Weird Wheels

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bike 01

Just when you thought that you’d seen all of the possible ways to build a wheel from LEGO, along comes F@bz. Whilst he is best known for his unusual spacecraft, we have also his featured futuristic cars and bikes on The LEGO Car Blog. F@bz’s Citroen Epona runs on wheels made from 17 (front) and 16 (back) black minifig helmet visors, according to the Elves who counted them. We’ve no information as to the ride quality this gives but it definitely creates a distinctive style. Click on this link to F@bz’s Photostream to see more, including detailed shots of some of the clever connections used in its construction.

bike 02

Oil, Bricks, and Politics

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Lego Shell Greenpeace

Greenpeace, probably the world’s best known global activism charity, have been on the campaign trail, and oddly it affects our favourite little plastic bricks.

The LEGO Group has had a 50 year partnership with Royal Dutch Shell, featuring the petroleum brand on its Town sets before the arrival of the fictional ‘Octan’ brand in 1992, and more recently selling unique LEGO sets in Shell petrol stations.

Shell are an oil exploration company, and thus they explore the furthest reaches of our planet in the search for black gold. Most recently this has involved exploration in the arctic, much to the annoyance of Greenpeace.

In response the charity started a rather clever and actually quite original campaign to pressure LEGO into dropping Shell as a partner. Despite LEGO stating Greenpeace should take up their issues with Shell directly, the company has now bowed to pressure and decided not to renew their partnership with Royal Dutch Shell. What this means for LEGO’s other partnerships (e.g Ferrari, which are themselves sponsored by Shell) is unclear, but it will likely result in the end of the exclusive Shell sets in the near future.

We’re not quite sure how the termination of this partnership protects the arctic, or that Greenpeace understand irony (LEGO is made from plastic, and plastic is made from oil), but it does show that LEGO is seen as beloved moral brand, and that this is perceived to be at odds with some of their partnership choices.

We, being a car blog and understanding both irony and global economics, disagree with Greenpeace on this particular issue, but props to them for raising awareness of the LEGO brand – it’s done The LEGO Group no harm at all.

You can read more about the Greenpeace campaign and the response from both The LEGO Group and Royal Dutch Shell here, and you can watch Greenpeace’s slightly depressing campaign video below.

YouTube Video:

Seventies Sensation

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Lego Technic Lancia Stratos

This is one of the greatest rally cars ever made. It won the World Rally Championship in 1974, ’75 and ’76 – dominating the sport before the arrival of all-wheel-drive – and it featured an engine built by Ferrari. It is of course the bewitching Lancia Stratos.

Fewer than 500 original Stratos’ were built, and rumour has it that the first was built by the legendary coach-builder Bertone using a friend’s Lancia Fulvia as a base, in which he simply turned up at the Lancia factory one day to rapturous applause.

Lego Technic Lancia Stratos Rally Car

This lovely remote controlled Technic version of the Stratos was designed and built by TLCB favourite Piterx. It looks the business, which of course all Lancias should*, but the real question is can it rally? Watch the video below to find out!

YouTube Video:

*Apart from the modern ones it seems, which are either amongst the ugliest cars ever conceived, or are Chryslers with Lancia badges stuck on. Come on Fiat, you know you can do better.

Classic Nomadic

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Lego Chevrolet Nomad

Based on LEGO’s own Miniland 1957 Chevrolet, Nate Andrews makes his TLCB debut with his brilliantly reworked Nomad version of the American classic. An unusual car in 1950s America, the Nomad offered Chevrolet bling in a practical wagon/estate/tourer package. We love cars like this here at TLCB, and Nate’s is well worth a look. You can check it out at both MOCpages and Flickr.

Lego '57 Chevy Nomad

2015 LEGO Speed Champions Set Preview

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Lego 75909 McLaren P1 2015

LEGO’s small and always fun Racers sets are being refreshed for 2015! LEGO has announced the new ‘Speed Champions’ range, which is made up of partially refreshed old Racers sets (specifically the race-Ferraris and Iveco Transporter), and some new (and rather nice) hypercars.

One of these new sets is shown in the picture above – the awesome McLaren P1 – which joins the other two members of the latest real-world hypercar trio: the Ferrari LaFerrari and Porsche 918 Spyder. The P1 shown comes equipped with cones, a pleased-looking mini-figure driver and a few other useful tools, whilst the other sets also include a variety of additional parts.

