Silos are a common sight on any farm, used to store and dispense grain, animal feed, and er, …poo. One of the ‘net’s best Technic builders has taken the unusual step of building both a silo and the mechanism for erecting it from Lego Technic.
Sariel‘s Volvo FH12 truck and Silo placing trailer were discovered by one of our Elves on MOCpages, where Sariel details his build and includes a video demonstrating the placing mechanism in action. See more at the link above.
YouTube Video:
Back in the ’90s before SUVs became fashionable hatchbacks and every manufacturer added several to their line-up, the Japanese had a monopoly on compact 4x4s. Toyota, Nissan and Mitsubishi led the way with proper body-on-frame vehicles with genuine off-road ability.
One of the smallest was a three door version of Mitsubishi’s Pajero, known as the ‘Pinin’. Except we won’t call it the Pajero because here in the UK it had a far cooler name: the Shogun. Previous TLCB bloggee piterx has recreated the ’90s Shogun he owns in real life in Technic form, and it’s got some serious Lego engineering under its minimalist bodywork.
Squeezed into the tiny Pinin wheelbase is a proper all-wheel-drive system, remote controlled drive, steering, 4 speed sequential gearbox with reverse and an automated clutch. It doesn’t stop there either, as working brakes (with brake lights), MacPherson front suspension, live axle rear suspension and opening doors, hood and tailgate all feature too.
You can view all the photos of this brilliant engineering via Eurobricks at the link above, plus you can see the Shogun in action on YouTube – just click play below!
YouTube Video:
French builder F@bz has become something of a TLCB regular, with his futuristic builds that include spacecraft, cars and motorbikes. His latest creation is the Honda RZR, the mount of the bounty hunter Shen X. The bike features a variety of interesting parts usage and connections, jammed into a very small space. You can see more photos of the bike and its rider by clicking this link to F@bz’s Flickr Photostream.
At The Lego Car Blog we are, naturally, devoted petrolheads and Lego builders. We rarely walk anywhere, including from our desks to the executive Jacuzzi at the end of the day, preferring to zoom across the floor on our office chairs. Walking is what the Elves are for. This writer took 39 steps out of the library recently but that was unusual. TLCB writers can never ever use the excuse that they are late for work because their walk has become rather sillier recently. However, Andy Price has recreated one of our favourite Monty Python sketches in Lego and we thought that we would share it with our readers. You can view his vignette on MOCpages by clicking this link.
We did think that the Elves were trying out silly walks, after they’d seen the video of the sketch. Then we realised that it’s just how they walk all of the time.
Normal service will now be resumed…
Volkswagen’s Transporter is one of the most heavily modified vehicles ever made, so it’s a little surprising that LEGO’s own superb 10220 Volkswagen T1 set doesn’t seem to have followed suit. After all, LEGO is designed for modifying! We think it’s probably due to boring collectors being boring. Anyway, one builder who’s got his 10220 out of the box and had some fun with it is Norton74, a previous TLCB regular with his fantastic trucks.
Norton has removed the camper portion of his VW set and rebuilt it as a canvas covered pick-up, resplendent in Road Service livery. We think it looks even better than the original! See all the photos of the mod on MOCpages, and if you’ve got a 10220 sitting unopened in a box; you know what to do!…
Following today’s Technic Supercar we have another bright red technical marvel to share. It’s not quite as fast, but does have an equally boring name. This Ursus C-360 3P tractor is the work of Flickr builder Eric Trax, and it’s absolutely stuffed with Technic functions. These include remote control drive and steering, working power take-off and a lifting hitch attachment. Handily Eric has included a video of the Ursus in action at his Flickr page – click here to see more.
McLaren’s MP4-12C might be saddled with a name you’d expect to find on a piece of office equipment, but it’s still an awesome bit of kit. Dikkie Klijn returns to TLCB with his Technic recreation of the British super car, and it’s every bit as good as the real thing. Featuring a working V8 engine, steering, suspension, gearbox, scissor doors and a fully modular chassis, it took Dikkie almost a year and half to complete. You can see all the spectacular photos, including chassis details, on MOCpages or Flickr.
… Is one that goes into space…
Until 1996, the top-of-the-range Technic set was always a car. Then Lego had another idea. Welcome to TLCB’s review of set 8480, the Technic Space Shuttle.
With only a handful of pieces more than the 8880 supercar, but the addition of some 9V electrics, this retailed for $30 or so more. Since I was recently privileged to put one together, I thought I’d tell you, our esteemed reader, all about it.
