[Insert Inevitable Crash]

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Regular readers of this site will be well aware of the Ford Mustang’s ability to stack it into a bus stop when leaving a car meet. There’s something about the combination of a V8 and a low entry price that draws in knuckle-dragging morons for owners.

LEGO, keen to target said demographic, have introduced their own officially-licensed Ford Mustang Dark Horse set to the Speed Champions line for 2024, so you can recreate your very own Mustang crashes at home.

But what if you’d like a slightly larger crash? Well then you’ll need a slightly larger Mustang, and previous bloggee Szunyogh Balázs (aka gnat.bricks) has just the car!

50% wider than the 76920 Speed Champions set at 12-studs, Szunyogh’s Mustang Dark Horse features a corresponding increase in detail, with a beautifully executed exterior including opening doors and hood, and some very clever SNOT-work to replicate the latest Mustang’s creases. Before the owner inevitably adds some more.

Better yet, the model includes fully-detailed running-gear too, with a brick-built engine, drivetrain, suspension, exhaust, steering, and even brakes (not that the average Mustang owner will use the last two).

There’s loads more to see at Szunyogh’s ‘Mustang Dark Horse’ album on Flickr, and you can head to the side of the road outside a car meet to await the inexorable accident via the link above.

Roving Big

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Febrovery, the annual building bandwagon in which ground-based science-fiction vehicles take over Flickr, is complete for another year. Which means it’s complete here too, which is good news for TLCB Team – who are uniformly crap at sci-fi – but not before we have one final rover to showcase. And what a rover it is.

Measuring 117 studs in length and riding on eight enormous tyres from the 42054 Claas Xerion 5000 amongst other Technic sets, Scott Wilhelm’s ‘Ridiculously Oversized Vehicular Element Repository’ features remote control drive and steering (via XL and L Power Functions motors), a working cargo crane, five airlock doors, a retractable solar array, a fully fitted interior, and spectacular internal and external LED lighting.

More pictures are due to follow, but until they do you can check out this one at Scott’s photostream via the link above. Until next year, happy roving!

Moon Meth

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Cosmic Crystal. Space Speed. Galactic Gak. Lunar Cookie. It’s absolutely definitely not what is going on inside Thomas of Tortuga‘s exquisitely-rendered ‘Humbert Radar Vehicle’.

Board your Rocket Ship* to join the cook via the link above!

*Yes, we have just Googled slang words for methamphetamine and turned them spacey.

Trucking Tuesday

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It’s a trucky sort of day here at The Lego Car Blog. Today’s second classic lorry comes from previous bloggee Martin Nespor, who has elected not to tell us what it is. No matter, because it’s still a lovely build, with a removable cab and ‘wooden’ load bed, a beautifully detailed chassis and engine, and there’s a matching drawbar trailer too. There’s more to see at Martin’s photostream, and you can check out all of the top-quality images via the link above.

Do As The Romans Do

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Or, in this case, do as everyone else does. This a Roman SR 113/114 truck, built in Romania in the 1960s, using – as many Communist manufacturers did – designs licensed from Western companies.

Early Roman trucks were clones of Soviet ZIL designs, however by the late ’50s Roman looked west for their engineering sources. Launched in 1958 the SR 113/114 truck used a Ford-designed engine mounted ahead of a French cab, and was available in a tipper, crane, military specifications.

Mercedes-Benz and Perkins engines powered export versions, and the model was built for around a decade before being superseded by designs licensed from West Germany’s MAN.

This excellent recreation of the Roman SR113/114 is the work of newcomer Pufarine, who has captured the classic Romanian truck beautifully. Fitted with Power Functions remote control drive and steering, Pufarine’s model also features opening doors, a raising hood, and a dropping tailgate, and there’s more to see at both Flickr and Eurobricks.

Click the links above to do as the Romans did. Which, as it turns out, was whatever the Soviet Union, America, France, and West Germany were doing.

Golfing Blues

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This TLCB Writer thinks it must be hard being a golfist.

Walking around a boring field with terminally uninteresting people, the requirement to wear stupid trousers at all times, pretending to be a company director, the extortionate price of golf bats, permanently chasing an unreachable handicap…

Nope, this writer prefers the wheeled version of the word, particularly in subtly-modified Mark 1 form, as we have here courtesy of ZetoVince of Flickr.