We think the single car sets (Porsche 918, LaFerrari, P1, and a Ferrari 458 GT3) will please collectors although they do seem to show evidence of LEGO’s default method of creating the complicated shapes required via large specifically moulded new parts and stickers. Nevertheless, all of the new cars do look fun and some of those unique pieces might be usable for other ends (the surfboard piece in use as the McLaren’s rear spoiler is a nice touch!).

Overall we think the new Speed Champions cars will make good starter sets for beginners, and they’re relatively inexpensive at around €15 each. Definitely worth looking out for when they reach stores in early 2015.

Lego 75913 Ferrari Team Truck 2015

This is the set that the Elves are more interested in though. Remember set 8654? LEGO’s F1 team truck was well received by builders and LEGO have given it a refresh it for 2015 creating the new set 75913.

Included in the revised set are toolboxes with tools, lots of Ferrari-attired mini-figures, a brick separator(?), a Vespa(!) and of course the latest Ferrari F14, complete with a spare nosecone. The F14 seems a fairly accurate mini-figure scale version of Ferrari’s real racer, featuring a couple of new pieces and stickers to create the flowing shape.

As for the truck, LEGO seem to have reused the same Iveco cabin and trailer from last year’s set, and all of the assorted racing paraphernalia can fit inside as before. 75913 will cost you around €100, which is quite expensive for a mini-figure scale set, but there is a lot included for your money.

Lego 75910 Porsche 918 2015

Joining 75913 in the new Speed Champions range for 2015 are a Mercedes McLaren pitbox with F1 car (€35), two Porsche GT3 Racers in one package (€50) and the other aforementioned supercars including the 75910 Porsche 918 Hybrid pictured above. The complete Speed Champions range will reach stores in early 2015. Start saving!

Sources: The Brick Blogger and Brickshop.nl

Great R8

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Lego Audi R8

Audi might now be the favourite brand of the tail-gating muppet, but the R8 is one Audi we would still happily own. Previous Featured TFOL Alexander Paschoaletto is the builder behind this remarkably accurate Model Team version of which you can see more on MOCpages.

Lego Model Team Audi R8

A Service Truck? 2015 City Preview

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Portaloo

One of our “volunteer” Elves has just returned from his mission over the wall into LEGO’s headquarters. He got a bit lost on his way to the Technic area that we really care about and stumbled into the “City” products. Fortunately he evaded the guard dogs and returned home carrying two new 2015 sets.

First up is the 60073 “Service Truck”. LEGO seems to be having trouble naming its products at the moment. We all know that the 42024 “Container Truck” is actually a skip lorry and surely 60073 should be the Portaloo? Perhaps LEGO couldn’t get a licence agreement or maybe they thought that mums and dads wouldn’t want to buy the set for their kids? But we all love a bit of toilet humour and LEGO’s photographers seem to be no exception, with a minifig in the cabin caught doing his business, on the box top.

The errant Elf also brought this rather lovely 60083 “Snowplow Truck”. Whilst it might not have the functionality of the 8110 Unimog, it certainly looks the part, with its orange snowplough blade and grit hopper. Both new sets will reach stores in early 2015.

Unimog

Tonight on Top Gear… Picture Special

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Lego TopGear Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond James May

 …Jeremy will be mildly offensive, James will wear a wooly jumper, and Hammond will indulge in some bad acting. But we’ll still love it.

BBC’s Top Gear began way back in 1977 as a fairly straight-laced motoring magazine, updating the great unwashed on the latest new cars and motoring news (remember; no internet in 1977!). The original show helped to launch the careers of many TV motoring journalists, including the brilliant Tiff Needell and Quentin Wilson, and of course a certain Mr. Clarkson and Mr. May.

Lego Top Gear Studio Jeremy Clarkson

Top Gear evolved during these first decades becoming more humorous and politically incorrect, helped largely by the arrival of Quentin and Jeremy whose reviewing style could make-or-break a new car. After a one particularly damning review Peugeot famously declared that they were removing all of their adverts from the BBC – but of course due to the unique way the BBC is funded, Top Gear and everything else broadcast contains no advertising at all anyway. Take that Peugeot!

