Bricky E-ish

Leave a reply

The future of racing is electric. Because the future of everything is electric, unless we can sort hydrogen out.

Formula E is the FIA’s flagship electric racing series, in which unsuccessful Formula 1 departees drive, um… not particularly quickly around giant carparks. Oh. At least the cars look cool.

Cue R. Skittle‘s ‘Formula e Concept’ – suggested to us by a reader – which looks a lot more like a traditional racing car than the wild current Formula E car. However with twin BuWizz batteries and motors, it might also have performance more in line with a traditional racing car than a Formula E car too.

A Power Functions servo motor provides the steering, there’s clever independent pushrod suspension, and – apparently – torque vectoring for a drift mode! If this is the future of electric racing sign us up!

Join the electric revolution at R. Skittle’s Flickr album via the link above.

Scandi Grey

Leave a reply

Scandinavian design is very ‘in’ right now. Grey, white, with a dash of a calming colour like blue, it’s the default for every upper-middle class redecoration. Here at The Lego Car Blog we don’t follow such fads though, which is why TLCB Towers hasn’t been redecorated since the late ’80s. That, and our redecoration budget stretches to a roll of duct tape and some blu-tack.

Representing Scandinavian design minimalism beautifully however, is MCD‘s 2022 Volvo FH500 truck, which utilises the aforementioned nordic colour palette to great effect. MCD’s monochrome tractor unit successfully blends Technic and System bricks to capture the real truck, whilst a Maersk Sealand container sits atop an excellent three-axle trailer behind.

There’s more of the MCD’s build to see at the Eurobricks forum, and you can sit in a monochrome chair drinking a coffee from an exquisitely designed cup, enjoying 18 hours of daylight via the link in the text above.

The Big Purple One*

Leave a reply

The recently launched Speed Champions 76094 Dodge Charger R/T set continues LEGO’s welcome foray into real-world classic cars. Taking the purple Challenger from that set and upsizing it is Flickr’s Joey Klusnick, who has replicated the iconic 1970’s muscle car in ‘Miniland’ scale, making his model perfect for the streets of a Legoland theme park. It’d sure be a quality street** with Joey’s Challenger parked on it. Click the link above to rummage through the box for a taste.***

*Non UK readers; you’ll have no idea what we’re on about.

**As above.

***That’s enough now (Ed.)

Snakey B

1 Reply

We love alternate builds here at The Lego Car Blog, as creating many things from one set is at the very heart of what LEGO is all about.

TLCB Master MOCer Firas Abu-Jaber demonstrates this perfectly today, having created this brilliant B-Model from the parts found within the excellent 10295 Porsche 911 Turbo set.

Following his incredible Ford GT40 10295 alternate comes another iconic American supercar, the Dodge Viper, complete with opening doors, a detailed engine under the raising hood, and working steering too.

All the parts to create it can be found within the 10295 set, the complete image gallery can be found here, and you can find building instructions to turn your own 10295 Porsche 911 Turbo set into a Dodge Viper at Firas’ website by clicking here.

Depositing a Floater

Leave a reply

Sorry, we mean ‘Depositing by Floater’. The first is something else. Anyway, this delightful scene depicting a De Havilland DHC-2 Beaver floatplane comes from Flickr’s Slick_Brick, and it looks beautiful! From the dog in the boat by the jetty to the forest and snow-capped mountains beyond to the wait… what’s that lurking in the water? Whatever it is the scene is still somewhere we’d love to be, and you can join us there at Slick’s photostream via the link in the text above.

Rocketman*

Leave a reply

The brave classic spacemen and spacewomen of, um… Classic Space, have been exploring the galaxy for four decades now. Forming the backbone of their exploratory equipment is the LL-928 Galaxy Explorer, recently updated some forty years after it first flew, and captured here in a maintenance hangar in a rarely-seen ‘off-duty’ image courtesy of Rob.

With the engines removed from the spacecraft for maintenance it would be rude not to climb aboard one for some static ‘testing’. Classic spaceman Shawn looks like he’s having a splendid time atop the disconnected propulsion system, but we suspect his colleagues are most unamused at the prospect of recalibrating the whole thing thanks to his bucking-bronco moment.