Cunningly constructed to recreate the angular ’70s Giugiaro styling, Zeto’s Golf is a fantastic homage to the definitive European hatchback, and there’s more to see of his superbly-presented model on Flickr. Click the link above to go golfing, without having to talk to a ‘director of sales’ or wear stupid trousers at all.

Dictators Welcome

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Are you a discerning despot living life at the top? Do the buildings project your image, the people bestow you with affection, and toil not for their own glory but for that of the motherland?

Have you passed laws to ensure the populous knows what to read, the correct sexual orientation, and for whom to vote?

Do your political opponents keep having unfortunate accidents, such as falling to their death from a balcony, dying in a plane crash, being shot on a bridge, or unexpectedly passing at a penal colony?

Then we have the car for you!

Styled just like those inferior American automobiles, only vastly superior in every way, this is the GAZ-13 Chaika, powered by a glorious 195bhp 5.5 litre V8 mated to a push-button transmission, and designed only for those holding the most unchallenged leadership.

Instructions are available and if you’re appropriately autocratic, dictatorial, and under-endowed you can contact [Maks] to secure your GAZ-13 Chaika now!

 

My Other Recycling Truck is a Recycling Truck

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The LEGO Technic 42167 Mack LR Electric Garbage Truck is a thoroughly good addition to the 2024 line-up. Small, cheap(ish), and packed with proper mechanical functions, it’s a welcome return to the roots of Technic.

It’s a set that can also be used to create a properly good B-Model, as proven here by mpj of Brickshelf, who has recycled his Mack LR into this excellent cab-over tipper truck.

Complete with a mechanical crane behind the cab, working steering, and a tipping box, it’s as functional as the set upon which it’s based, and there’s more to see at mpj’s ‘42167 B-Model’ album via the link above.

Ford Vs. Ferrari

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2019’s ‘Ford Vs. Ferrari’ (or ‘Le Mans 66’ in Europe) was an excellent movie. Pitching the all-American (cough-but-actually-British-cough) Ford GT against the might of Ferrari’s racing programme, it brought one of the greatest motorsport battles to the big screen, and a much deserved spotlight to the late Ken Miles.

Despite Enzo Ferrari’s distain for certain American organisations though, the marque has always shown reverence to America in its naming, with models such as the ‘California’, ‘Daytona’, and, er… ‘America’ in its back-catalogue.

The Ferrari 575 ‘SuperAmerica’ went even further (although perhaps the `Super’ bit was referring to itself rather than the country), and has been constructed here brilliantly by TLCB Master MOCer Lachlan Cameron, using 72% of the pieces from the Technic 42154 Ford GT set.

A working V12 engine, independent suspension, functioning steering, a retractable roof, plus opening doors and hood all feature, with the model enhanced by a few non-official stickers, chrome parts, and LED lighting too.

There’s much more to see at Lachlan’s ‘Ferrari 575 SuperAmerica’ album, and you can turn your own Ford into a Ferrari via the link in the text above.

Magic Mazda

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Modifications are an integral part of the automotive scene. Mostly for the worse of course, as Brad in his garage is not going to better the five years and $billions in development completed by the world’s best engineers before each model to hits the market*.

Sometimes though, modifications do work – particularly when the aforementioned engineers embrace this likelihood – and no-one does that better than Japan.

Cue the wild Mazda RX-7 we have here today, which is not only depicting modifications to the real car, it’s also a model modifying another… well, model.

Constructed by builtbydave_, this ‘TCP Magic’ RX-7 is loosely based on a design by fellow bloggee 3D supercarBricks, and features significant aero enhancements, opening doors, and a beautifully detailed 20B 3-rotor engine underneath the raising hood.

There are more superb images of builtbydave_’s modified Mazda to see at his ‘TCP Magic Rx7’ album on Flickr, and you can magic your way there via the link above.

*Not including anything American from the 1990s of course. Or Fiat.

Even More Mogin’

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There are almost as many variants of Mercedes-Benz’s Unimog as there are tasks for them to do. Which is probably the point. Endlessly adaptable, the Unimog is also the perfect choice for Technic builders, as proven by Flickr’s Thirdwigg, who’s back here with another fully-functioning brick-built replica of the heavy-duty tractor.