Lego Top Gear Richard Hammond

In 2000 however, the BBC canned Top Gear and sold the production (but not the name) to Channel 5, and Fifth Gear was born. Most of the presenters moved across to the new show and we’ve had to read uninformed ‘This is Fifth Gear you dumb %$@£!’ comments on YouTube (when a video correctly shows old Top Gear) ever since.

The BBC held onto the name for good reason though. In 2002 Top Gear returned, with a new format, new presenters, and – for the first time – an actual studio! Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and Jason Dawe fronted this first season, before Jason was replaced by James to give us the genius line-up that has been in place ever since.

Top Gear’s new format has proved wildly successful, with over 350million viewers from 170 countries tuning in every week. And that’s not counting the re-runs showing every hour on Dave.

Lego TopGear Jeremy Clarkson

Such success has led to mistakes though, as Top Gear has become less genuine and more scripted over the years in a quest to recreate past (naturally occurring) glories. It’s also given the presenters an opportunity to make other programmes, and ‘Richard Hammond’s 5 O’Clock Show’ is an abomination that will be forever etched into a dark corner of the televisual hall-of-shame. Thankfully it only lasted a month, and James May’s independent presenting more than makes up for Hammond’s. James even built a house out of LEGO.

Lego James May TopGear

So what next for Top Gear? Well there are now live arena shows once a year, spin-offs for Australia, Russia, Korea, America and others, a new DVD each Christmas, and there’s a whole world of slightly crap merchandising. Andy Wilman (Top Gear’s producer) admits the show – at least in its current format – is probably nearer to the end of its life than the start, but we expect to keep watching for little a while yet. Onwards to season 22!

All of the photos in this post were produced by the exceptionally talented Stephan Sander, who has lovingly recreated Jeremy, James and Richard in brick form.  He’s also constructed superb Lego models of Jeremy’s Citroen Motorhome, a trio of Jaguar E-Types, three Ferraris, three Lotuses and the famous Top Gear studio – complete with a wonderfully diverse audience! We highly recommend a trip to Stephan’s MOCpage to see all the photos. Back to the studio…

Samurai!

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Lego Suzuki Samurai

As regular readers of TLCB will know, we’re not a fan of a particular American ‘SUV’. But we are fans of SUVs that do it right, and the tiny Suzuki Samurai is one such vehicle.

Powered by a dinky 1300cc engine the little Suzuki is not going to win any tug-of-war competitions. Or drag races. Or towing challenges. But what it will do is climb up a trail that a will leave a Hummer far below looking very fat and just a bit ridiculous*.

TLCB favourite piterx‘s fantastic Technic recreation of the little Japanese off-roader is packed full of Power Functions goodness to ensure it can do the same to plenty of overweight Lego Truck Trial creations. Inside are two L motors, a servo for steering, and all-wheel-drive with live axel suspension.

Lego Suzuki 4x4

Best of all piterx has created his Samurai from the dark blue parts (and the off-road components) found in LEGO’s 41999 RC Crawler set, of which many examples are sitting unopened in the lofts of speculators. For that, we salute you piterx – you’re welcome here any time!

You can see all the details of piterx’s Technic Suzuki Samurai, including the all-important chassis images, via the Eurobricks forum; click the second link in this post to join the discussion.

Lego Technic Suzuki Samurai 4x4

*Like your Mom

Hipster House

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Lego Camper Bike

If there’s something more painfully hipster than this Camper Bike, we’re yet to see it. We’re not sure whether owning this pedal-powered home would make you look; a) very cool, b) like a failing meth cook, or c) like some kind of human snail. Whichever it is, Ultimate Design Bricks is the builder of this whimsical contraption, and you can see more of his creation on MOCpages here, or on Flickr here.

SHIPtember 2014

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Eye of Misfortune

The great Sci-Fi Building race that is SHIPtember is now officially over and has given way to Ma.Ktober. 105 monster spacecraft, each over 100 studs long and each a Seriously Huge Investment in Parts, were completed. Many SHIPs also fell by the wayside, as their builders struggled to find building time, inspiration, a suitably strong enough Technic skeleton or waited nervously for Bricklink orders. There were some awesome thin-ships, bulky battleships and variations on the Classic Space, Blacktron and Homeworld themes. Some builders chose to tackle the challenge in novel and unusual ways and we thought that we would feature these builds in this post.