Rob’s wonderfully immersive images are a lovely homage to one of LEGO’s most fondly remembered themes, and you can join the mini-figures of Classic Space and the 10497 Galaxy Explorer set in the maintenance hangar at his photostream via the link above.

*Burning out his fuse up here alone...

Twin Turbos

Leave a reply

Suggested by a reader, these two Porsche 911 Turbos come from Petey Bird of Flickr, who has captured the 1990s incarnation of Porsche’s iconic sports car beautifully in Speed Champions form. Curve bricks are used in abundance to replicate the famous shape, with some rather clever side-windows too, and there’s more of Petey’s Porsches to see at his photostream via the link above.

Camp Jimny

Leave a reply

Speaking of ‘coolest vehicles on the planet‘ following today’s other post, here’s another. The Suzuki Jimny is one of the hottest vehicles to own right now, helped no doubt by the EU’s ‘CAFE’ CO2 regulations taking it off sale after just two years, during which time it had a sizeable waiting list. But buying a hateful G63 AMG is fine… go figure.

Anyway, these two polar bears have managed to get themselves a Suzuki Jimny (whose survival was surely the point of that non-sensical, counter-productive EU legislation), applying a few well-chosen mods to equip them with everything they need for a weekend camping.

There’s a folding table, cooler, camping stove, and much more besides to ensure a successful polar-bear-father-son camping trip.

Flickr’s LEGO 7 is the builder behind this wonderfully whimsical, delightfully detailed, and beautifully built creation, and there’s more to see of his superbly presented bear-based camping scene at his ‘Camping Time’ album. Click the link above to join the fun.

Tail-less Cat

2 Replies

The Meyers Manx beach buggy, named after the tail-less breed of cat to match its truncated rear end, is surely one of the coolest vehicles on the planet. Being based on the Volkswagen Beetle made the Manx cheap, easy to work on, and surprisingly good off road. But it was also based on the Volkswagen Beetle.

Rejoice then, that the rebooted Meyers company has developed a new Manx beach buggy that does away with the noisy Beetle underpinnings, instead ushering in a new era of electric propulsion. And there is probably no vehicle better suited to being an EV than a beach buggy. Provided it can wet of course…

Anyway, this is the noisy, rattly, polluting, slow, and deeply cool Beetle-based original, as built by regular bloggee Jonathan Elliott. Head to the beach via the link above, whilst we dream of owning the electric version…

Racing Point(less)

1 Reply

Racing trucks are a bit like starting a removal company with a Mazda Miata. There are vehicles considerably more suited to the task.

But, much like moving house in a Miata, a racing truck is a somewhat impressive sight. This one is a Scania R730, as constructed by previous bloggee Vladimir Drozd (aka LegoV94), and it comes complete with remote control drive and steering via an SBrick, a two-speed gearbox, a working piston engine, and sponsorship by every company ever.

There’s more of Vladimir’s remote control Scania R730 racing truck to see at both Flickr and Eurobricks, or alternatively you can move house in a Miata here.

I’m Blue*

Leave a reply

Is today’s post just so that we can link to that infernal Italian song so it gets stuck in your head too? Yes. Yes it is. But the model within it is also excellent. In fact, it’s five models, as not only has previous bloggee Arian Janssens constructed this ultra realistic DAF FAN CF 530 Space Cab truck, there’s a trailer, two swappable ‘canvas’ sided bodies with their own support legs, and a trailer-mounted forklift truck too

An extensive gallery of images is available via Flickr that shows all five components in more detail, and you can take a look at all the blue via the link above. Da-ba-dee da-ba-di. Dammit!

*Today’s title song. Of course.

Rim Job

Leave a reply

This is a Porsche 918 Spyder, a mid-2010s plug-in hybrid hypercar powered by the combination of a 4.6 litre V8 and two electric motors for a total output of 875bhp. And 12 miles of electric range. Which we suspect most 918 owners use about as much as the Brothers Brick do the gym.

