Cosmically Cool

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Mankind’s future is in the stars. No, TLCB Team aren’t suddenly into astrology, but rather hold a belief that now that the world’s richest men are building space rockets, it’s only a matter of time before space travel becomes democratised.

Which means that space will then inevitably be conquered by influencers, requesting Likes and Subscribes to fund whatever space-based lifestyle it is they want you to think is worth following.

Cue OA KD‘s ‘Space Vanlife’, in which an invariably top-knotted douchebag and his hot-pants wearing girlfriend will evangelise about the benefits of an all-natural diet and 5am yoga via the medium of a pseudo-intellectual trope embossed on a picture of a sunset. Only in space.

Appropriately OA KD has pictured his marvellous Neo-Classic Spacevan on Mercury. Or its top-knotted owner is surfing in mercury. We’re not sure. Either way you can Like and Subscribe via the link to Space Vanlife above.

Today’s second dude-in-space creation revisits our old friend Benny from The LEGO Movie, who has equipped himself with one heck of a jetpack courtesy of Flickr’s Rubblemaker. Join him on an extreme journey through the cosmos via the link to Rubblemaker’s photostream above, and get ready for the first influencer in space any day now.

LEGO Icons 10337 Lamborghini Countach 5000 Quattrovalvole | Set Preview

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The Walkman, the Rubik’s Cube, Breakdancing, the Synthesiser, Big Hair, and Cocaine could all all lay claim to being the most 1980s thing. Here at TLCB however, we think it could well be a white Lamborghini Countach 5000 Quatrovalvole.

The Countach was actually born a decade earlier, but by the ’80s had morphed into an outrageous caricature of itself, perfectly encapsulating the Decade of Excess.

It’s also perhaps the most Lamborghini of Lamborghinis, and therefore the ideal choice to recreate in LEGO form. On sale from next month, LEGO have done just that, with the brand new Icons 10337 Lamborghini Countach 5000 Quattrovalvole.

Constructed from just over 1,500 pieces, the new set includes the Countach’s scissor doors, V12 engine, deep-dish wheels (although we’re not quite sure the rear tyres on the real thing were twice as wide as the fronts), a detailed interior, plus opening front trunk and engine cover, and – to our eyes – it looks absolutely terrific!

Sales begin via lego.com next month, when you can get your hands on the new 10337 Lamborghini Countach 5000 Quatrovalvole set for around $180 / £160. Rubik’s Cube and Cocaine optional.

The M3 in an M3

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Running around 100km between the south coast of England and London, the M3 motorway is used by millions of people every year to drive to / escape from the capital.

It’s also a road driven by thousands of business-types every day from their homes in green suburbia to their business desks in London, from where they do business things. Back in the early 2000s, this was one of the most popular business-person choices for that journey, the BMW ‘E46’ 3-Series.

Typically driven four feet from the car in front, by a sunglasses-wearing business-person, they were loved by their customer base, and hated by everyone else. These days however, the aforementioned business-persons have moved onto electric Mercedes-Benzes and Teslas, and the E46 has become – whisper it – rather cool.

The best of all the E46 3-Series derivatives is this one, the 350bhp M3 Coupe. Launched in 2000, the E46 was powered by a straight-6 naturally-aspirated engine, was mostly manual, and looked… well, not at all like BMWs do now. Which means it’s TLCB’s kind of car.

Recreating his father’s own E46 M3 (lucky man), Flickr’s Leo 1 has constructed the early-’00s coupe beautifully, including a detailed interior and some trick techniques to accurately replicate the handsome exterior.

Building instructions are available, and you can drive along the M3 to an important early-’00s business meeting in your own M3 via Leo’s photostream at the link above.

Stud Bug

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In contrast to this site’s bodged operation and shoe-string budget, TLCB usually publishes models at the exotic end of the vehicular scale. Sleek, powerful, rare… the cars we feature are the opposite of both this site and the cars found in our office carpark. But not today!

Yup, this time we have a vehicle that is far more befitting of our social status, being cheap, common, and rather dumpy, it’s the humble Volkswagen Beetle, a car built in its millions to transport the masses.

Better yet this is a deeply uncool unmodified one, as 99% of those on the world’s roads are,  driven not by hipsters on their way to a trendy festival, but by ordinary workers to ordinary places.