At the top of our post is Jonathan Walker’s beautiful “Eye of Misfortune” . This has been built using “brick bending” type techniques to achieve its smooth curves and is greater than 100 studs “in some dimension”. It nicely complements his SHIP from 2013 and we wonder if Jonathan has a special deal on white bricks at his local LEGO Store.

ChrisR18t

Whilst most SHIPs fall into the big & grey category, Chris Rozek’s “Yagami-Maru II” stands out in its red and white livery. Being a car blog, this reminded us of Starsky’s Ford Gran Torino, with its white vector stripe, which made us especially happy.

Halfbeak 01

The next SHIP excited the Elves, as it contained something designed to be eaten, that wasn’t LEGO. SHIPtember’s rules state that builders should only work during September. Canadian builder Halfbeak was also out in his sunny garden, germinating camomile and mint on first aid dressings to go into the biomes on his “Pathfinder 4”. In addition to this novelty, Halfbeak has included a bunch of details in authentic NASA style, including the Canadian built manipulator arm.

Halfbeak 02

Having recently featured Bionicle for the first and probably last time on this blog, we now come to the first and probably last Duplo creation to be featured here. Wm Byron Duncan’s “8-Belle” is a mind-boggling 100 Duplo studs long. His Flickr Photostream is well worth a visit to see his other Duplo spacecraft and tips on DUPLO SNOT techniques. This SHIP is 100% Duplo, which does unfortunately mean that it isn’t swooshable, if you could pick it up to start with!

DUPLO SHIP

One builder who had to endure a nervous wait for several Bricklink orders was Jacob Unterreiner. His Tron themed “Solar Sailer” features 96 identical modules and a beautiful brick-built sail.

Solar Sailer

Our penultimate SHIP is Karen Quinn’s colourful “Queen of Hearts” whose distinctive stripes give it the look of a spaceborne mint humbug. Karen has succeeded in creating an interesting shape from some of LEGO’s bigger chunks of plastic, which is a tough thing to achieve. The Queen of Hearts also features lots of playable features and an unusual domed front windscreen, complete with eyelids.

Queen of Hearts

Last up is Peter Mowry’s “Battle Scarred Hexan Battleship”, built in his trademark style. Although a few SHIPs did suffer accidental collapses and crashes, Peter has deliberately broken his SHIP to make this unusual presentation.

Hexan Crashed

We’ve featured just a small portion of the 2014 SHIPtember builds. To see more, click this link to the SHIPtember group on Flickr, where you can also vote for this year’s People’s Choice Award. Congratulations to all of the builders who completed a SHIP this year: the SHIPtember 2014 poster is going to be awesome!

Smooth Operator

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Tridder Rotary Supreme

MOCpages based builder Turbo Charger has a big portfolio of virtual supercars, including some fantasy six-wheelers but he has switched to real bricks for his “Rotary Supreme”. It’s a well known fact that The Lego Car Blog Elves don’t like virtual creations, preferring something that they can really get their teeth into. We’re a bit worried that they might be addicted to the taste of LEGO, especially those chewy Technic flexible axles.

Although the Tridder “Rotary Supreme” is mainly of conventional construction, the careful use of curved bricks has created a car that to quote Blaine R., “Looks like it’s going 200 miles an hour sitting still.” and has a super car meets spaceship quality to it. The pictures are also a good example of photographing black LEGO, which is always a difficult task. To see more, including how the cockpit opens, click this link to MOCpages.

New LEGO Technic! 2015 Preview (Part 2)

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New LEGO Technic 2015 42039 Race Car

It’s time to reveal the final new LEGO Technic sets bound for stores in 2015! Yesterday we previewed five of the eight new Technic models due at the start of next year, including the new 42037 Formula Off-Road Racer.

Today we move on to the bigger stuff, including the rather lovely looking green endurance racer above. But more on that in a bit. Firstly, let’s look at two wheels…

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42036 Street Motorcycle

New Lego Technic 2015 42036 Street Motorcycle

We start with the smallest of the more complex 2015 Technic sets, the 375 piece 9+ 42036 Street Motorcycle. 42036 looks a nice mid-range set, featuring working front and rear suspension, steering, and (we suspect) a chain driven two cylinder engine. It also comes in a rather attractive light blue hue and includes the common-for-2015 decals seen on many of the new sets that add a bit more visual interest.