First of all, the box is huge. Ma-hoo-sive, as I’m told some people say… rather more than is necessary; although having a plastic tray to sort the pieces into is a boon. Unlike new sets of this size, there is just the one – thickish – instruction book, which covers both the shuttle and the submarine B-model. This naturally means that every build step involves quite a lot more than it would now… the assembly of this large and complex model is broken down into just 40 build steps.
You know that warm feeling of accomplishment you get when you complete a model? Well, you get a similar frisson for completing EVERY PAGE of this. You do need to concentrate, partly because of the relatively large amount of pieces added at each step, but also because there will be ONE piece added somewhere, at the other end of the model from most of the rest, that you will miss. It’s like 40 pages of ‘Where’s Waldo’… If this sounds like complaining, it isn’t; this was a properly challenging and very enjoyable build.
I do have a couple of TLCB Top Tips: At an early stage, you attach two 2×6 black plates with holes to the underside. Leave these off until much later, as you’ll only knock them off many times until they are attached at more than one end. It’ll spare your sanity, I promise… Another thing – make sure you test these near-20 year old electrics; especially the two long wires that are carefully routed along the length of the fuselage from an early stage of the build. If you discover one of these doesn’t work later on, it’s major surgery to remove it. This leads to swearing…
After many hours of careful assembly, you will have a Technic model of unusual handsomeness, and a (for the time) quite staggering technical density. Time to see what it does. Continue reading
We’re outside of our blogging comfort zone again, publishing some sci-fi that we don’t understand. Still, whatever this is looks cool and you can see more of it at sylon-tw‘s Flickr photostream.
We’re not quite sure how many Elves we have (they are extremely difficult to count), but we think it’s in the high twenties, depending on how many have been lost on any given week to dogs, the office printer, or their own vigilante justice system.
However many it is, we were very surprised to be greeted this morning by no less than five of them waiting relatively patiently in TLCB office, each holding a find. The surprise continued when we discovered that every one of their five finds was blog-worthy, and all were from the same builder. As we’re feeling generous they’ve each been awarded a meal token and Smartie and thus we have five great models to show you today!
They come from Steffen Kasteleiner (or Buff83ST as he is known on Flickr), who has recently uploaded a whole range of beautifully classic-looking Town style trucks, like this brilliant long-nose semi above.
Whilst his trucks are only at the large end of Town-scale – being around 7 studs wide – Steffen has included expert detailing, like the opening doors, functioning steering and the lovely brick-built logos you can see on this classic U-Haul truck.
Steffen’s work isn’t limited to trucks either, as he’s turned his hand to tractors such as this John Deere, and also to aircraft, with some superb planes available to view at either his MOCpages or Flickr accounts.
We highly recommend a visit to Steffen’s pages to see more of the models shown here, as well as his previously uploaded trucks, planes, and pick-ups; click on either of the links in the text above to see all of his work!
The smash-hit LEGO Movie was one of the best films we’ve seen in ages, but there were one or two niggly plot holes for the Man of Steel and the Dark Knight. Luckily for us the YouTube channel How It Should Have Ended (HISHE) kept the cameras rolling as Superman and Batman caught up over a $38 coffee. Click play above to watch! And if you haven’t seen The LEGO Movie yet you can read The Lego Car Blog’s review here.
*Because space ship. Being a car blog we don’t have any more to add than that, but Daniel Jassim on MOCpages does, and you can read what he has to say about his ace Ranger space ship by clicking the link above.
This incredible recreation of the Helicarrier from the Avengers movie franchise was discovered today on MOCpages. It actually breaks two of our own submission guidance rules, being both not a car and being built digitally. But just look at it! Yo-Sub Joo has painstakingly pieced together 22,694 digital bricks to create a model that if it were real would measure over two meters long! You can see all Yo-Sub Joo’s photos of his awe-inspiring build on MOCpages via the link above.
It’s been two and half years since the Elves were first released from their cages in TLCB Towers basement, and yesterday The Lego Car Blog’s one thousandth article was published! The Elves can’t take all the credit though, as around 100 blog posts are attributed to you our readers, or to the several guest bloggers who have written for the blog since its inception.
All one thousand of our articles are available to view in The Lego Car Blog Archives, just scroll down to the bottom of the page and pick a month, or enter a term into the Search function to see your chosen content.
You can also read all our official LEGO Set Reviews by clicking here, and you can flick back through our interviews with the best Lego builders on the net via the Master MOCers Series.
A huge thank you to each of you for your readership, without you this blog would just be the mutterings of some madmen. As always you can let us know what you think and you can suggest creations that might be of interest via the Feedback and Submission Suggestions page.
TLCB Team
