We’d steer clear of this flower-laced Volkswagen T2 camper – it’s most likely filled with smelly hippies and dirty bong water. But it does make for a neat Lego model. Filip Gabryel is the builder and there’s more to see here.
You wait ages for a creamy-beige truck to come along and then two arrive at once…
That’s not true – no-one’s ever waited for a beige truck. But like yesterday‘s find, this 1970s Mercedes-Benz refrigerated box-truck with three-axle trailer looks superb in its unusual colour scheme. Previous bloggee Thietmaier is the builder and you can see more on Flickr.
This unusually coloured Kenworth W900 was discovered by one of our Elves on Brickshelf. It comes from ‘Grazi’ and it is quite spectacularly detailed, including the engine bay and sleeper compartment. See all the images at the link above.
TLCB Master MOCer Dennis Glaasker (aka Bricksonwheels) is back with another incredible motorcycle. His latest is a custom Harley Davidson ‘Ratted’ Bagger, and it’s both wonderfully odd and beautiful all at the same time. You can see more of Dennis’ bike and his previous builds at his Flickr photostream – click here to join the ride.
The Elves are going hungry at the moment, because for the last few days they haven’t found a thing. Luckily for us, you guys have, and so today we have three of your finds. On the left is MOCpages’ Jase G’s ‘Little Bit of Muscle‘, which the Elves would probably like to have found themselves, in the centre is a lovely Town-scale Chevrolet G20 van by a builder known simply as ‘Ben’, and on the right is Yoong Cherng Ee’s awesome looking Nissan Silvia S13 in full time-attack spec.
You can see more of each model by clicking on the links in the text, and if you’d like to suggest a creation to us here at TLCB you can do so via FlickrMail, the Submission Suggestions page, or by completing the Feedback form. You can also let us know if you’d like guest blogger status – if your english skills are good your words could appear alongside your find here too!
It’s getting tight at the top of TLCB Summer Building Competition! This 1960s Marcos 1600GT has arrived from previous bloggee and Featured TFOL Harry Gravett, and it’s absolutely gorgeous.
Marcos were founded in 1959 by Frank Costin and Gem Marsh (MARsh and COStin), and manufactured kit, racing and production cars primarily for the UK market.
Frank Costin was an aircraft engineer who worked on the wooden framed De Havilland Mosquito bomber. Following the war his brother, Mike Costin (who later founded Cosworth), started work at Lotus, and he asked Frank to join the team to bring his aerodynamic talents. Frank used his engineering skill to design cars for Lotus, Maserati and Lister, before deciding to create his own lightweight wooden chassis, setting up Marcos with his business partner Gem Marsh.
Like rivals TVR, Marcos sourced parts from volume manufacturers such as Ford and Triumph, and fitted these to their own glass-fibre bodywork. As is always the way with small British sports car builders, they faced several financial problems during their history, finally ceasing to produce in 2007.
Marcos’ glory days came in the late 1990s when their hugely powerful sports cars were raced all over the world. Still loosely based on the original 1960s design, the cars had swelled and distorted almost beyond recognition, and were perhaps some of the more aesthetically challenged sports cars on the market.
Not Harry’s though – his 1600GT is true to the original (well, apart from the third brake light at the rear), being simple, pretty and light. Which are not any of the characteristics TLCB Elves look for in a vehicle. Luckily Harry’s got that covered and has built a striped, be-winged and huge engined version just for them. He even put a box of ‘Smarties’ in the back, which the Elves immediately ate and are now regretting.*
You can see more of Harry’s beautiful Model Team Marcos on both MOCpages and Flickr, and you can enter your own model into TLCB Summer Building Competition by clicking here.
* ‘Shitting bricks’ has never been so literal.
Everyone likes a two-for-one deal and we have two neat Model Team hot rods from TLCB newcomer Nuno Taborda for you today. You can see more of both creations at Nuno’s Flickr photostream.
Flickr’s Sir Nadroj shows that small builds can be interesting too. His beautiful 1947 Buick Super Sedanette is only 6-studs wide but is as lovely as anything from our Model Team listings. There’s more to see at the link above.
We think this builder may have taken TLCB Summer Building Competition brief a bit too literally…
A number of competition entries have been Mad Max or post-apoc related, but this is definitely the first to mix the madness with LEGO’s own recently launched ‘Elves’ theme. In case you’re unsure, LEGO’s Elves are nothing like our own. Like, at all.
