Tippin’ it Old Skool

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We love simple mechanical models here at The Lego Car Blog, particularly if they’re recreating simple mechanical vehicles. Cue regular bloggee Thirdwigg, and his thoroughly excellent Mercedes-Benz 917 AK truck.

Featuring no electric motors, zero app-based controls, and completely devoid of bluetooth, Thirdwigg’s truck is an old-school homage to vintage Technic sets, with a range of mechanical hand-powered functions in place of the software-based wizardry now commonplace in Technic construction.

Working ‘Hand of God’ steering, a piston engine connected to the pendular-suspended rear wheels, a high/low gearbox, tilting cab, and a three-way (snigger) tipper with dropsides pack the model with mechanical functions, and there’s more to see – including free building instructions – at Thirdwigg’s ‘Mercedes 917’ Flickr album, Rebrickable page, and Eurobricks discussion topic.

Click the links to tip it old skool.

My Other Car is a Raptor. And a Giant Truck

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Retro-inspired off-roaders are all the rage right now, with many buyers swapping their sleek modern-looking SUVs for vehicles with a more rough-and-ready pastiche. They’re still only used to drive to Walmart of course, but at least the parking lot looks more interesting.

Cue previous bloggee gyenesvi, who has recreated Ford’s newest/oldest model, the rather excellent looking Bronco, trading in an F-150 Raptor. And a Mercedes-Benz Zetros truck.

Yup, this superb fully remote controlled 2022 Bronco, complete with four-wheel-drive, steering, live-axle suspension, opening doors, hood and trunk, plus an ‘expedition kit’ for those particularly arduous trips to Walmart, is constructed only from the parts found within the official LEGO Technic 42126 Ford F-150 Raptor and 42129 Mercedes-Benz Zetros Trial Truck sets.

The bright orange body panels of 42126 and the Control+ remote control hardware (and wheels and tyres) from 42129 provide the perfect combination, with the model further enhanced by some excellent custom decals to recreate the Bronco’s distinctive front-end.

Building instructions for gyenesvi’s double B-Model Bronco are available and there’s lots more to see at both the Eurobricks forum and an extensive Bricksafe gallery. Click the links above to take a look, you can watch the model in action via the video below, plus you can click here to see gyenesvi’s previous alternate for 42129.

YouTube Video

Wheelie Big

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Nothing makes our smelly little workers happier than flattening one another with a remote control find. Cue much excitement from the Elf that found this enormous fully remote controlled Komatsu WD900-3 wheel dozer as it entered TLCB Towers, high on the expectation that it could smush any number of its colleagues into the office carpet.

Fortunately for us, that number was zero, seeing as Beat Felber‘s 1:28.5 scale replica of the 100-ton dozer is much too slow to catch any of them. But whilst it is indeed slow, it’s also incredible, with remotely operable all-wheel-drive, articulated linear-actuator controlled steering, a fully adjustable blade positionable via three pneumatic cylinders, each equipped with their own Servo-actuated valve, and an on-board pneumatic compressor.

That enormous blade can lift, lower, pitch fore and aft, and tilt left to right courtesy of the compressor, valves and pneumatic cylinders, all of which can be controlled remotely via bluetooth thanks to two third-party SBricks and an on-board rechargeable Power functions battery.

A work of engineering brilliance, there’s lots more to see of Beat’s Komatsu WD900-3 replica at his album of the same name, where twenty stunning images can be found along with further build details and a link to a video of the model in action.

Click the first link in the text above to make the jump, whilst we cheer up a despondent TLCB Elf with a well-deserved yellow Smartie.

A Lot of Front

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This is a New Holland TD90 tractor, and it’s large, slow, and rather front-heavy. Just like your Mom. Unlike your Mom however, it has been recreated superbly in brick form by Flickr’s Damian Z, and comes complete with a range of attachments including a forklift, straw bailer, and the front-loader bucket shown here. A full gallery of excellent imagery is available and you can take a look at all the pictures by clicking these words.

Wrath of the Sith

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This is a ‘Sith Wrath Class Light Frigate’, and we know that because builder BobDeQuatre wrote it in the description. Yup, this is another attempt by The Lego Car Blog to post something about Star Wars, a topic about which we understand as much as Kim Kardashian does about plumbing.

