It’s a Gas Gas Gas!

Leave a reply

You know how it goes, you wait ages for a Gasser and then three arrive at once. Or something like that.

Anyway, our third ‘gasser’-style hot rod in a week arrives courtesy of _Tiler, whose beautifully presented ’56 C1 Corvette has allowed to us to link to a brilliant title song, and which somehow sits in the centre of a Sacrilege/Inspired Venn diagram.

There’s more of the ‘vette to see on Flickr via the link above, you can jump to the aforementioned title song here, and you can check out the brand new official LEGO Icons 10321 Corvette set by clicking those final teal words.

The Best 4×4+1

1 Reply

LEGO’s 40650 Land Rover Classic Defender is a rather nice little 150-piece pocket-money set. But add just a single extra stud to the dimensions (and a few more advanced building techniques) and it can become something altogether more authentic. Cue SvenJ.‘s excellent 7-wide Land Rover Defender 90, which adds the Defender’s famous ‘barrel side’, triple-rear-window, posable steering, and a whole heap more interior and exterior detail. Building instructions are available and you can upgrade your own 40650 set via the link above.

More Gas!

Leave a reply

It seems like only yesterday that we posted a delightful ‘gasser’ style hot rod by Flickr’s Tim Inman. Because it was. Anyway, he’s published another in quick succession, this time based on a Chevrolet ‘Chevy II’, better known as the Nova, and inspired by several real Nova racers built back in 1964. The silly drivetrain and even sillier engine are perfectly period-correct, and there’s more of the model to see at Tim’s photostream. Click the link for more gas.

Taking the Mickey

3 Replies

The famed Fiat 500 was not the brand’s first city car. For that you have to go way back to 1936 and the Topolino, or ‘little mouse’ (which was also the Italian name for Mickey Mouse), a tiny 569cc, 13hp two-seater sold up until the 500’s introduction in 1955.

Designed for two, but often seen with four or five very uncomfortable people squeezed inside, the Topolino was one of the smallest cars in the world at the time, and a hugely successful one, with over half-a-million produced.

Important to Italy’s mobility as the Topolino was however, we wouldn’t think of it as the obvious choice for a ‘Gasser’ hot rod. Fortunately Tim Inman‘s mind works differently to ours, because the resultant creation is unhinged brilliance, and there’s more of Tim’s Topolino Gasser to see on Flickr. Click the link above to make the jump.

Absolutely Trolleyed

Leave a reply

If someone is British, posh, and drunk*, they may well be ‘trolleyed’ (amongst an almost unlimited array of other verbs). Cue a tenuous link to this ‘Wickham Trolley’, a petrol-powered railway engineering personnel carrier, as built beautifully by Liam Biggs. Cunning building techniques and lovely attention to detail abound, and there’s more of the model to see at both Flickr and Eurobricks. Get absolutely trolleyed via the links above.

*This TLCB Writer is currently two out of three. We’ll let you guess which!

8062 Redux

Leave a reply

The year is 1994, and LEGO’s Technic range is riding high. The line-up’s flagship may have been a high water mark, but there were some absolute gems to be had lower down the range too.

The 8062 Briefcase Set was one of them, a brilliant multi-model set that could be handily stored in a plastic, er… briefcase. One of the six models that could be constructed from 8062’s parts was a neat twin-rotor helicopter, and it’s this that previous bloggee Thirdwigg has rebooted for the modern age.

Constructed from smooth new panels and lift-arms, Thirdwigg’s 8062 Helicopter Redux recreates the set’s hand-cranked counter-rotating rotors and opening loading ramp, whilst adding (very clever) collective pitch control and retracting landing gear too.

There’s more of the model to see at both Flickr and Eurobricks, where we hope Thirdwigg will have a go at rebooting the other five models from 8062 using shared pieces too.

Lift-Off!

Leave a reply

The Lego Car Blog Elves are all excitedly running around the office making ‘Bwukushhh!!’ noises today, thanks to OA KD‘s superb landing/launch pad, and the rather awesome looking Neo-Classic Spaceship departing from it. Although seeing as TLCB Staff know absolutely nothing about sci-fi, perhaps the Elves have got the right idea… Click the link above to lift-off whilst we excitedly run around the office making ‘Bwukushhh!!’ noises!

