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We like workhorsey-type vehicles here at The Lego Car Blog. This is perhaps because, whilst we frequently blog Ferraris and Lamborghinis, we’re rather far removed from those in the real world; this writer’s current vehicle is an office chair held together by duct tape.

Cue mpj’s excellent little Iveco Eurocargo tipper truck, which is about as unpretentious a Technic model as it’s possible to get. No motors, no bluetooth remote control, no V12 engine. Just mechanical steering, a tipping load bed operated by hand-turning an axle, and dropping sides so the load can tip out. Marvellous.

It’d make a fine official Technic set, and there’s more to see at mpj’s ‘Iveco Eurocargo Tipper Truck’ gallery on Brickshelf. Click the link above for a good tip.

Black Kitten

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LEGO have produced some legendary vehicle sets over the years. The 8880 Technic Supercar. The 10220 Creator Volkswagen Camper. And, the all-time high of the Model Team range, the 5571 Black Cat truck.

Launched way back in 1996 and featuring and over 1,750 pieces, 5571 is now worth approximately a $billion, putting it well out of reach of even TLCB’s Editor, who – rumour has it – owns a private island entirely staffed by TLCB Elves.

Today however, we have a Black Cat that is rather more attainable. If a little smaller…

This ‘Micro Black Cat 5571’ is Flickr builder -Brixe‘s entry into a LEGO Ideas competition, celebrating 90 years of The LEGO Company. Instantly recognisable as a miniaturised version of the 5571 set (even without the printed tiles…), -Brixe’s model captures the aesthetic of the original model wonderfully, and you can check it out at both their photostream and at LEGO Ideas via the links in the text above.

Now, how does this writer get himself an invite to the island…

Pink & Slippy

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This is resolutely not this TLCB Writer’s kind of car. But the rest of the staff are ‘busy’ in the corridor doing something with a remote control bulldozer and some Elven ‘volunteers’, so it falls to him to write about a pink drift-pig BMW.

That said, whilst this model is based on a real and eye-searing car, Fuku Saku‘s brick-built homage to the sideways E36 is thoroughly excellent, being both instantly recognisable as an E36 3-Series Coupe, and managing to replicate the drifty modifications of the real thing.

The doors and hood open to reveal further cleverness within, and there’s more to see of Fuku’s E36 Drift Car at his album of the same name on Flickr. Click the link above to go sliding about in something pink.

Das Boot

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15,000 pieces, 4½ years, and 1.8 metres. A few of the astonishing statistics associated with Ciamosław Ciamek‘s breathtaking 1:38 scale Second World War U-Boat.

Constructed in six sections, each with a removable sides to reveal the spectacular detail within, Ciamosław’s incredible mini-figure scale replica of a German ‘Typ VII C U-Boot’ accurately recreates the control room, front and rear messes, bow, engine rooms, and stern, all of which were designed digitally before being built from thousands of LEGO pieces.

A crew of dozens of mini-figures are shown throughout the interior of the boat, many operating the equipment, engines, and weaponry, whilst others are off-shift in the mess.

It’s a jaw-dropping creation, with hundreds of images across two albums required to capture the model’s scale and complexity, and you can check out the first of these on Flickr via the link in the text above. Click it, sit back, and take in the most amazing World War 2 creation you’re likely to see in 2022…

Not a WRX

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Subaru don’t just make the WRX. In fact they’ve made all sorts of weird things, from trains and planes, to wind turbines and generators.

From a vehicular perspective Subaru’s products vary widely too, some of which are rather further from the WRX than you might think.

This is one of them, the dinky Sambar micro-truck. A ‘kei’ car in Japan also badged as the Daihatsu Hijet and Toyota Pixis, the Sambar first launched in the ’60s, and today is on its tenth generation, powered by a 660cc engine and available in a variety of body-styles.

This is the pick-up variant, as built rather nicely by Joey Klusnick in Miniland style, replicating a Sambar owned by his local model shop. There’s more to see at Joey’s Flickr album, where his model is pictured alongside its real world counterpart.

Click the link above for a Subaru that’s not driven by an irritating bro with a blow-off valve.

High Five

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It’s not just Chrysler from an earlier post this week that went mad for a bit. The French have a history of going berserk, automotively speaking, with even Renualt – who currently manufacture nothing but boring crossovers – having moments of insanity. This is their best.

The Renault 5 was an excellent city car. Front-wheel-drive, well packaged, safely slow. Not a rally car then. But Renault wanted to go rallying, and thus they took their aforementioned econo-box, removed the engine, turbocharged it, and then put it back in where the rear seats used to be. And let it power the rear wheels instead.

