This Lego Lincoln Lowrider was discovered on Flickr. It’s the work of Doc_Brown and you can see more here.
It’s Hip To Be Square
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2014 Year in Review
The Lego Car Blog has made it to 2015! Here’s our round-up of the year that was 2014…
- Reviews! Lots more have been added to the Set Review Library throughout the year, both of LEGO’s latest sets and a few classic too. Click the link above to see all our reviews, and if you’re interested in reviewing a set for TLCB get in touch – we’d love to add some more to the database!
- Interviews! The final interview in our Master MOCer series was published and last month we announced its replacement – Become a Lego Pro. The first Pro interview, with the Technic legend Sariel, is available here, and we have another in the can to be published early this year.
- Views! The magic One Million mark was surpassed in 2014! A huge thank you to every single one of you reading this, to those who’ve visited, those who’ve been publicised, and those who’ve commented during 2014. We really couldn’t do this without you!
What’s coming in 2015:
We hope to keep blogging throughout 2015, and if we manage it we’ll continue to bring you the best Lego vehicles, news and set reviews. We’ll also be publishing a few more Become a Pro interviews, and we might even run a building competition at some point too! As always, you can let us know what you’d like to see via the Feedback & Submission Suggestions page, and you can contact us via Flickr – simply search for ‘The Lego Car Blog’ and send us a message.
Get involved!
We love being an accessible blog (we try anyway!). If you’d like to take the step from reading about Lego to writing about it – and in doing so see your words published to almost a million readers a year – then add us on Flickr and send us a Flickr Mail with your article idea. This could be a set review, event review, interview, or something we’ve not though of – we want your imagination!
Thank you from all of us here at TLCB Towers, and we hope you have a great 2015!
TLCB Team
New Year Fireworks
Everyone likes a big rocket,* and Flickr’s Billyburg has got two! They’re mounted on the back of his Mobile Intergalactic Rocket Command vehicle, a reimagining of LEGO’s own 6950 Classic Space set. See more at the link above.
*Especially your Mom.
Liebherr Loader Picture Special
It’s a whole new year, and we’re going to kick it off with a properly excellent creation. Technic genius, published author, and friend of TLCB, Sariel is back with another incredible working model.
Sariel’s Liebherr L538 Front Loader may look like a Model Team creation, such is its detail, but we’ve categorised it as Technic. That’s because underneath the remarkably realistic exterior there’s a huge list of working functions, including all-wheel-drive, articulated steering, working lights, remotely operated pneumatics…
It’s probably best if we let Sariel himself explain what this loader can do – take a look at the video below to see it in action.
YouTube Video:
There’s lots more to see on both MOCpages and Brickshelf, plus you can read our interview with Sariel for our ‘How to Become a Pro’ series by clicking here, and you can read our review of his superb new Lego book ‘Incredible Lego Technic’ by clicking here.
If you can find them…
We love it when a plan comes together, here at The Lego Car Blog. Using the Elves as our workforce has proved to be both cheap and successful over the last few years of brick-built, automotive exploration. Unfortunately some of the Elves were locked into their cages over the Christmas break with welding gear, a full set of Halford’s tools and various pieces of scrap machinery. They escaped into the Los Angeles underground, where they survive by finding creations for a flower arranging blog. Their colleagues are happy, as there are fewer mouths to compete for the Smarties.
Speaking of which, we gave out a rare, black Smartie to the lucky finder of Angka Utama’s A-Team GMC van. You can see it higher resolution by clicking this link to Flickr.
Cherry Picked
You could say we cherry-pick the very best Lego vehicles for publication here at TLCB, and that this is some sort of metaphor, but that would be too tenuous a link even for us. Coincidentally, here’s a Technic cherry picker. See more at Krzysztof Cytacki‘s photostream.
Rat Run
The final creation in today’s trio of Town posts is this beautiful mini-figure scale rat rod from Flickr’s _Tyler. There’s more to see after the jump.
Red Russian
This, er… thingumy is apparently a Soviet Martian Dump Truck. And who we are we to argue when it looks this cool? Shannon Ocean is the builder, and you can see more of his whimsical creation here.
Spinner
Syd Mead’s ‘Spinner’ police car from the movie Blade Runner has become one of the most influential sci-fi designs of all time, with the basic premise used in countless films since its first appearance way back in 1982. The Spinner also makes a fine subject to recreate from Lego, and Flickr’s -derjoe- has done it superbly. You can see more of his mini-figure Spinner via the link above.
Fighting Bull
Our recently-released Elves are starting to return home with their finds after their Christmas incarceration, so another bedraggled creature entering TLCB Towers isn’t normally worth much excitement. However, the Elf that found this creation got the attention of the whole office. ‘We recognise that style!’, we thought in unison…
This beautiful Lamborghini Aventador marks the return of one of the internet’s most revered vehicle builders, the brilliantly talented Firas Abu Jaber.
