I’m on a Boat

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The more eagle-eyed reader will have spotted his post is not, in fact, a car. But it is absolutely lovely. Built by Jonas Kramm of Flickr, this beautiful Town-scale houseboat captures all that is wonderful about boat-based living, with a superbly detailed interior and one of the cleverest brick-built hulls we’ve found yet. There’s more of the model to see at Jonas’ photostream, where a link to all of the imagery hosted via LEGO Ideas can also be found.

*Today’s title (parody) song. Caution; there is maybe one subtle F-bomb if you listen very carefully.

The Worst LEGO Sets Reviewed by TLCB

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The LEGO Car Blog’s ‘Review Library‘ contains well over a hundred LEGO set, book, and third party LEGO-compatible product reviews. It also, with an average score of 7.8/10, shows that we generally rate LEGO sets rather highly. No surprises there.

However, whilst several LEGO sets have achieved a coveted 10/10 or 5 Star score, depending upon which rating system we remembered to use at the time, a few… haven’t.

So here they are, the worst LEGO sets we’ve reviewed to date. Although bear in mind we haven’t reviewed any of the abysmal Jack Stone or Galidor sets. And nor do we plan to…

8865 Test Car

Lego 8865

What, a Technic Supercar made this list? Well, two could have in fact, each earning a thoroughly mediocre score of 6/10, but this one’s more controversial.

The 8865 Test Car arrived in 1988, and brought bodywork – of sorts – to the ‘supercar’ chassis formula for the first time. Double wishbone suspension appeared front and rear, as did a V4 engine (still using the old square pistons) hooked up to a three-speed gearbox, some truly rubbish seats, and a plethora of LEGO’s early ‘interference fit’ black pins, which meant that once the Test Car was built, there really was no taking it apart again. Which kinda defeats the whole point of LEGO.

Our reviewer wasn’t overly impressed by the end result, and took his ire out in Review form, his fingers likely still stinging from trying to dismantle it.

8437 Sahara Blaster

Lego Technic 8437 Sahara Blaster

Fast forward a decade and – visually at least – LEGO could still get it just as wrong. This is the 8347 Sahara Blaster, “a sort-of dune buggy, Paris-Dakar type thing, but so loose was its affiliation with the real world vehicles on which it was apparently based in some markets LEGO called it the ‘Future Car’ to hide its inaccuracies”, to quote our reviewer.

It wasn’t just the looks though, as for some unfathomable reason LEGO decided to use their ‘Flex-System’ for the steering arms, which meant the steering broke constantly. It was also rubbish at actually steering, so when the 8437 was fitted with the neat slide-in 9V electric motor, it was incredible easy to crash. Which would break the steering again.

The Sahara Blaster was not a favourite, but it could’ve been worse – it could have been that awful B-Model. Or our next set…

8432 Red Hot Machine

Lego Technic 8432 Review

A year later and LEGO were still flex-tubing mad, with almost every set from 1998 sporting it one way or another. The 8432 Red Hot Machine probably wore this new look the best, looking sleek, futuristic, and enticingly modern with the inclusion of a ‘CD-ROM Game’.

It also included, alongside poor steering and even poorer suspension, some very funky looking new parts – just look at those wheels! Except – despite appearing on a range of 1998 Technic sets – they were never to be seen again. And nor it seems, was the ‘CD-ROM’ game, which doesn’t exist anywhere on the internet.

Everything exists on the internet, but the Red Hot Machine’s game? Nope. Gone. Which probably tells you all you need to know about it. 5/10, and one of LEGO’s darkest years.

42058 Stunt Bike

LEGO 42058 Stunt Bike Review

There was a time when Technic ‘Starter’ sets included everything the big sets did. Steering, piston engines, suspension… all gone by 2017.

What we got instead was a pull-back motor, a cardboard ramp, and a ’40th Anniversary of Technic’ brick. And the single worst motorcycle ever conceived.

