This Harley Davidson Street Glide is the work the amazing Bricksonwheels, and it’s as orange as a budget airline air stewardess. It means an orange Smartie for the Elf that found it and – as any Smartie connoisseur will know – they’re the best kind. See more on Flickr.
We’re not a trendy Lego blog here at TLCB. There are no famous builders residing at TLCB Towers*. We don’t blog our own stuff. We don’t make any money. And you won’t find us at a Lego show discussing how the latest sci-fi build pushes the boundaries of the Lego medium as an art form or some such guff.
We’re also pretty lazy, fairly incompetent and quite often drunk. But somehow, and we’re as surprised by this as you probably are, this blog seems to have worked out. In fact, as given away by the less-than-subtle title, we’re about to hit quite a special number. Best of all, we’ll hit it again with a ‘2’ instead of a ‘1’ at the front in no time at all.
So as we countdown to seven-digits we’d like to say a big thank you to each of you for joining us on this Lego journey. We don’t know how long it’ll last, but we’ll have a blast whilst it does.
As always, you can let us know what you think of the content you read here via the comments or the Feedback Page, and protected by the dark cloak of anonymity we may even respond! Onwards to a million…
TLCB Team
*Or are there?… No. There aren’t. Maybe.
This wonderful Second World War scene comes from TLCB newcomer Jeffrey Mille aka BeLgIum ww2 bUiLdeR. Jeffrey has recreated a typical European stone bridge crossing the river into a sleepy hamlet, which until the World Wars would have been a little dot on the map of little importance. Come conflict though, and river crossings matter.
The Germans guarding this one look pretty well armed, with mobile artillery well entrenched at either end. Crossing the bridge is a rather lovely column of assorted German vehicles, including a Panzer and the ubiquitous Opel Blitz truck.
The eight vehicles in this creation have given us a bit of headache here at TLCB, as the two Elves that found this are demanding eight meal tokens and Smarties. Which is not going to happen.
Whilst we sort out this workplace dispute you can take a trip to Flickr to see ‘The Bridge’ in more detail, including photos of each of the vehicles featured. Click the link above to visit Mr. Mille’s photostream.
After some exotic posts (no – not that kind) over the past few days we go back to basics with this humdrum, but excellent, ancient Scania LB 141 truck by Flickr’s Nanko Klein Paste. Scania have recently been swallowed up by the Volkswagen Group as part of their plan for World Domination, but this classic tipper comes from a very different era. You can see more of the LB 141 at the link.
TLCB’s favourite movie car maker is back, and with something a little special. It’s only 5 years until we reach the year when 1982’s Blade Runner is set, and we’re no nearer to hovering cars now than we were those 32 years ago, but they still look just as cool. This is the Police Spinner from the legendary sci-fi film and it’s the work of Flickr’s and Brothers Bricks‘ Ralph Savelsberg. See more of this and his other movie cars here.
Carl Greatrix makes his second appearance in as many days here at TLCB with another unbelievable classic Formula 1 car. This time the prancing horse is Carl’s subject matter, and he’s recreated their gorgeous 1979 312T4 beautifully.
Underneath the perfect bodywork lives a chassis of jaw-dropping detail, including the famous flat 12 Ferrari engine, the last before Scuderia Ferrari finally got with the times and built a turbocharged unit to challenge Renault.
Although the 312 was still a race winner in its ‘T4’ configuration in 1979, by the following year its outdated flat 12 engine relegated it to very un-Ferrari like positions. An entirely new car was conceived for 1981 which had half the cylinders, but it also had a turbo… and by 1982 Ferrari were the Formula 1 constructors champions again.
Carl’s Ferrari 312T4 is pictured here alongside his previously featured Renault RE20, and it’s one of our favourite photos of 2014. It also makes us wish that modern Formula 1 allowed some innovation and a variety of engineering approaches, as was the case until the modern era. We think it’d be much more exciting to watch cars as different as these two racing against one another. If only TLCB ran Formula 1…
To see more of this historic Ferrari – and Carl’s other incredible creations – take a trip to Flickr by clicking here.
TLCB Team were quietly working* away in the office today, when the sound of much commotion floated up the stairs from the Elves’ cage room. Sigh. A despondent traipse downstairs revealed the cause, and Mr Airhorn was brought out of his slumber to restore order.
The Elves have a history with remote controlled construction machinery, and this excellent JCB 320T compact track loader by Brickshelf’s pipasseyoyo did nothing to re-write it.
The JCB’s two Power Functions L motors had been used to smush a multitude of Elves into the carpet, whilst its ingenious self-leveling bucket contained a few more and quite a lot of sloshing vomit. Watch this video and you’ll see why – this loader is deceptively quick.
Anyway, we have the controls now, and the Elves have been thrown outside to continue the search. You can see more of the JCB on Brickshelf at the link above.
*By ‘working’ we mean browsing car websites, eating cupcakes, and Googling images of NFL cheerlea… never mind.
Well this surprised us! Firstly this BNSF locomotive is the work of renowned truck builder (and TLCB Master MOCer) Dennis Glaasker aka bricksonwheels – who has taken a first foray into train building – and secondly it’s much much bigger than it looks.
Measuring almost one and half meters long and containing an estimated 20,000 bricks Dennis’ BNSF EMD SD40-2 is LEGO’s own 10133-1 mini-figure locomotive after a dose of this.
Dennis’ latest work previews a new book he is authoring with his building partner Dennis Bosman aka LegoTrucks, due in 2015 through No Starch Press. All the of the photos from this incredible build will appear in print next year, however until then you can get your fix over on Flickr – Click the link above to visit Dennis’ “bricksonwheels” photostream.