The result was the Renault 5 Turbo, a wild mid-engined super-hatch designed to go rallying, with just under 5,000 across two generations also produced for the road. Road cars made a healthy-for-the-time 160bhp, but in rally trim the R5 Turbo could make almost 400bhp (from just 1.4 litres!), and won the Monte Carlo Rally at the first attempt in 1981.

The spectacular Technic model pictured here is a recreation of the road going R5 Turbo, as built by TLCB Master MOCer Lachlan Cameron (aka Lox Lego). Featuring remote control drive and steering, LED lights, working suspension, opening doors, front trunk and tailgate, and – of course – a mid-mounted engine, Lachlan’s creation captures Renault’s moment of madness brilliantly, and there’s a whole lot more of it to see at his ‘Renault Turbo R5’ album on Flickr.

Click the second link above to make the jump to all the images, and the first to read how Lachlan creates his amazing models like this one.

Kongs in a Cart

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This is not a car. But it is Donkey Kong (and Diddy Kong) riding in a motorised mine cart, which means it’s absolutely getting blogged.

Built by Peter Zieske, Donkey and Diddy’s cart is based atop a LEGO train motor, meaning an entire mine track could be constructed for it to traverse…

Whilst we dream of that you can check out more of Donkey Kong’s cart at Peter’s ‘Donkey & Diddy Kong album’ via the link above!

Prowler

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In the late ’90s to mid 00’s, American car manufacturers went nuts. There was the Chrysler PT Cruiser, the Pontiac Aztek, the Chevrolet SSR, and this, the Plymouth Prowler.

Inspired by hot rods of the ’40s and ’50s, the Chrysler Corporation hoped the Prowler would reinvigorate the dying Plymouth brand, and the wild two-seat rear-wheel-drive sports car certainly made headlines upon its reveal in 1997.

Sadly though, like everything else coming from the Chrysler Corporation in the late ’90s, it was also complete crap.

A 3.5 litre V6 from Chrysler minivans – making just over 200bhp – mated to a four speed automatic gearbox (four!) did not an invigorating drive make, whilst interior and build quality was, well… typical ’90s Chrysler

Less than 12,000 Prowlers were sold before its demise, along with the entire Plymouth brand, in 2002, whilst Chrysler itself filed for bankruptcy just seven years later.

But here at TLCB we still applaud the Prowler, as we much prefer interesting cars to good ones (which is probably why we’re writing about cars and not managing a car company…). However it probably would’ve been better for everyone if the Prowler had been built by anyone other than late-’90s Chrysler.

Oh yeh, the model! This superb Speed Champions scale Plymouth Prowler captures the outlandish design brilliantly – no mean feat at this scale – and there’s more to see courtesy of Thomas Gion of Flickr. Click the link to take a look!

Grab Some Wood

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This giant claw with a vehicle attached to it is a Volvo L180HL, a front-loader-based machine designed for moving logs. Lots of them.

This brilliant Technic recreation of the log-grabbing Volvo is the work of Akassin of Eurobricks, who built it for a recent Technic competition in which it took the silver medal.

A wealth of mechanical and pneumatic functions accurately replicate the real machine, with articulated steering, an enormous (and rather clever) two-piece boom powered by compressed air, plus a mechanical claw that’s able to grab bundles of ‘logs’.

It’s a hugely impressive creation with much more to see at the Eurobricks forum, and via the excellent video below. Grab some wood via the links.

YouTube Video

Home is Where You Park(ed) It

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Some vehicles are more than the sum of their parts. They’ve transcended their original purpose to become, and stand for, something more. The Volkswagen Camper, the Toyota Prius, and the DeLorean DMC-12 to name a few, but each of those is still, at the end of the day, just a car. A car wrapped up in a million connotations, but a car nonetheless.

Occasionally though, a vehicle transcends its original purpose by actually, well… transcending it. These are rarely the cool cars. They’re the forgotten ones. The vehicles whose job as a vehicle has long been superseded in order to meet the more immediate needs of the owner.

Cue TLCB debutant pan noda, and their simply wonderful ‘RV House’, depicting a dead camper, extended, adapted and remodelled, to become a far better abode than when it was still rolling.

Gorgeous detailing and presentation abounds and you can click the link above to take a closer look. It’s not #vanlife. It’s something a whole lot more.

Barracuda Redux

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The 6285 Black Seas Barracuda is probably one of the greatest LEGO sets ever released. Launched back in 1989 with just under a thousand pieces, 6285 is a high watermark for LEGO’s Pirates range that the company is yet to better. But that hasn’t stopped SuperSick.