This one is a U530, complete with a three-way* tipping bed, working steering, a piston engine, under the tilting cab, pendular suspension, plus front, centre and rear selectable PTOs.

There’s a rear pneumatic outlet too, which mean’s Thirdwigg’s model can be fitted with nearly as many pieces of additional equipment as the real thing, with a folding crane, trailer, and snow-plow some of those included in his extensive Flickr gallery.

Building instructions are available (and they’re free!), with much more to see at Thirdwigg’s ‘Unimog U530′ album. Click the link above for even more mogin’.

*Snigger

Colour My Rover

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TLCB Staff, being curmudgeonly bores, think that Rovers are old British cars of increasing mediocrity. The Online Lego Community however, thinks the word means something far more whimsical.

2024’s ‘Febrovery‘ – wherein dozens of extraordinary planetary exploration vehicles are constructed – is well underway, and we have another two wonderfully diverse rovers-of-the-spacey-type here today.

The first (above) is the delightfully hued ‘Greeble Transport Rover’, built to carry the tiny grey pieces that make up the most science-fictiony parts of spaceships. Ironically needing none itself, the ‘Greeble Transport Rover’ is instead a riot of colour, and there’s more to see courtesy of Febrovery veteran Frost.

Our second rover (below) forgoes the colour of Frost’s machine replacing it with earthy greys. Four sets of tracks and a great many triangles complete the utilitarian look, and there’s more to see of Horcik Designs‘ ‘Rover Expedition Ready’ at his photostream on Flickr.

Click the final two links above to see more of each rover, and the first if you fancy checking out the Febrovery building bonanza in full, where there’s not an old British car to be found anywhere. We promise.

My Other Car’s a Ford GT

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We suspect that most people, if they could turn their car into a Bugatti Chiron, would.

It’d be an easy question for us here at The Lego Car Blog, as a battered Rover 200 has rather less allure than the world’s fastest production car, but even owners of 200mph supercars would probably make the switch.

Cue Dyens Creations of Flickr, who has done just that, turning his Technic 42154 Ford GT set into this excellent Bugatti Chiron alternate. There’s more to see at Dyens’ album; take a look via the link above, whilst we wonder how much sticky-back plastic and papier-mâché would be needed to give TLCB Rover 200 a Bugatti-based makeover.

Escort Service

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As revealed when we recently interviewed, er… ourselves, the single worst thing about running a world famous moderately well-known Lego website is having to remove endless spam comments.

Crypto currency, luxury goods that are absolutely definitely genuine, pills to make things bigger, pills to make things smaller, and – of course – escorts.

Thus today’s post is for the aforementioned escort commenters (most likely ‘bots from East Asia), as we have not one, not two, but four escorts appearing on the site today.

All come from previous bloggee Ralph Savelsberg, and represent (from left to right) two Mercedes-Benz Sprinters, a Volkswagen Transporter, and a Volkswagen Caddy, each perfectly capturing its real-world counterpart in mini-figure scale, with more to see on Flickr.

Book your escort via the link in the text above, whilst we delete another dozen comments advertising dubious services.

There’ll be Honda Coupe

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What we value, particularly our vehicles, depends very much upon time and place. The sixth generation Honda Civic, built from ’95 to 2000 (and its Rover 200/400 counterpart), is worth scrap money here in TLCB’s home nation. That is despite the fact they go on for ever, and shouldn’t really need scrapping yet at all.

In the Unites States however, the ‘EM’ Civic is both revered (and hated) as a staple of the tuner scene, and is rather sought-after. No doubt reverence for the mid-’90s Civic will rise in the UK too, as the numbers on the road dwindle to almost nothing, but for now many end their days doing this. There are thousands left on the roads in America though, with many tastefully modified (and many more rather less so) thanks to an abundance of tuning parts.

This neat Speed Champions recreation of the sixth-generation Honda Civic Si Coupe comes from Ilya M of Flickr, who has taken the former route to modification to rather smart effect. There’s an opening hood (with a detailed engine underneath), room for two mini-figures, and free building instructions available (100 TLCB Points to Ilya). Take a look via the link above to see more.