The Technic 42058 Stunk Bike achieved the lowest score of any set in the Review Library, earning just a 3/10.

However 42058 is still a LEGO set. And that means it can be taken apart to be turned into something altogether better than the model on the front of the box.

Thus, even a bad LEGO set, remains a thoroughly excellent toy.

…

You can find all the LEGO sets reviewed here at The Lego Car Blog – both good and bad (although none are really that bad) – in the Review Library, and if you think we’ve missed a set that should be included, do let us know, especially if you think you own a set worse than 42058. Just as long as it’s not Galidor.

Creations for Charity 2023

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Creations for Charity 2023 has begun!

The awesome annual Creations for Charity fundraiser – in which amazing one-off creations can be bought to fund LEGO sets for underprivileged children – is here for 2023!

How to Help

There are several ways you can get involved in Creations for Charity 2023; by donating a creation to the Creations for Charity store, by buying a creation, or by giving a monetary donation. All three methods raise funds to provide LEGO sets to children in need, which might be the only toy they get this Christmas. Fortunately LEGO is the best toy there is!

You can take a look at the creations already donated to the Creations for Charity store by clicking the link below, with lots more to be added over the coming weeks, and where could even donate your own.

Do something amazing this year, get involved in Creations for Charity 2023, and you could bring some fun into the life of a child who really needs it.

Check out the fantastic one-off models available at the Creations for Charity store

My Other Car’s a Porsche

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TLCB Team are not fans of BMW’s M-Division right now. From sticking ‘M’ badges on literally everything to this utter, utter abomination, who needs the ‘Ultimate Driving Machine’ when you could have a 2.7 ton SUV instead? Well, we’d rather prefer the former, but we need to take a look in BMW M’s back-catalogue to find it.

Fortunately there are plenty of gems to be found, and perhaps none more so than the very first car created by M-Division; the BMW M1.

Partly developed by Lamborghini, the BMW M1 featured a mid-mounted 3.5 litre inline-6, a wedge-shaped fibreglass body designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro, and engineering to take on Porsche in Group 4 homologated racing.

The M1 proved competitive, racing at Le Mans, in various GT series, and in BMW’s own ‘Procar Championship’, won in 1980 by Nikki Lauda and in ’81 by Nelson Picquet, who would both become three-time Formula 1 world champions.

This lovely recreation of BMW’s first M-car is the work of TLCB Master MOCer Firas Abu-Jaber, who has constructed it solely from the parts found within the 10295 Porsche 911 set. There are opening doors, front trunk and engine cover, working steering, plus a detailed engine and interior, and there’s lots more of Firas’ BMW B-Model to see at his ‘10295 BMW M1’ album on Flickr.

Click the link above to take a look, the one above that to view the 10295 set that Firas’ M1 is derived from, or here to see another wedgy-alternate built from that rather more round Porsche.

Happy Being Single

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Discovered by one of our Elves on Eurobricks, this is newcomer McMarky’s rather good tracked excavator. Like all good Technic models, McMarky’s creation can operate just like the real deal, being able to drive and steer, rotate the superstructure, and dig – thanks to a three stage boom and excavating bucket – all of which are motorised.

Naturally such functionality necessitates a suite of motors, so how many do you think McMarky’s excavator has packed inside?

Nope. One.

Just a singular Power Functions L motor is able to drive all of the aforementioned functions, and – in many cases – multiple functions simultaneously. Which means not just no additional motors, but also no fancy programmable app-based remote control is required either, with the huge array of working functions instead controlled via a trio of red levers, each linked to the most complicated gearbox that we’ve ever seen.

It’s an outstanding example of mechanical engineering, and demonstrates that even if you don’t have the finances for a suite of motors, a third-party bluetooth battery, or access to a programmable app, immensely realistic motorised Technic creations are still within reach.

There’s more of McMarky’s seriously impressive uni-motor tracked excavator to see on Flickr and at the Eurobricks forum, where further images and a video of all those motorised functions in action can be found. Click the link above to be happy being single.