TLCB newcomer Lego Warboys‘ mini-figure scale recreation of the ‘Gigahorse’ from Mad Max – Fury Road is almost everything the Elves could want in a vehicle. The ‘Elven’ iteration on the right is… less so.
Oddly though, we think we prefer the pastel coloured flowery version, and it could be the start of a glorious new sub-theme! You can see more of both models by visiting Lego Warboys’ Flickr photostream via the link above.
Sometimes we could be accused of focussing only on fast, loud and exotic forms of transport here at The Lego Car Blog. So to redress the balance here’s an elderly Italian couple on a scooter.
Dario Minisini is the builder and you can see more of his charming build at his photostream here.
TLCB’s workforce of annoying mythical creatures search far and wide to bring us the best Lego vehicles on the world wide web. Their favourite haunts can be found in TLCB Really Useful Links Directory, and range from generic image sharing platforms such as Flickr to dedicated Lego fan forums like Eurobricks.
This week though, we’ve added a new site to their list. Well, not really new, as many builders are very familiar with it, but it now operates with a duel purpose.
Bricklink is probably the most visited piece inventory outside of LEGO’s own ‘Pick-a-Brick’ service, where users can search through thousands of online sellers to find the exact piece that they require.
The site was sold last year to a new owner who promised a series of upgrades to make it fit for purpose – as frankly visiting Bricklink was like taking a trip back to 1998. A year on and the much-needed upgrades have arrived, and one of these takes the site into new territories.
The revised Bricklink platform now offers a free creation-hosting service, and with the added functionality that creations or instructions can be purchased should the designer wish to make them available for sale. There’s a rating system for creations too, as per MOCpages before it was phased out, plus regular building competitions.
At the time of writing there are fewer than 100 designers registered on the site, which is a tiny fraction of those using even the most basic alternatives, however the new platform seems robust, easy to use and it offers something that its competitors haven’t yet adopted.
You can check out the all-new Bricklink MOC feature by clicking here – it might just become the new place to be.
There are just two weeks left of TLCB Summer Building Competition, with entries via our Flickr partners continuing to keep the Elves busy. This is one of the first submissions to take the Transformers route, built by TLCB debutant Andrew Lee, and it’s his first ever Model Team scale car. You can see more of his brilliantly transforming supercar on Flickr – click the link above to make the jump.
After earlier stating that Land Rover’s iconic Defender is not the world’s best 4×4, we’re now posting one here – #awks…
But – the trusty LR is still a hugely important vehicle, being produced relatively unchanged for an incredible 67 years. That mighty production run ends next year, and to celebrate the life of one of motoring’s most influential cars previous bloggee Miro Dudas has recreated the 4×4 legend in Lego Town form, complete with expedition rack, winch, and assorted adventuring equipment. Join in the journey on Flickr at the link above.
…isn’t a Land Rover. When Toyota launched the Land Cruiser into the Australian market, Land Rover’s dominant 90% market share dropped to 5% almost overnight. Toyota is the worldwide 4×4 king because of one vitally important reason: Reliability. Land Cruisers never, ever break. Ever.
This unrivalled quality means that the Land Cruiser is the vehicle of choice for the UN, for NGOs based in the most inhospitable of places, and – unfortunately – for the world’s terrorist scumbags (we’re looking at you ISIS).
Toyota have continually updated the Land Cruiser design, but they also still make many of the previous generations for certain markets. This car pictured here is the 40 Series, and it’s the one that really put the model on the map.
Suggested to us by a reader, Matthew Inman’s exquisite Model Team recreation of the 4×4 icon is currently on the LEGO Ideas creation-sharing platform, with almost 6,000 votes registered – another 4,000 and LEGO will consider this model for an official limited production run.
The model has been featured on Toyota’s own blog as well as variety of car sites from around the world, and Matthew has recently added another variant, designing the pick-up version too.
If you’d like to help Matthew’s Land Cruiser 40 Series model to become an official LEGO set you can do so by voting for it on LEGO Ideas – click here to see more and add your vote!
Regular bloggee Senator Chinchilla is back with another real-world replica. This time it’s a 1967 Ford Fairlane, and it’s a lovely understated and classy build. But that’s not really the Senator’s style, and nor will it earn him many extra points in TLCB Summer Building Competition. But any car can be improved by the liberal addition of a flame paint job!
Like racing stripes, flames are worth at least an extra 50bhp, fact. Which makes the Senator’s updated Fairlane pictured below really quite fast. You can see more of this classic ’67 Ford on Flickr – click the link above to fire up the grill.