Should the proper Lego blogs pick this one up they will no doubt be far more useful. Until then, you’ve just got us going ‘Ooooh, that looks cool’. See more of Bob’s spectacular Sith thingy at his ‘Sith Wrath’ Flickr album via the link above, where further Star Wars information may be available.

Brown Range

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It’s FebRovery, but it’s not all sci-fi lunar rovers here at TLCB. Nope, because here’s the real deal. Launched in 1970 the Range Rover took the immensely successful Land Rover, added coil springs, a luxury-ish interior, and a 3.5 litre V8 engine to create arguably the world’s first luxury off-roader.

Which means of course that the Range Rover is responsible for more hateful gargantuan vehicular atrocities than probably any other car in history, as its success led to the ever increasing SUV arms-race that has culminated in vehicles like this. Apologies if you’re eating whilst reading this.

Still, that’s not exactly the Ranger Rover’s fault, particularly as early 3-door cars were – by modern standards – tiny. And excellent.

Cue this fantastic (and fantastically brown) Creator-style version of the early first-generation Range Rover, as created beautifully by 1corn of Flickr.

Opening doors, hood and split tailgate, a detailed engine and interior, and working suspension all feature, and there’s more to see of 1corn’s superb recreation of the difinitive luxury 4×4 at his ‘Range Rover’ album on Flickr. Click the link above to take a look.

It’s Not Size That Matters…

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…but what you do with it. And least that’s what this TLCB Writer tells himself. It’s a self-support mechanism that’s never been truer than with today’s post too, as we have two enormous-looking FebRovery rovers that are actually really rather small indeed.

The first deceptively-scaled creation comes from Oscar Cedarwall of Flickr, whose ‘Multi-Purpose Terrain Rover’ has gained an apparent massiveness thanks to a cleverly constructed landscape and the use of LEGO’s tiny one-stud figures. Top notch presentation and appropriately wide-angle photography maximise the illusion, and there’s more to see of Oscar’s optical trickery at his photostream.

Our second not-very-big-at-all creation is really very small indeed, utilising a body just one stud square and LEGO’s chain components, more commonly found on Technic motorcycles, for the tracks beneath it. Created by TLCB favourite David Roberts, the ‘Planetary Explorer’ is one of the tiniest FebRovery entries yet, and there’s more to see (although not that much more) at David’s photostream.

Click the links above to see how it really is ‘what you do with it’ that counts.

Honey I Shrunk the 8110

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First appearing here in December with a suitably rubbish Christmas pun, Thirdwigg’s Mercedes-Benz Unimog U423, complete with working steering, suspension, piston engine, power take-offs and free building instructions, is just the sort of creation we like.

Of course to be a proper miniature Unimog, an array of attachments and implements should also be available, to which Thirdwigg had duly obliged, with a snow plow and gritter, three-way tipping bed, and knuckle-boom crane all able to be mounted to the truck.

One combination that was missing however, was the set-up from the spectacular and considerably larger official 8110 Mercedes-Benz Unimog set, where a tipper is combined with a rear-mounted triple-boom crane and stabiliser legs.

If you missed the chance to get hold of an 8110 set when it was available, Thirdwigg may have added just what you need, creating a small-scale version of the 8110 configuration for his 1:20 scale Unimog U423.

As with the previous iterations, free building instructions are available so you can create your very own miniature 8110 at home, and you can see more of Thirdwigg’s excellent model on Flickr by clicking these words.

Super 8

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What’s better off-road than a 4×4? Two 4x4s. Bolted together. This is a Tatra T813 8×8 off-road truck, as recreated in Technic form by previous bloggee Horcik Designs for a Lego Truck Trial Championship.

Two LEGO Buggy Motors power all eight fully-suspended wheels, the front two axles steer, plus there’s a removable body and cab (re-used from Horcik’s previous Truck Trial entry).

Full details and further imagery can be found at Horcik’s Bricksafe album, in the video below, and at the Eurobricks forum, where video footage of the Tatra and its rivals competing in the Truck Trial Championship can be viewed too.

YouTube Video

Virtual Vision

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Hyundai’s N Vision 74 concept is – as detailed here last year – the car of the moment. And that’s despite it not being real. Nor may it ever be either, as unless the world collectively pulls its finger out to create hydrogen infrastructure, EVs (and the enormous environmental catastrophe they will create) will continue to be the only inevitability.