Foxbat

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It’s 1970, and the Cold War is approaching its coldest. The U.S have taken images of an unknown Soviet fighter plane, and they’re terrified.

It’s massive, with huge wings, and looks highly manoeuvrable. The aircraft is the MiG-25, a supersonic interceptor and reconnaissance plane, armed with-air-to-air missiles, powerful radar, able to climb to the edge of space, and still to this day one of the fastest aircraft ever created.

This phenomenal Model Team recreation of the fighter that defined the Cold War is the work of previous bloggee [Maks] of Flickr, who has recreated the MiG-25P ‘Foxbat’ in stunning detail. Working landing gear, four air-to-air missiles, and accurate markings all feature, and you can pretend you’re U.S intelligence worriedly studying grainy images c1970 via the link in the text above.

Having a Lark

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Once the world’s fastest production car, and winner of the 1995 Le Mans 24 Hours, this is the McLaren F1 GTR.

Following its victory at Le Mans (the first time either a manufacturer or team had won the race on their Le Mans debut), McLaren’s Ron Dennis and businessman Kazumichi Goh decided to take the car to Japan, forming McLaren Team Lark, and taking on the country’s domestic teams in the newly formed GT500 championship.

The Lark McLaren F1 GTRs were dominant, comfortably beating domestic rivals from Nissan, Toyota and Honda to win every GT500 race in 1996 bar one.

So dominant was the F1 GTR in fact, that the organisers effectively legislated it out of the championship, imposing so many restrictions on the team that they withdrew before the start of the ’97 season.

The result, after that single all-conquering year, was that the rest of the GT500 teams considerably upped their game. GT500 cars became much faster, more exciting, and more technologically-advanced, and thus the ongoing success of the GT500 Championship has more than a little to do with a little British car that entered for just one season some three decades ago.

This wonderful homage to the short-lived but spectacular Team Lark McLaren F1 GTRs comes from TLCB debutant brickengineeringdude, who has recreated the ’96 championship-winning racer brilliantly in brick form. 3D-Printed wheels, tyres decals, and a superb approximation of the Team Lark livery make brick’s F1 GTR instantly recognisable, and there’s much more to see at their photostream via the link.

But what of Team Lark and GT500? Well owner Kazumichi Goh went on to buy an Audi R8, and with it won the 2004 Le Mans 24 Hours, becoming only the second Japanese team to win the race outright. Meanwhile Japan’s GT500 championship has gone from strength to strength, but has never again been won by a non-Japanese car since the Team Lark McLarens of 1996…

Brick-Built Bugatti

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The Bugatti Veyron is, somewhat unbelievably, nearly twenty years old. Re-borne via Volkswagen back in the 2000s, Bugatti set out to build the fastest production car in the world. Just because they could. And we like that. After a painfully fraught development the 1,000bhp Veyron did indeed take the record in 2005, reaching a top speed of over 250mph.

However despite being a decade older than this site, and re-setting what was thought possible for a road car, the Veyron has only appeared here twice in TLCB’s history. We’ve featured three times more Lada Nivas, five times the number of Trabants, and even twice as many Zuks (What? Exactly). Although perhaps that says more about TLCB than it does the online Lego Community…

Anyway, today the Bugatti Veyron is finally making only its third appearance here at TLCB courtesy of previous bloggee 3D supercarBricks of Flickr. 3D’s brick-built Bugatti recreates the record-holding hypercar brilliantly in brick form, although to our eyes there may be a few mildly controversial 3D-printed pieces to assist with the visual accuracy.

Nevertheless it’s an excellent model, and there’s more of it to see at 3D’s album on Flickr via the link above. And if you’re wondering what the heck a ‘Zuk’ is, there’s a link in the text above for that too.