Pointless green virtue signalling aside, the Porsche 918 is a seriously impressive car, as is this superb Model Team recreation by Flickr’s 3D supercarBricks, who has captured the 918 brilliantly in brick from.

3D’s 918 model includes an opening front trunk, removable engine cover, and some excellent 3D-printed rims, which accurately portray the items fitted to the real car and further enhance the model’s realism.

A wealth of imagery is available to view, and you can take a closer look at the both 918 and the 3D-printed rims upon which it rolls via the link in the text above.

Power-Up the Claas

Leave a reply

This spectacular creation is a Claas Torion 1914 wheel loader, a two-thousand piece fully remote controlled behemoth from mktechniccreations of Eurobricks.

With four Powered-Up motors, mk’s creation can drive, steer, and generate its own air pressure in order to power the pneumatics that operate the loading arm and bucket tilt functions.

Superbly lifelike aesthetics, enhanced by accurate decals, are showcased via top quality presentation, and there’s more of the Powered-Up Claas to see at the Eurobricks forum, where a full suite of imagery can be found. Click the link above to take a look and one of the most well engineered creations of the year so far.

LEGO Technic H2 2022 | Set Previews

3 Replies

Our Elves have been sneaking again! Although we forgot to write about their discovery of the new H2 2022 Technic sets until we saw that LEGO had released them for sale on Monday. Never mind…

So, although you can find these on LEGO.com for sale right now, here are the two new LEGO Technic sets for August 2022!

…

42144 Material Handler

First up (above), and looking excellent, is the brand new 42144 Material Handler, an 835-piece recreation of those giant grabby crane things that operate in scrapyards. And seeing as literally everyone wants to have a go at smashing a giant grab through the roof a scrap car, LEGO’s decision to create a fully working Technic version looks rather inspired.

The new 42144 set returns proper pneumatics to the Technic line-up, with a boom extending to 35cm courtesy of two large pneumatic cylinders pressurised by hand, whilst a small pneumatic cylinder opens and closes the grab.

A decent level of mechanical functions are present too, with 42144 including working outriggers, steering, a rotating boom superstructure, and an elevating cab.

It all looks rather good, but so it should do, as the new Technic 42144 Material Handler costs an enormous £105 / $150.

This sizeable price-tag generates a figure of 13p / 18c per piece, which is exactly double that of the 42054 Claas Xerion 5000 from five years ago, and 50% more than the 42111 Dom’s Dodge Charger set from just two years ago.

Perhaps you might not want to scrap that old car after all…

…

42145 Airbus H175 Rescue Helicopter

LEGO’s second new arrival for August 2022 brings a helicopter back into the Technic range, a vehicle type that always seems to translate well to the theme. Unlike past iterations though, 42145 is an officially licensed replica of a real-world helicopter, in this case the Airbus H175.

Now as a car blog we have no idea what an Airbus H175 is, and would have been just as happy with a ‘generic’ helicopter, but aircraft fans are likely to enjoy its real-world basis as much as we do LEGO’s officially licensed cars and trucks.

Measuring over 70cm long and aimed at ages 11+, 42145 includes a motor that powers both the main and tail rotor, the rescue winch, and the retractable landing gear, whilst also spinning the engines too, which is a nice touch.

42145’s mechanical functions are limited to opening doors and a working swash plate to control rotor pitch, but seeing as the latter is fiendishly difficult to create that’s probably sufficient.

On sale now, the new Technic 42145 Airbus H175 Rescue Helicopter costs £180 / $210, making it even more expensive than the 42144 Material Handler above. However with a far more reasonable price per piece figure (even with a motor included), it 42145 looks to be the much better value of the two.

…

Both new Technic sets are available now via LEGO.com and other retailers, alongside all of the Technic sets from H1 revealed here at TLCB earlier in the year.

Wood Rat

Leave a reply

Regular bloggee 1saac W. returns to TLCB with something rather more wooden than we’re used to seeing in automotive circles. Inspired by a real hot rod, 1saac’s wood-panelled rat rod includes Winnie the Pooh stickers, white-wall tyres, and the jauntiest front axle we’ve seen in some time. Head to Flickr to take a look.