Downsides are the matching tyres front and rear – which isn’t particularly realistic – and (possibly) the longevity of those aforementioned decals on the large curved Technic panels. Overall though we like the look of 42036 – a good effort from The Lego Group.

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42038 Arctic Truck

New 2015 Lego Technic 42038 Arctic Truck

We’re now into the big sets! New for 2015 is this, the 42038 Arctic Truck, aimed at ages 10+ and containing over 900 pieces – many of which are in the ace 8110 Unimog orange. 42038 goes back to the days of good old fashioned mechanical Technic, and fits a wealth of functionality into its 40cm length, including a linear-actuator operated crane boom, suspended tracks and working steering.

As with some of the other new Technic sets for 2015, LEGO seem to have upped the detail level, possibly at the cost of robustness (how long is that communications ariel going to stay in place for example), but this does look to be a conscious effort to make Technic more visually appealing to those progressing from LEGO’s simpler product themes.

The 42038 Arctic Truck set will reach stores next year, and like most of the new LEGO Technic sets it includes a colourful sticker sheet plus instructions for a second vehicle.

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42039 24 Hours Race Car

2015 LEGO Technic 42039 24 Hours Race Car

And finally, the flagship new Technic set for 2015, the 1,200 piece 42039 24 Hours Race Car! We’re not sure what 42039 features in the way of technical functionality, apart from steering and an opening engine cover, but we’re hoping for pushrod suspension and a big piston engine – it’s aimed at ages 11+ after all!

However, we can tell you that 42039 does feature some as-yet unreleased parts/colour combinations that will probably get certain quarters of the online Lego Community very excited, though we’re just happy because it looks a bit like the incredible Toyota TS040, Audi R18 and Porsche 919 hybrid racers from this year’s LeMans endurance race (although LEGO have missed the regulation stabilising fin from their version).

Like the other new sets for 2015 42039 includes a colourful set of stickers as well as instructions for a second model, although perhaps more surprisingly it contains no Power Functions electric components. This means that there are no new motorised sets in the 2015 LEGO Technic line-up at all – something that we’re in no doubt change mid-way through the year.

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So until then, which is your favourite? As always our resident experts may review some of these sets after their release (plus you can check out all The Lego Car Blog’s reviews of sets past in the Set Review Library), and if you missed Part 1 of our preview detailing the first five new Technic sets for 2015 you can catch up here.

Gettin’ Dirty

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Lego Tatra T148 Truck Trial

HorcikDesigns‘ likes to get his Lego dirty. Truck Trial is his chosen method, and the Tatra T148 is his chosen vehicle. Featuring two Lego Buggy Motors for drive, a Power Functions M Motor for steering, and fully independent half-axel suspension Horcik’s recreation of the famous off-road truck is perfectly equipped to tackle the rough stuff. You can see more of the T148 on Flickr at the link above.

Featured Blogs – The “Concept” Group

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Concept Collage

So you’ve 29,243 Lego pieces, perfectly stored in a wall of plastic draws, plus a custom building table and lightbox waiting for your finished creation. The only problem is what to build? How can you deploy that new gearbox or SNOT technique that you’ve invented? Where can you get some inspiration for a new style of Technic supercar or whatever this month’s sci-fi theme happens to be?

Fortunately Igor Tkac has come up with a family of blogs that feature the best of concept art from around the internet. The first blog, Concept Ships, was launched in August 2007 and was included in Wired.com’s list of best art websites that year. This blog was followed by ones for vehicles, robots, tanks, guns and aliens. The pages can be a bit slow to download but it’s worth the wait as the art is displayed at full resolution, so you can zoom in to the details.

We’ve only spotted one Lego post on any of the blogs (Jon Hall’s aeroplanes, below), so it’s still worth visiting The Lego Car Blog to see what the Elves have found on the web. If you’ve some spare time at home, or an idle moment at your desk, click the links in the paragraph above and be prepared to be inspired.

Jon Hall Aircraft