Ship-Shape Suggestion

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Ok, we’re know we’re crap at sci-fi, and we posted a round-up of the entirely sci-fi ‘SHIPtember 2023’ build-a-thon a few days ago, but this one was posted in October. So we missed it. It also means we’re not sure it’s ‘SHIPtember’ at all, but seeing as we know nothing about the annual building bandwagon beyond the 100-studs rule, October’s probably OK.

Suggested to us by a reader, this is Scott Wilhelm’s astonishing ‘Whispered Edict’, a vast – and vastly detailed – spacecraft packing more layers than a chicken farm.

A construction of immense complexity, Scott’s SHIPtember entry has something to do with “Fuel-Guild Supertankers”, “Antimatter Cannons”, and “Magnetic Suspension”, but even though TLCB Office – who are normally only interested in obscure British cars from 1963 – know what none of that means, we’re still spell-bound about how it all holds together.

There’s more to see of Scott’s incredible creation, including a description that’ll make more sense than whatever you read here, on Flickr – click these coloured words to take a look and to be as amazed (if not as confused) as we are.

Virtually Toyotas

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It’s a digitally Japanese day here at The Lego Car Blog, as we have four virtual Toyota products to share with you. We don’t often blog digital creations here, but these are a) throughly excellent, and b) we’re as certain as we can be that they can be built for real, what with designer Peter Blackert (aka Lego911) releasing building instructions alongside the imagery, and having literally written the book on how to build Miniland scale vehicles.

Rule-breaking explained, on to Peter’s first pixel-based Toyota, which is the third-generation Celica, depicted here in face-lifted pop-up headlight form. Powered by a huge array of engines (although solely by the 2.4 litre in the US) the A60-generation Celica helped the Toyota brand gain a reputation for attainable sportiness, and you can see more of Peter’s version via the link.

Peter’s second model appearing here captures one of Toyota’s earlier attempts at a sports coupe, the decidedly un-sporty 1971 Crown Coupe. It looked lovely though, and the Crown station wagon is one of the most comfortable cars that this TLCB Writer has ever had the pleasure of journeying in. Jump back to 1971 via the link.

On to the early-’00s, and the single most dreary vehicle Toyota has ever created, the 2002 Toyota Camry. As we’ve highlighted here before however, dreary sells, with the Camry becoming the best-selling car in America in 2002. And 2003. And 2004. And 2005… You get the picture. There’s more to see of this one at Peter’s photostream via the link.

And finally… the Toyota that isn’t a Toyota, but heralded the arrival of the Lexus brand, the phenomenal Lexus LS400. Created to beat the best car in the world at the time (the Mercedes-Benz S-Class), the LS400 did just that, and is still lauded as perhaps the most thoroughly-engineered car ever produced. Peter’s Miniland-scale version captures the pivotal arrival of Lexus beautifully, and there’s more of the model to see at his photostream.

Further images of each design, details of the real cars, and links to building instructions can be found at Peter Blackert’s Flickr account via the links for each car in the text above, plus you can check out our interview with Peter and his published works by clicking the bonus link here.

Off-Ferraroad

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Taking a Ferrari off-road doesn’t end well. That said, a Ferrari is also perfectly capable of catching fire on smooth asphalt, but off-road is certainly outside of the prancing horse’s design brief.

Except that it’s 2023, which of course means that today you can buy a Ferrari off-roader, because all anyone wants is an SUV. We’d rather take this though, Slick_Brick’s ‘Off-Road Ferrari’ buggy, which is a million times cooler than the Purosangue abomination disgracing the Ferrari name.

Cunning use of the ubiquitous Speed Champions canopy, exposed brick-built suspension, and an equipment rack above the rear-mounted engine add to the off-roady look, and there’s more of the ‘Off-Road Ferrari’ to see at Slick’s photostream by clicking here. We’d probably add a fire extinguisher to that rack though…

My Other Car’s a Huracan

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The Lamborghini Huracan is boring. At least if the regularity at which YouTube ‘influencers’ (yuk) switch out of them into the next clickbait supercar is any indication. But no matter, because if you’re bored with your Huracan too (in LEGO Technic 42161 form), you can switch it up into this rather neat Technic truck, as previous bloggee mpj has done with his. Click the link above to see more of mpj’s 42161 B-Model on Brickshelf.

