On Your Marks
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Star Wars – for all its brilliance – does have a few issues; Jar Jar Binks, pretty much all of the dialogue, Jar Jar Binks, the total lack of any women in the entire galaxy, and Jar Jar Binks again.
However the machinery of Star Wars we thought was almost un-improvable… Until we saw it merged with Classic Space!
TLCB regular Billyburg has blended the two themes so perfectly it’s as if they should have been together all along. You can see more of his wonderfully nerdy Classic Space Y-Wing on Flickr – click the link above to make the jump.
Grass Box
If you have children around or – like us – messy mythical creatures, then we’ve got just the Lego creation for you! This Hovertrack Luctor 544 tractor is a brilliant model in its own right – with a working six-cylinder piston engine, remotely controlled all-wheel-drive, gearbox and steering, trailer hitch and LED lights – but what it’s towing is even more impressive…
That big red box is apparently a Schuitemaker Rapide 8400 RS forage wagon (no, us neither) which is in essence a giant carpet cleaner. It’s used for collecting mown grass via a huge spiky rotating thresher type thingumy, which is then stored for dispatching elsewhere. It’s an impressive piece of kit, and previous bloggee 896gerard has constructed a Technic version that really, truly, and brilliantly works. It might be made from Danish plastic but this model can clean TLCB office better than our vacuum cleaner.
You can the full gallery of images via Brickshelf here, but to really appreciate how good this model is you’ve got to see it in action – click this link to visit 896gerard’s MOCpages account for the full details and a video of some incredible Lego engineering…
MAN Wrecker
It sounds like a disgusting drink you’re likely to find in a dodgy bar in Magaluf, but it’s also this lovely Town style tow truck by previous bloggee Marin Stipkovic. You can see more of his excellent three-axle MAN truck with towing boom on Flickr.
The Gigahorse
After posting several small scale recreations of the magnificent vehicles from ‘ Mad Max – Fury Road’ we finally have something a little bigger to publish, and what Mad Max vehicle could be better than Immortan Joe’s stacked Cadillac ‘Gigahorse’?
Like most of the amazing cars from the blockbuster movie the Gigahorse was made for real. Two 1959 Cadillac DeVille coupes were harvested for their body parts and two supercharged Chevrolet V8s – making a combined 1200bhp – were mounted in parallel up front, channelling that huge power through a custom built gearbox. Terex front loaders provided the rest of the drivetrain whilst 70″ tractor tyres took care of the traction.
Tim Inman‘s plastic replica stays as faithful to this set-up as is possible with Lego, and the resultant vehicle is as wonderfully ridiculous as we could have hoped for. There’s lot’s more to see at Tim’s photostream – click the link above to make the jump.
Brick to the Future
Previous bloggee Brian Williams (aka BMW_Indy) has released an absolute masterclass in both small scale building and beautiful photography. His expertly recreated DeLorean DMC-12 time machine from the second ‘Back to the Future’ movie is one of the best mini-figure scale vehicles we’ve seen this year.
Brian has enhanced his model with a few trick products from custom Lego suppliers Lifelites and Brickarms, and the results – as you can see above – are spectacular. There are more images to view at Brian’s Flickr photostream – click here to hit 88mph and here to read the unbelievable true story of the real DeLorean Motor Company.
Technic 42043 – Mercedes-Benz Arocs – Set Preview
There’s been much excitement here at TLCB Towers today. Following our preview of the 2015 Technic line-up some time ago, the final piece of the 2015 jigsaw has been found! We’ve had a few images of the missing 42043 set sitting in the office for a while, but unfortunately they weren’t of sufficient quality for us to share here. And we forgot. But let’s go with the quality control aspect as it makes us look more professional.
Anyway, thanks to an intrepid troop of Elves we now do have images of a high enough quality to publish! So this is it – LEGO’s new 2015 Technic flagship, building further on their partnership with Mercedes-Benz, the 2,800 piece 42043 Arcos crane truck.
Based on Mercedes’ real 4-axle tractor unit 42043 surpasses even the previous standards set by the incredible 8110 Unimog set. Featuring both Power Functions electric motors and the next generation pneumatic system (containing all-new components), 42043 features a huge range of functionality.
Three new pneumatic cylinders are used to move the crane arm and grab, with a fourth employed as a pneumatic compressor. A gearbox allows the Power Functions system to perform a variety of tasks, including powering the aforementioned compressor and tipping the bucket, whilst unpowered mechanics take care of the steering, piston engine and suspension.