It’s 106 miles to Chicago…

Leave a reply

…we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark… and we’re wearing sunglasses.

Delightfully over-the-top, loud, and perhaps lacking some substance, the 1974 Dodge Monaco ‘Bluesmobile’ and the 1980 musical comedy ‘The Blues Brothers’ in which it starred are the perfect mirror of one another.

This glorious Speed Champions version of the ‘Bluesmobile’ captures the film car beautifully, coming from TLCB regular Jonathan Elliott who has based his superbly-presented model on brickhead_07’s free building instructions available at Rebrickable. 

There’s more of the model to see at Jonathan’s photostream via the first link, the building instructions on which it is based can be found via the second, and you can watch every car crash from ‘The Blues Brothers’ by clicking here. The movie set a world record for the most…

Counting Sheep

Leave a reply

Despite TLCB’s home nation being the only the eightieth largest country by land area, it’s sixth for the number of sheep. Which means the scene above happens a lot.

Well, not with a vintage winga-dingary car so much, more likely with a perplexed urban-dwelling couple in a modern SUV, now questioning their choice of a weekend getaway in the countryside.

This charming scene depicting a more old-timey ruminant-based roadblock comes from Flickr’s k_pusz, and you can join the queue behind him and a heard of LEGO sheep that are resolutely refusing to move via the link above.

Forgotten Fuego

Leave a reply

This slice of ’80s Frenchness is a Renault Fuego, a compact lift-back coupe built from 1980 to 1986 In Europe, and up until 1992 in South America.

Powered by a range of engines from a 1.4 to a 2.2, via 1.6 Turbo (this was the ’80s) and even a 2.1 turbodiesel, the Fuego was the best selling coupe in Europe and the UK at the time, and was the first car to feature steering-wheel-mounted stereo controls, one of the earliest available with remote central locking, and was once the fastest diesel production car in the world, with a top speed of, er… 110mph. It was even marketed in America where, conversely to Europe and the UK, no-one cared.

Despite its success in TLCB’s home market however, such is the rate of attrition of ’80s cars just eighteen Renault Fuegos survive on the UK roads today. Which is rather a shame, so here’s a brick-built homage to the forgotten French coupe, created beautifully in Model Team form by SIM CAMAT of Flickr.

Cunning brickwork, opening doors, a detailed interior, an opening bonnet, and a lifelike engine all feature, and there’s more of SIM’s brilliant Renault Fuego to see at his photostream. Click the link above to blip your key remote, get behind the controls on the steering wheel, and hit a diesely 110mph on a French autoroute.

Lego Technic 42159 Yamaha MT-10 SP | Set Preview

2 Replies

LEGO’s officially licensed motorcycle range is about to get bigger!

Yes, following the fantastic recent 41207 Ducati Panigale V4 R and 42130 BMW M 1000 RR Technic sets, LEGO are bringing not just a new superbike but a new manufacturer to the line-up. This is the brand new 42159 Yamaha MT-10 SP.

Constructed from almost 1,500 pieces, the new 42159 set recreates Yamaha’s flagship 1000cc 4-cylinder superbike in Technic form, and brings with it a whole host of new pieces too.

Working suspension front and rear (the front using the lovely gold shock-tubes seen on the 42107 Ducati), a 4-cylinder engine with (gold) chain drive, functioning steering, bright blue wheels (the design of which debuted on the 42130 BMW M 1000 RR) and a three-speed gearbox all feature, with the latter of these likely be of the most interest to Technic builders.

That’s because the Yamaha’s gearbox debuts a slew of all-new transmission components, including shift drum, shift fork, gear shift ring and ratchet drum parts.

These new pieces are rather brightly coloured when compared to the grey components of old, but we suspect that won’t matter too much to those eager to deploy them in their own builds.

An augmented reality app, physical and digital building instructions, a display stand, and the prerequisite black box with ’18+’ printed on it ensure that the new LEGO Technic 42159 Yamaha MT-10 SP is a set pitched squarely at adults, as does the £200 price of admission when it reaches stores in August 2023.