Loosely based on the original set, SuperSick’s Black Seas Barracuda Redux adds a host of smooth techniques and piece upgrades, plus an additional twelve cannons, to create very possibly our favourite pirate ship ever. In fact, apart from the flags flying in the wrong direction (sailing basics SuperSick!), it could be the perfect ship.

Join the piratical adventure at the Eurobricks forum via the link above.

Cartoon Traction Avant

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This wonderfully cartoonish Citroen Traction Avant was discovered by one of our Elves on Flickr today. Constructed by KMbricklab, a wealth of clever techniques have been deployed to accentuate the classic Citroen’s features, and there’s a whole lot more of the model to see on Flickr. Click the link above to forward yourself there.

Speed Champions 76911 007 Aston Martin DB5 and 76912 Fast & Furious Dodge Charger R/T | Set Previews

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Dun dunu dun dun, dun dun – dun dunu dun dun, dun dun… and, er… whatever the music is from the Fast & Furious franchise. An explosion with Vin Diesel breathing the word ‘Family’ over it probably. Anyway, it’s new set time, and LEGO have introduced two iconic movie cars to the Speed Champions line-up!

76911 007 Aston Martin DB5

Think the Creator 10262 Aston Martin DB5 ‘Goldfinger’ set is a bit pricey? Well LEGO have revealed its smaller brother, the new 76911 Speed Champions 007 Aston Martin DB5, complete with a Daniel Craig-esque mini-figure!

Ultimately the same car as the one used in ‘Goldfinger’, Craig redeploys the DB5 in 2012’s excellent ‘Skyfall’, which raises all sorts of questions about Bond’s chronology. Anyway, let’s not dwell on Bond’s unfathomable age, but rather rejoice in the new Speed Champions arrival, which looks rather good.

A considerable portion of 76911’s realism is due to a myriad of stickers, which – placed as they are on curved pieces – will probably peel off immediately, but nevertheless it looks nice on the box. It’s disappointing to see the trademark Aston Martin grille is a sticker though – surely a brick-built version would’ve been possible?

We’re also a little disappointed that there are no gadgets, making 76911 more of a standard Aston Martin DB5 than 007’s Q-Branch version, but that’s still cool enough, and the decent printed rear canopy piece will be sure to crop up on all sorts of MOCs in time.

The new Speed Champions 76911 007 Aston Martin DB5 will reach stores later this year, and is a welcome addition to the line-up, even if it has got more stickers than Bond has killed henchmen.

 

76912 Fast & Furious 1970 Dodge Charger R/T

From one infamous movie franchise to another, and also another movie car that has already appeared in LEGO form in a larger scale. We quite like the Technic 42111 Dom’s Dodge Charger set, but it is admittedly a bit out of reach for many ‘Fast & Furious’ fans, who are likely a bit young for its 10+ target age and price point.

A ‘Fast & Furious’ Speed Champions set is probably a far better match, and 76912 looks a fine way to bring the franchise to LEGO fans. LEGO have captured the modified 1970 Dodge Charger R/T rather well (and without relying on stickers), plus never has a hairless-mini-figure looked more appropriate than it does here.

The new 76912 Fast & Furious 1970 Dodge Charger R/T looks like a good effort to us, and with LEGO also now having a partnership with Toyota, perhaps – if all wish for it hard enough – that Supra could be next…

El Campino

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Aaaand at the other end of the Chevrolet cool scale we have this; a dilapidated El Camino camper, cobbled together from assorted junk, inhabited by someone you’d expect to see throwing dice in an alley, and parked in a swamp. It’s TLCB of cars.

Which means we feel right at home posting ‘Florida Man’s El Camino & Cab-Over Camper’ by previous bloggee IBrickedItUp, and you can join us huntin’ ‘gators in the swamp via the link above.

Low Level Coolness

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TLCB Staff are absolutely, tragically, deeply uncool. We work for free in a building with less structural integrity than the Lego creations we feature, our workforce is formed of mythical creatures that could well be figments of our imagination, and for all he knows this Writer is typing these words from a secure psychiatric facility onto a Casio PT-80.

But if we were cool, and we really aren’t, this is what we’d drive.

Tony Bovkoon‘s magnificent ’64 Chevrolet Impala Lowrider might just be the coolest vehicle we’ve ever seen, and not only does it look spectacular, it really, er… lowrides, with four L Motors driving linear actuators that control the suspension movements, allowing the Impala to twist and bounce just like the real thing.

A further two L Motors and a Servo deliver remote control drive and steering when for when the Impala isn’t lowriding, but that’s like wearing a baseball cap the right way round. Or some other cool-based reference. Like we said, we really aren’t cool.

But Tony’s ’64 Chevrolet Impala is, and you can check it out on Flickr, plus you can watch it in action here. Take a look via the link above if you’re cooler than we are.