We expect the new 42043 flagship set to cost upwards £165 when it arrives towards the end of the summer, and if one of TLCB Team saves really hard we’ll be able to bring you a set review. In the meantime you can read our reviews of LEGO’s previous releases, including the Arocs’ predecessor – the 8110 Unimog – by clicking here.
More Mad Max
The incredible vehicles of ‘Mad Max – Fury Road’ have taken root in the conscious of the Lego Community of late, which is something we are very much in favour of here at TLCB. Flickr’s _Tiler has added another vehicle from the film – Cranky Frank – to his collection. You can see more of the post-apoc pick-up, as well as his other superb Mad Max vehicles, via the link above.
Pew! Pew! Pew!…
…Is how we imagine the weapons on this gunship by Flickr’s Horcik Designs sound. At least, these are the noises the Elves have been annoying us with all morning following this find. Thanks Horcik. Anyway, there’s more to see at the link above – click to take a look whilst we get the much-feared office airhorn out of the cupboard…
Prepare Your Bricks
A New Tumbler
This particular tumbler isn’t the Dark Knight’s latest set of wheels, it’s the work of Vimal “vlmn8r” Patel and Peter “Mahj” Kreuger. The “Bugroll” zooms along and then performs an acrobatic front flip. Mahj has a history of building cars that move in unusual ways and we featured his “Cadmium” lowrider earlier this year. Once you’ve watched the YouTube video below, click on this link to Mahj’s Flickr Photostream to see the details of how the car works.
More Monster Truck
After removing the controls of yesterday‘s monster truck from the Elves before there could be any smushings one of them got one over us today.
In the hands of the aforementioned employee the Baja trophy truck above managed to squash most of our smelly little workforce long before we noticed anything was amiss and – thanks to the new SBrick – controlling the chaos could be done by the Elf in hiding.
Order has now been restored and the jubilant Elf responsible ejected from TLCB Towers by way of the office catapult, giving us the chance to scrape some damaged Elves out of the carpet and – more importantly – have a go at the driving ourselves.
The beast in question is the work of Egor Karshiev (aka rm8) and it’s E.P.I.C. Underneath the trophy truck bodywork are two LEGO buggy motors powered by two LiPo batteries, plus a servo motor for steering, three sets of LEDs and the SBrick control unit. All of this sits on top of some of the bounciest Technic suspension we’ve ever seen and the result is a Technic model that’s faster than anything made from Lego has a right to be.
You can read all about Egor’s creation and see the full gallery of images on MOCpages, plus you can appreciate how half our workers were squashed so thoroughly by watching the truck in action in Egor’s awesome video here.
Monster Truck
TLCB favourite (and ‘Become a Pro‘ interviewee) Sariel is back with another brilliant RC creation. His latest work is a replica of BJ Baldwin’s insane Monster Energy Chevrolet trophy truck, and it’s an absolute riot to drive! We managed to get it off the Elves pretty quickly and have been hooning it around the office all day. For research of course. We’ve got to be thorough…
Anyway, whilst we get back to our in-depth testing of the Chevy you can watch it in action below as well as viewing all the images over on MOCpages.
YouTube Video:
Classic Spacephant
Because who doesn’t want a giant animal-based space station of whimsy? David Alexander Smith’s ‘Classic Space Elephant Exploration Rig’ is one of the best things our Elves have ever brought back, even though we have no idea what it’s for or what it does. Trek over to MOCpages or Flickr to join in the mechanical safari.
Hmm
Hummer is probably TLCB’s least favourite automotive brand. It only lasted a few short years in our home nation and the H2 and H3 were so awful that even Americans stopped buying them.
However the original H1 military spec vehicle is a very different animal to the dreadful H2 and H3, being really rather good at going almost anywhere whilst loaded with heavy bits of weaponry, aid, and military personnel, and loved (or feared) by armed forces around the world.
Unfortunately the H1 was also bought by gun-toting, dried-food-storing, apocalypse-hoping (but climate-change denying), camouflage-wearing morons who gave GM the idea to build civilian versions in the first place, so we still hate its metallic guts.
This Lego version is alright though, and comes from TLCB regular Ralph Savelsberg. There’s more of his Hummer H1 to see on Flickr.