Expect those new transmission components to be changing hands for similarly hefty prices very soon after…

Flexin’

Leave a reply

Longstanding readers of the stupidest Lego site on the internet may be wondering if our mythical little workers, TLCB Elves, have abandoned their famed violence and adopted a more peaceful outlook towards one-another.

Nope.

Today TLCB Staff were back to prising squashed Elves from the floor and glueing Elf-bits back on thanks to Horcik Designs, and this rather excellent looking remotely controlled off-roader.

Powered by twin L Motors, one for each axle, with Servo steering, and suspension achieved through engineered-in chassis-flex, Horcik’s creation is simultaneously simple yet remarkably effective. Rather like a spatula used to separate a smushed Elf from the office carpet.

With limited specialist parts used, Horcik’s 4×4 is easily buildable at home too, and building instructions are available so you can do just that. Head to Eurobricks to find out more, or visit Bricksafe for the complete image gallery and further links.

Express Checkout

Leave a reply

Hot rodders in the 1960s were TLCB Elf levels of nuts. From fire trucks to beer wagons, ‘show rods’ as they were known dismissed notions of getting in, seeing out, steering, and other such formalities in favour of ludicrous caricatures, and few were more cartoonesque than this, Ray Fahrner’s 1967 ‘Boothill Express’.

Based on an 1850s wooden funeral coach fitted with a Hemi V8, Ray’s creation looked so wild onlookers at the time doubted it could actually drive. Which it couldn’t. Annoyed by the naysayers (although they were correct), Ray’s team built a second ‘Boothill Express’, this time engineered to run, and took it to 130mph on the dragstrip. Which must’ve been terrifying. Still, at least if it all went wrong the coffin was right there to accommodate the remaining body parts.

Pictured here alongside one of the numerous toy versions that were inspired by the real car, Lino Martins has recreated Fahrner’s iconic funeral coach show rod brilliantly in brick form, including the Model-T steering, open bench seat, coffin curtains (with tassels), and the mid-mounted Hemi V8. Join the express checkout queue via the link above, and you can click here to find out more about the outrageous 1960s original.

Brick Space

Leave a reply

Here at The Lego Car Blog we are fairly useless when it comes to science fiction builds. Still, they do feature from time to time, despite TLCB Team understanding literally nothing whatsoever about the source material.

With such elaborate fictional spacey contraptions it can be easy to forget that space travel exists today, and is not simply reserved for science fiction. In fact from 1981, it was almost routine.

Such normality was the result of this; the NASA Space Shuttle, a reusable low-orbital air/spacecraft able to deliver people and things to and from space. Five shuttles were constructed and operated 135 missions between them, before the three surviving units were retired in 2011.

This fantastic Technic recreation of the Shuttle pays homage to the design that normalised space travel, and comes from previous bloggee Jeroen Ottens who has packed his model with a suite of Power Functions motors to bring it to life.

The landing gear, cargo-bay doors, robotic arm lift and rotation, satellite solar cell unfolding, and aircraft pitch/roll surfaces can all be controlled remotely, thanks to some very clever packaging and a gearbox to multiply functions, with more to see at both Flickr and the Eurobricks forum.

Click the links above to head on a routine mission into space, plus you can click here to read our review of LEGO’s official Technic 8480 Space Shuttle set from 1996 that shares many of this model’s working features.

Insert Giant Shiny Meathead

Leave a reply

Both phenomenally successful and awful in equal measure, the ‘Fast & Furious’ franchise shows no signs of taking its foot off the gas. Dom’s Dodge Charger from the aforementioned cinema skid-mark can even now be bought in LEGO form, in both Technic and Speed Champions flavours, the latter of which comes complete with a shiny-headed douchbag mini-figure for maximum movie authenticity.

Missing said mini-figure, but ramping up the realism in every other respect, comes gnat.bricks own Speed Champions scale ’69 Dodge Charger, which – admittedly – is a year earlier than Dom’s car from the movies. Which is probably why he’s not here.

We’ll take that as a blessing and there’s more to see of Not-Dom’s-Dodge-Charger at gnat.bricks’ Flickr album. Click the link above to make the jump.