SHIPtember Roundup

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It’s the last day of September, which means the annual building bandwagon ‘SHIPtember’ – wherein builders create colossal spaceships measuring one hundred studs or more – is concluding too. Which is good news if you like cars, or you’re Sci-Fi Incompetent.

TLCB Team are of course both of the above, so expect lots of “this is a Really Massive Spaceship”, and little else, in the rest of this post…

Anyway, on to the first creation, and it’s a Really Massive Spaceship. Constructed by Oscar Cederwall, it cleverly utilises a LEGO Crane Support Element down the centre, and there’s more to see via the link above.

The second creation in our SHIPtember 2023 roundup is a Very Large Spaceship Indeed, and sports a veritable rainbow of colours. Nathan Proudlove is its maker and there’s more to see here.


The third SHIPtember model appearing here comes from -Soccerkid6, whose 106-stud racer ‘Falchion 55’ is a Truly Sizeable Spaceship. Ingenious parts usage abounds throughout the design and there’s more of No. 55 to see via the link.


On to the fourth creation in our SHIPtember roundup, this Decidedly Enormous Spaceship by Andreas Lenander, with three superbly constructed engines, beautifully neat asymmetry, and – at least to the eyes of this car blog – wearing Honda racing colours. Click here to see more.

And so, much to the relief of the proper Lego sites that can actually do sci-fi, here’s the final model in our SHIPtember Special, LegOH!’s brilliant ‘Octan Mining Ship’. A Spaceship of Gigantic Proportions, LegOH’s entry packs in a variety of spacey details, none of which we can explain, but that you can see more of via the link above.

There you have it; TLCB’s immensely incompetent roundup of some Really Massive Spaceships for 2023. Don’t be fooled by our crap write-up though, each is a phenomenal build and well worth checking out, even if – like us – you don’t understand sci-fi whatsoever.

All can be found on Flickr (plus a lot more besides), and you can make the jump to hyperspace via the links above. Take a look whilst we get back to writing about things that have wheels and engines.

Poop Poop!

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We’re pretty sure not every vintage car went ‘Poop poop!’*, but we can’t help but feel all Toad-of-Toad-Hall when we see one.

This lovely Speed Champions scale example comes from previous bloggee K P of Flickr, using only simple pieces and neat presentation to wonderful effect.

Poop poop your way to K P’s photostream for this and other old-timey creations via the link above.

*Some of course, went ‘Aaoogha!’

Bottled It – LEGO Halt Bricks Made from Bottles

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The LEGO Company’s products are built on oil.

Made from acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, LEGO bricks are a ‘virgin’ plastic; non-biodegradable, and crude oil based.

Of course this longevity means that LEGO bricks can be passed on to the next generation, an antidote to the mountains of disposable single-use toys cluttering up the world’s landfills, but the crude oil problem still looms.

LEGO are all too aware of this, having pledged to create bricks from sustainable materials that can continue to be passed down the generations. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) looked a promising solution; reusing the millions of single-use plastic bottles (that invariably end up in our oceans) to create LEGO pieces.

Unfortunately, following two years of testing, LEGO have scrapped the project, after discovering that using recycled PET bottles didn’t reduce carbon emissions.

The cause was the extra energy required to turn a recycled bottle into a LEGO brick, and thus the company has “decided not to progress” with making pieces from PET.

And we think they should be applauded. So many companies would have proceeded, doubtless with an immense PR fanfare, claiming the development meant their products were ‘good for the environment’, despite knowing the truth to be rather different. In the age of egregious green-washing, The LEGO Company have done what is right, not what looks to be.

LEGO remain committed to producing bricks from sustainable materials by 2032, and when they do we’ll be rather more sure of their environmental claims than we are of most.