It’s perhaps fitting then, that this stunning Model Team recreation of Hyundai’s fabulous 2022 concept isn’t real either, being rendered instead in digital form. However the virtual nature of the model means that Flickr’s seter82 had the freedom to include some simply brilliant ‘printed tile’ detailing, including Hyundai’s trademark dot-matrix lights, bespoke badging, and even tyres, creating a model that looks like it would if LEGO were to release it as an official Creator set.

A huge gallery of renders are available to view and there’s more to see of seter82’s brilliant virtual N Vision 74 at their photostream. Click the link above to take a look.

Cooler Box

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We don’t care what anyone says, this is the coolest car we’ve ever posted. Yes, this magnificent slab of Swede, a Volvo 242, is so deeply cool that The Brothers Brick can’t look at it directly. We on the other hand, being connoisseurs of cool, can’t get enough of Stephan Jonsson’s glorious grey box. Even more so as it’s the ‘Coupe’ variant.

Of course being an ’80s Volvo the 242 is the single squarest coupe ever devised, and – unlike every other Volvo of the time – your Ikea boxes have to go on the roof rather than in the boot, but that just makes it cooler.

A beautifully detailed engine, opening doors, hood and boot, a spectacularly orange interior, and accessories like a roof rack and tow bar add to our delight, and there’s more to see of the coolest car we’ve ever posted at Stephan’s ‘Volvo 242 Group H’ album on Flickr. We like really like old Volvos.

My Other Car’s a Mustang

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This is a Meyers Manx beach buggy, the definitive car-made-from-another-car. And so too is this superb Model Team recreation of the iconic ’60s design, which uses only parts from the excellent 10265 Ford Mustang set in its construction.

Built by Brian Michal of Flickr, this 10265 alternate includes steering, suspension, a removable roof, and – much like the real Meyers Manx – probably leaves a few parts from the donor vehicle left over too.

There’s more of Brian’s B-Model to see at his photostream, and you can switch your horse for a tailless cat via the link above.

Old Lady’s Bathroom

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This is a Trabant 601, accurately resplendent in the colour of an old lady’s bathroom, and made from a similar material too. Created by László Torma in Speed Champions (ironically) scale, this neat miniaturisation of the rubbish East German people’s car captures the original wonderfully, and there’s more to see – including a ‘Combi’ station wagon version – at László’s photostream. Click the link above for more Hearing-Aid-Beige communist wonders.

Litronic Liebherr

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From one 300-ton machine to another, only this one is real. The Liebherr R 944 B Litronic is the smaller brother of the 800-ton Liebherr R9800 that LEGO used to create the largest Technic set ever released, working to load 100-ton mining trucks in the world’s open-cast mines.

Taking the tracks, sprockets, XL linear actuators and clamshell bucket from the 42100 Technic set, previous bloggee Beat Felber has recreated the smaller R 944 B Litronic, only in a much larger 1:28.5 scale.

Ten motors, two third-party SBricks, three sets of LED lights, and two rechargeable battery boxes bring Beat’s incredible creation to life, with accurate crawler movement, structure slewing, boom, stick, and bucket cylinders, a retractable motorised access ladder and opening service flap.

An extensive gallery of imagery is available to view, and you can take a closer look at this astonishing mining machine at Beat’s ‘Liebherr R 994 B Litronic’ album on Flickr via the link above.

Industrial Roving

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It’s FebRovery, and this is an ‘NTERRA B400 MEGA HAULER’, the latest in industrial grade multi-directional rovers from the [ S E /\ Z Y ] corporation.

Able to service an entire moderately-sized colony*, the NTERRA B400 can take a gigantic load*, thanks to an enormous tilting deck with a 300 ton payload capacity and its ‘revolving mecanum wheels’.

Rendered in Bricklink Studio 2.0 with considerable post-production enhancement, [ S E /\ Z Y ]’s gargantuan design shows what’s possible when taking digital building to the extreme, and there’s more to see of his moon-based monster-mover on Flickr via the link above.

Alternatively, if enormous digital creations aren’t your thing, here’s a brick-built FebRovery entry of a similar aesthetic that’s altogether smaller…

*Just like your Mom.