It comes from gaehno of Brickshelf, and not only does it look fantastic – constructed as it is in traditional studs-up fashion using basic System pieces – it’s also packed with brilliant Technic functionality.

A working flat-four-cylinder engine is mated to a four-speed gearbox, there’s functioning steering, a working parking brake, switchable windscreen wipers that operate as the model drives, opening and lockable doors, front trunk and engine cover, adjustable seats, folding sun visors, and even an opening glovebox.

There’s more of the model to see at gaehno’s Brickshelf gallery, and you can take a look at one of the world’s least glamorous cars, built in a beautifully unglamorous way, via the link in the text above.

Minnie Winnie

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Fancy a very small camping trip? Prolific bloggee 1saac W. has just the thing. This beautiful Dodge-based 1977 Winnebago ‘Minnie Winnie’ measures just five studs wide (four at the cab), and yet looks every inch millimetre as immediately identifiable as models ten times the size! A clever awning, brick-built ‘W’ motif, ingenious rubber-band based detailing, and some properly clever parts orientation make this one of the best small-scale creations we’ve seen yet, and you can join us on a tiny little vacation at 1saac’s photostream via the link above.

Skid Marks

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We love B-models here at The Lego Car Blog. Taking a suite of parts designed to create one thing and repurposing them to create another thing entirely is the very essence of LEGO.

Cue previous bloggee (and something of a B-model specialist) Dyens Creations, who has redeployed the pieces from the 42122 Technic Jeep Wrangler Rubicon set to create something very different indeed.

Short of a bouncy castle or an F/A-18 fighter jet, a skid-steer loader as about as far removed from the Wrangler source material as it’s possible to get. Unless you’re a non-Jeep person, in which case an ugly agricultural lump of poor-handling machinery is perhaps not that far removed at all.

Whatever your persuasion, Dyen’s 42122 alternate is an excellent one, with a working loader arm and tilting bucket, an opening engine cover, and even enough pieces left over to add a construction barrier and warning sign.

There’s more of the model to see at Dyen’s ‘LEGO 42122 – SKID STEER LOADER’ album and you can make the jump from the trail to the construction site via the link above.

My Other Car’s a Camaro

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LEGO’s 10304 Icons Chevrolet Camaro Z28 set has proven a hugely popular source of alternative builds. Half-a-dozen have already reside in our archives, including a Porsche 911, Pontiac Firebird, and even a Golf GTI.

Today we’re adding another, as TLCB Master MOCer Firas Abu-Jaber has turned the ’70s American 2-door coupe into, well… a Japanese one.

Launching two years after the Camaro, the Datsun 240Z ‘Fairlady’ took the US by storm, offering good performance, reliability, and relative efficiency, all for just $200 more than an MGB.

This brilliant 1:13 replica of Japan’s most successful ’70s sports car recreates the 240Z solely from the parts found within the 10304 Chevrolet Camaro set, and includes a detailed engine under the raising hood, a realistic interior behind opening doors, an opening tailgate, and working steering too.

There’s lots more of this 10304 alternate to see at Firas’ ‘Fairlady 240Z’ album on Flickr, where full details (including a link to instructions) can be found. Switch your Camaro for a 240Z via the link above, plus you can read the builder’s interview here at The Lego Car Blog via the Master MOCers third link in this post’s text.

My Other Piece of Construction Equipment…

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LEGO’s brand new 60420 Construction Excavator set is undoubtedly their best City-themed excavator to date. Launched today and aimed at ages 8+, the set features over 600 pieces, with a huge posable boom arm, 360° slowing superstructure, and a pair of brick-built Technic tracks. It also wears Technic price-tag though, costing a very un-City-like $55 / £50.

Fortunately however, previous bloggee Marek Markiewicz (aka M_longer) has doubled 60420’s value-for-money by turning it into a 2-in-1 set, having somehow designed and published a superb bulldozer alternate complete with building instructions on the day of the set’s release.

There’s a working blade and rear ripper, plus a removable cab, and you can find all the images as well as the link the building instructions for Marek’s brilliant bulldozer B-Model via both Flickr and Bricksafe. Take a look via the links above to double your 60420’s potential.

Barrelling Along

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Flickr’s David Roberts has appeared here numerous times over the years with his strangely-shaped spaceships, including those based upon a giant block of cheese, a chess board, and a cat’s anus amongst others.

