in 2016 with more of the best Lego vehicles, news and reviews that the web has to offer!
TLCB Team
There’s just time to squeeze in one more for 2015! This a) allows us to make a ‘Your Mom’ joke, and b) segways neatly into the build itself, a Suzuki Super Carry*-esque pick-up, with working lights, two Large Power Functions motors for drive, a Servo for steering and a Power Functions IR receiver for remote control.
Previous bloggee Chade is the builder, and there’s more to see on either MOCpages or Eurobricks, including a video of the pick-up in action.
*Probably the most optimistically named vehicle of all time.
New for 2016, and looking like it means business….
…meet the LEGO Technic 42048 Race Kart in all its orange-and-purple glory.
First impressions are very positive – this is, by a long way, the most realistic and best looking Go-Kart style set there’s been in the Technic line. Price is pretty reasonable too, at £25 for 345 pieces.
Being a smaller set, it has an instruction book for the B-model as well, which is always a plus.
Building it is not too taxing but there’s some interesting stuff here. For the first time in a long time, there’s a proper gearbox, doing what a gearbox is supposed to do; bringing the noise! (a bit). It’s usefully compact as well; the input shaft being the rear axle itself. This does mean there’s no diff and the rear wheels are locked together though. Elsewhere, those new curved panels do a great job of styling it and, in a highly radical change from the norm, it’s got a proper floor. Whatever next!
Lots of those newish ‘pin with pin hole’ connectors, that’s what’s next. The designer is clearly very fond of these. Can’t say I blame him; whatever did we do way back in 2014 without them?
Moving forward from the superbly detailed single cylinder engine atop its 2-speed gearbox, we have a brilliantly designed seat, nice chunky steering wheel, a novel steering system that you actually operate with the actual steering wheel(!), all riding on four well chosen wheels with the lowest profile tyres I’ve seen in LEGO.
Clearly, unlike last year’s 42022 Hot Rod, the designer has seen a real Go-Kart rather than having it described to him over the ‘phone…
This set is looking more and more like a winner….
And then you steer it. On full lock, the front wheels will deviate a maximum of 11 degrees from the straight ahead. 11 degrees. The mechanism is compact, quick-acting, strong and precise, but seriously…. 11 degrees. Most cars will turn around in about 2 times their own length. A little thing like this; maybe 3 or so. Or in this case, 7. It needs 7 times it’s own length to turn around. Sheesh. With that and the solid axle, oversteer is right off the menu. Understeer is all you’ll get; something this can ill afford…
It’s not all bad news. There’s that gearbox; the lower gear of which allows the engine to spin at 2x wheel speed, the styling is superb, but if there is ONE thing you want a Go-Kart to do, it’s to steer properly. And this just doesn’t. For comparison purposes, I measured the angle of the ancient 854’s front wheels on full lock – a realistic 35 degrees. In every other respect 42048 is a better model, but because of this one flaw 854 is still a better Go-Kart.
Maybe we’ll have better luck with the B-model :
Eurgh! Maybe not. It’s a ‘track car’ apparently. Perhaps the designer had a KTM X-Bow described to him over the ‘phone… It does steer better than the main model, though. Slightly.
There are many good things about this set. The styling. The engine detailing. A proper gearbox. That seat. The fact that it looks good with or without the stickers. Everything in its rightful place and looking all Go-Karty. It’s good value for money. It’s a superb looking model. If it steered like 854 it would get a 10. It barely steers at all. 7/10
There’s a movie out in cinemas at the moment that all the proper Lego Blogs are talking about, so here’s a post-apoc classic Buick from ‘Mad Max – Fury Road’. Yup, we like to stay on top of current events here at TLCB…
It’s (probably) our final MOC of 2015, so it’s somewhat fitting that Tim Inman’s Buick from the latest Mad Max instalment is one of the last vehicles left on earth. There’s more to see of this top-quality build at Tim’s photostream – click here to make the jump and get mad.
We’ve finally seen the new Star Wars – The Force Awakens movie, so here’s our token nod to the franchise. What? It’s got some Star Wars stickers down the side… Anyway, this splendid Model Team rally truck comes from Flickr’s bigcrown85, it’s based on the pieces from the huge 5571 Black Cat set of 1996, and there’s loads more to see – including images of the fully detailed interior, engine and cab – on Flickr at the link above.
‘Tis the season of cutting down trees, dressing them in tinsel and watching them… er, slowly die. But mankind’s appetite for timber is year-round, and it is machines like this that keep the supply of wood coming.
This is a Scania R620 logging truck, complete with centrally-mounted crane and 4-axle trailer. Built by Zbiczasty of Brickshelf it has a huge array of LEGO’s most trick parts squeezed inside it. Working lights, remote control steering and all-wheel-drive all feature, plus – much like LEGO’s own flagship models – Zbiczasty has combined these with a pneumatics system for even more realism.
A Power Functions motor compresses air for the pneumatic cylinders, which power the stabilising feet, crane boom and the wood-handling grab. These are all mid-mounted between the tractor unit and the trailer, thus allowing logs to be loaded seamlessly onto both structures.
There’s a large gallery of excellent images, including some close-up photographs of some of the more intricate parts of the build, available via Brickshelf – click the link above to see more of Zbiczasty’s superb build.
This impressive looking vehicle is the latest creation from Eurobricks’ builder and previous bloggee Lipko.
Underneath the striking bodywork Lipko has built a Technic Supercar chassis of old-school brilliance; and that means there’s not a single Power Functions motor to be found anywhere. Instead of remote control Lipko’s Supercar returns to the classic formula (and one which we very much like here at TLCB) of mechanical functionality, including a rear-wheel-driven V8 engine, independent (pushrod) suspension, functioning transmission, working steering and a mechanically deployed rear wing. Lego Community – we’d like more Supercars like this please!
There are more images and further details available on Lipko’s build at the Eurobricks forum; click the link above to join the discussion.
This ultra-lightweight 4×4 Technic crawler is not a looker. But is is very capable. With just one XL motor for drive, White Shapes‘ ‘4-Links Mini-Crawler’ can climb almost anything. Suggested by a reader you can see more on MOCpages at the link above, and via the video below.
YouTube Video:
After today’s earlier sci-fi aircraft* we have another to post – although this one is slightly more modest. This inventive recreation of Far Cry 4’s gyrocopter was found on Flickr. It’s the work of Wookieewarrior and there’s more to see here.
*We’ll try to get back to cars tomorrow!