Formula 1 might finally have got with the times and moved to turbo-charged engines, but it’s not actually the first time forced-induction has been used in Formula 1 racing.
Turbo-charging first appeared in F1 as early as the 1970s (and forced induction in the form of super-charging featured in Grand Prix racing earlier even than Word War 2 – think about that when you next brag about your turbo!). This particular car was one of the best of that first Turbo Era; the astonishing Renault RE20.
Built by Carl Greatrix, this Model Team recreation of the late ’70s Renault is one of the most beautifully engineered Lego creations we’ve seen this year, and not just on the outside. Underneath the perfectly replicated bodywork sits one of the finest chassis and engines ever constructed from the humble brick. The extra photo below gives you an idea, but you really need to head over to Flickr to see just how good this creation is. You can visit Carl’s photostream here – it’s worth the click!
After much procrastination we’ve finally got round to publishing a Lego Directory!
Included are our sources, rival blogs, previously featured groups, Master MOCer builder pages, and even our favourite car-related websites.
To visit the new one-stop-shop for all things Lego vehicle related simply click on the ‘Directory’ link in the main menu, or on the giant letters below.
Cor, check out this topless Italian model with her enhanced body! Now that we’ve messed with the search engines, here’s 1saac W‘s Liberty Walk Ferrari 458, hot on the heels of the larger version by Aaden H featured earlier in the week. This one was suggested by a reader, and you can see more on Flickr.
With the world in a particularly turbulent place at the moment we’ve been a little hesitant to post conflict-related creations. Today though our Elves (who regularly make the office a turbulent place too) have discovered a pair of fictional fighting vehicles that are a nice safe distance from the painful reality of Ukraine, Iraq and Gaza.
Thus, our Military tag gets another airing with these two splendidly constructed war machines. First up (above) is another exploration of the Steam Wars whimsy, this time built by TLCB newcomer Atin. It’s an Omni Terrian Impetum Pod (OT-IP), and it looks perfect for a trip to the supermarket.
Our second creation (below) comes from TLCB regular Lego Junkie, with his Raptor Improvised Fighting Vehicle. In most of the world an ‘improvised fighting vehicle’ seems to be a Toyota HiLux with a gun attached to the back, but Mr. Junkie’s looks a lot more accomplished. See more on Flickr at the link above.
Some readers of The Lego Car Blog might be wondering why we’re featuring a model of a crummy French hatchback with racing stickers, but European rally fans will immediately salute this little Citroen.
Rallying is a big deal in Europe, and whilst a bastardised version of rally-cross is starting to make waves in the States, the original is still filling European forests with noise every weekend.
The big boys run Imprezas, Evos and other all-wheel-drive machinery. However rally entries are mostly made up of little shopping cars like the Saxo above. This is because they’re cheap, easy to fix, slow enough not to kill you (unless you’re really trying) and front-wheel-drive, meaning to correct a slide you just have to add more power.
Well, except for this one, which due to the difficulty of making functioning front-wheel-drive from Lego bricks is actually rear-wheel-drive. Still, driveline inaccuracy aside it’s a truly marvellous little machine. Builder/Owner Gsia17 has even taken it rallying!
You can see all the photos via Eurobricks, and we highly recommend checking out the video below! Thanks go to one of our readers for the tip-off – and If you’d like to alert us to something the Elves have missed you can get in touch with us via the Feedback and Submission Suggestions page.
YouTube Video:
Like all fans of Lego*, The Lego Car Blog Elves love a good swooshing session every now and then. Of course it’s not much fun if you’re the unfortunate Elf who is being swooshed at the time. There is no finer sight in the eyes of our happy little helpers, than one of their motion-sick colleagues flying across the editorial offices, spraying vomit as he goes. The Lego Car Blog executive jacuzzi has been used as a clean up facility after several of these sessions and is therefore a tax-deductible necessity and not a luxury item. A team of excited Elves has just returned from the Starfighters Group on Flickr, making “Pew! Pew!” noises and swooshing a hoard of finds.
The Starfighters Group started a competition in July, which continues this month, for “Small Starfighters”. The builds must be of mini-figure scale and fit into a 14x14x6 stud box. Builders have come up with some neat designs, ingenious folding mechanisms and some clever ways of presenting their 14x14x6 boxes as hangars and transporters.
At the head of this post is Steebles’ “EDF-10 Basilisk” powered by an “electrospray” engine. Next up in our post is Simon Liu’s “KG-7 Tigerfish” which he describes as, “a chubby and unfortunately disaster prone craft that, even after four iterations, was still terrible.”, a bit like our fatter elves. Featured below is one of the Classic Space and Blacktron inspired builds, Automaton Pictures’ “G-3 Infiltrator” . Click this link to visit the group, see more brilliant builds and find out who wins the contest.
*Okay, so most of the Elves are only in it for the Smarties and Meal Tokens.
As a rule staff at The Lego Car Blog do not like exotic ‘tuning’ companies. Catering for the rich but utterly tasteless (of which there is burgeoning population world-wide), they modify vehicles that took $billions to painstakingly develop over many many years, but which can apparently be improved with stick-on carbon fibre and some new badges.
However, last year there was one exception to the rule – the utterly gorgeous Ferrari 458 Italia by Liberty Walk. Flickr’s Aaden Hughes thought so too, and he’s recreated the remarkable car from our favourite plastic blocks.
Unfortunately though, for every car like Liberty Walk’s 458 there are at least ten like this, this or this. And they all seem to be German. If you win the lottery, you know what not to do!