Today he’s taken inspiration (probably) from the barreleye deep-sea fish, whose eyes look upwards through the transparent dome of its own head, to create this barrel-shaped primary-coloured interceptor.

Neither he nor us know what it’s intercepting, but you just got to look at a properly weird fish, so you’re welcome. Head to David’s photostream by clicking here to cast your eye over it.

Achtung Baby

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This is a Mercedes-Benz Unimog U20, one of hundreds of Unimog variants, but unusual in being the only ‘forward control’ version, and – by TLCB maths – exactly ten times better than a long-standing Irish soft rock band.

It comes from previous bloggee and Master MOCer Thirdwigg, who has packed it not just with working Technic functions, but also an array of attachments and tools in much the same way as the real thing would be.

Working steering, pendular suspension, a piston engine, and a tipping cab all feature, with a folding crane, three-way tipping bed, street sweeper, and snow plough all attachable via the adjustable hitches and mounting points.

There’s much more of Thirdwigg’s excellent Technic Unimog U20 to see at both his Flickr album of the same name and at the Eurobricks forum, where full imagery and yes – building instructions are available too!

8-Stud Huayra

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LEGO are yet to release a Speed Champions Pagani Huayra, but if they do it’ll have to be quite a set to beat this one.

Constructed by Flickr’s Fabrice Larcheveque, this 8-wide homage to the wild Italian hypercar captures the real car brilliantly, including a detailed engine and interior, and with building instructions available you can recreate it for yourself too.

Head to Fabrice’s Flickr album to take a look.

(Neo-Classic) Spaceship!

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Skibidi Toilet, The Brothers Brick secret handshake, the evangelical christian movement’s support of Donald Trump, and sci-fi are just some of the many things that TLCB Team don’t understand.

We do understand the skill required for building techniques as clever as those in evidence here though, with ingenious angles, a hybrid of Technic and System, and a beautifully retro colour palette. There’s more to see of previous bloggee Rubblemaker‘s neo-classic spaceship at his photostream via the link above, or alternatively you can Google ‘Skibidi Toilet’ to see if you can understand it…

Fall in the Forest

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It’s nearly summer here in TLCB’s home nation, but somewhere in the world it’s autumn, which is all the excuse we need to publish this gorgeous autumnal scene from regular bloggee 1saac W.

1saac’s beautiful Volkswagen ‘T2’ split-screen is pictured camping in a fantastic fall forest, complete with trees as wonderfully crafted as the bus beneath them. Join the tranquility at 1saac’s photostream via the link above.

When Two Worlds Bolide

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Say what you like about the Transformers movie franchise – that the plot is nonsense, that everything blows up, that any female protagonists are over-sexualised to the point of absurdity, that there’s constant unchecked military glorification – but they do know how to pick their cars. Well, General Motors do, seeing as they paid millions for their products to be so blatantly featured.

Still, rather than a shiny new GM offering, Bumblebee instead transformed out of the decaying hulk of a ’77 Camaro in the 2007 blockbuster. He was even more attainable in the G1 cartoons, being hidden inside a Volkswagen Beetle. And we like that. A giant alien robot that’s, well… down to earth.

Not so today though, as the mute Autobot has decided to transform from a W16-engined, track-only hypercar costing $4 million. Flickr’s Dyen’s Creations is his maker, repurposing the pieces from his 42151 Bugatti Bolide set to create his Bumblebee B-Model.

There’s more of the Autobot alternate to see at Dyen’s ‘LEGO 42151 – BUMBLEBEE TRANSFORMER’ album, and you can take a look at the least accessible giant alien robot via the link above.

Bug(gy) Squash

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…Aaaand normal service is resumed. After today’s earlier post expecting “a monster truck or something” would follow next, TLCB Elves duly obliged, and – what with it being remote controlled – one of them immediately proceeded to flatten the others with it. Sigh.

It’s a good bit of kit though, coming from previous bloggee JLiu15, and featuring motorised steering and propulsion, a rear-mounted piston engine, LED lights, super bouncy suspension, and – handily for the Elf at the controls – a chunky bull-bar on the front.

There’s lots more of the model to see at JLiu15’s ‘LEGO Technic Race Buggy’ album, and you can make the jump to all the images via the link in the text above.