Firas has been away for a number of years, but an invitation to submit models for the next No Starch Press Lego book publication enticed him back into the community. There will be more to see when the aforementioned book is released next year, but until then you can see more of Firas’ spectacular Aventador by visiting his Flickr page.
The book in which Firas features is being written by Dennis Glaasker and Dennis Bosman, both of whom have appeared here over the years, and is entitled ‘The Art of Lego Scale Modelling’. It’s due for release via our friends at No Starch Press in 2015 and we’ll bring you more details as soon as we can. In the meantime you can check out TLCB’s interviews with both authors by clicking upon their names above, plus you see what our partners over at Head Turnerz think are Firas Abu Jaber’s best ever creations by clicking here.
5541 Hot Rod Review
Whilst our recently-released Elves trek back to their favourite haunts around the internet in search of Lego vehicles for us, we’ll await their return with a Set Review of a model that turns twenty in a few days.
1995 was a great year for Lego vehicles. The Town range was expansive and almost entirely brilliant, Technic was on a roll, and Aquazone made its debut.
5541 joined this bumper year as the Model Team newbie, and like many of the other sets of the time it suggested a confidence and flamboyance within The LEGO Group. Something that sadly seemed to have all-but-dissapeared just two short years later…
Anyway, back to ’95, and the Blue Fury / Hot Rod. Aimed at moderately experienced builders aged 9+, 5541 featured some lovely (and newish) chrome pieces, a few tasteful (and very high quality) transparently-backed decals, and a remarkably high level of detail for an official set.
5541 was based on a fairly generic hot rod design, but is no less lovely to behold for that, and featured working steering, an opening trunk, and… er, that’s it. It was definitely more of a display piece than a playable toy, but sometimes that’s OK. It was in fact this very set that taught this reviewer about the importance of detailing – and every MOC created by him thereafter was a significant step up. A watershed moment if you like.
The Blue Fury / Hot Rod set contained just over 400 pieces, which is surprisingly low considering the detail, and these could be reconstituted into the dragster-type B-model that you can see pictured above.
It’s also worth noting that 5541 reappeared around a decade later during some dark times at LEGO as one of their ‘Legends’ sets – which frankly were the only sets worth buying at the time – bearing the set no. 10151. This means that there should be plenty available on the second-hand market, and also that they hopefully aren’t in the hands of speculators intent on driving prices skywards.
If you can find a tidy 5541 or 10151 set it’s a worthwhile purchase for any Model Team fan. It does have limited play value, but it’s just so lovely to look at! 8/10
A is for Arseh…
Uploaded by Flickr’s Rolic during our Christmas break, and suggested to us by a reader, is this smart Model Team style Audi A6. We were hoping that Rolic had photographed his model straight-on at the front, as this is how we usually see Audis – when they’re in our rear-view mirror 6 inches from our rear bumper – but alas this picture will have to do.
In fairness to the A6 though, it’s not a main offender in Audi’s range. We have a theory that the cheaper the Audi, the more of an arse the driver will be. Q7 excepted of course. Anyway, you can see more of Rolic’s teutonic barge via the link above!
Holiday Haulage
We’re back! And we hope you had a very Happy Christmas!
We arrived in TLCB office today to the sound of a mug being dragged mournfully across metal bars. The Elves – locked up since Christmas Eve – were bored. Bored and hungry.
Upon their release they quickly dispersed back into the internet to resume their ongoing search for the best Lego vehicles from around the world. One of the swiftest/hungriest Elves returned promptly with this smooth-looking Model Team Freightliner FLD 120 truck by Brickshelf’s spongebrickpl. It features Power Functions remote control, opening doors and hood, and there are more photos available via the link above.
Merry Christmas!
It’s the night before Christmas, the many empty bottles from the office party have been tidied away, the Elves have been caught and returned to their cages, and the office lights are about to be turned out.
We’ll be back in a few days with more of the very best Lego cars, trucks, bikes and spacecraft from around the world, but in the meantime – from all of us here at The Lego Car Blog – we hope you have a very happy Christmas.
TLCB Team
Kit Car Kit
Despite the complete debacle that is the ‘Caterham’ Formula 1 team, we still quite like the company that makes their road cars (they’ve got nothing to do with the F1 outfit anyway). Unfortunately though Caterhams are surprisingly pricey cars. Of course you can save a few quid by building one yourself, but then you’d have no friends, and you’d talk about spanners in your sleep for months.
Luckily Carl Greatrix has the answer! After refining his previously featured Caterham Super 7 design you can now vote for it to become an official LEGO set through the LEGO Ideas platform. It’s not just any 7 either, but the ridiculous 620R version.
Visit Carl’s Flickr page for details, and if he secures enough votes you might be able to build your own Caterham 7 at home, and keep your friends!
