LEGO 10298 Vespa 125 | Set Preview

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The single most Italian thing possible is a pretty girl on a Vespa (you’re welcome). Cue the brand new LEGO 10298 Vespa 125 set, the latest officially-licensed vehicle to join LEGO’s 18+ range. And it looks gorgeous.

Constructed from 1,106 pieces, most of which are the lovely light blue used to such great effect with the limited edition 77942 Fiat 500 set, 10298 measures around 35cm long and features working handlebar steering, a folding kick stand, removable engine cover, and even a brick-built helmet and bunch of flowers.

Available from March 1st, 10298 will cost around $99 / €99 / £89, and we love it. You’ll have to build your own pretty girl for authentic Italian completeness though.

Beetlejuice

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The Lego Car Blog Elves are rewarded with a meal token and maybe a Smartie when they return to TLCB Towers with a blog-worthy creation. The Elf that found this beautifully presented red Volkswagen Beetle by Flickr’s 1saac W earned itself a red Smartie of course, which – with delightful circularity – are coloured using crushed beetles. Every day’s a school day! There’s more to see of 1saac’s wonderful ’59 Beetle at his photostream, or click here if you’re grossed out by crushed beetles in your candy…

Komatsu Krusher

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This TLCB Writer was having a peaceful day scrolling through the delightfully tedious entries our Festival of Mundanity competition in collaboration with BrickNerd. There’s a bar of soap, a rental car lot, a white Toyota Corolla… and the sound of Elven screaming. Sigh.

A wearisome trudge to the corridor revealed the culprit, and the vehicle under their jurisdiction; this huge BuWizz-powered Komatsu HM300 6×6 articulated dump truck.

Discovered on Brickshelf by the jubilant Elf at the controls, gkurkowski‘s creation had churned several of our smelly little workers into the carpet, before – admittedly rather cleverly – deploying the linear actuator controlled tipper to dump a load of glitter on them. How it got into the stationary cupboard we’re not sure. And why is there even glitter in there anyway?

Whatever the reasons, the result is a very sparkly mess, which this writer now has the pleasure of tidying up.

Whilst he gets on with that you can check out gkurkowski’s seriously impressive build at the Brickshelf gallery, which includes extensive imagery, renders, close-ups of the 6×6 drivetrain and tipping mechanisms, plus a link to building instructions should you wish to create the Komatsu HM300 at home.

Click the link above to make the jump and here to read more about the awesome third-party BuWizz bluetooth battery that’s powering it

The ‘I’s Have It*

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Everything has an ‘i’ prefix these days. We have Apple to thank for this chronically unimaginative naming convention, which has now infiltrated cars too (we’re looking at you Hyundai and BMW). However before Apple stuck an ‘i’ in front of generic words like ‘phone’, ‘i’ meant something.

Take ‘I-beam’ for example, which featured no marketing-focus-groups to determine its name, and simply meant two wheels attached to a suspended straight beam. Because it was really cheap. And it was the shape of the letter ‘I’.

Modern vehicles use far more sophisticated suspension of course. Except when they don’t, and ‘I-beam’ is renamed ‘Torsion Bar’, because it sounds fancier. Or it did until Apple came along.

Anyway, ‘I-beams are pretty rare at the front of vehicles these days, but Eurobricks’ paave has created a vehicle that kicks it old-school, with brilliantly off-roady I-beam front suspension, live axle rear suspension, HOG steering, a working piston engine, and opening and locking doors.

Building instructions are available and there’s more of paave’s creation to see at the Eurobricks forum at the link above and via the video below, which shows the I-beam suspension in action.

YouTube Video

*Seven hundred TLCB points if you’ve figured out today’s title.

Moon Muscle

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Flickr’s Febrovery build-a-thon is drawing to a close. There have been some wonderful entries so far which we have… er, missed completely, seeing as a) we don’t understand sci-fi and b) we’re interested in things far more mundane at the moment…

Had we not blogged this one though, TLCB Elves would’ve started a riot, as it’s really not mundane at all. Frost (aka TFDesigns) owns the mind behind this glorious rover-based muscle car homage, which is fitted with some of the most splendid wheels we’ve ever seen.

Racing stripes and a giant wing complete the Elven excitement, and there’s more to see of his marvellous moon-based muscle car at his photostream. Take a look via the link above, and we’ll be back with some things far more mundane tomorrow…

How to Make (and Sell) Building Instructions!

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The single most common comment we receive here at the Lego Car Blog (besides “Buy cheap Cialis here”) is “Can I have building instructions?’

In some cases it’s a yes, but most of the time the answer is no. They’re tricky, and it can be seen as a bit of a dark art. However the very talented SaperPL is here to explain how you can do it!

Yes, we’ve finally got round to the fifth instalment of the ‘Become a Lego Professional’ series, in which previous bloggee and prolific building instruction creator SaperPL provides the top ten tips for writing your very own LEGO building instructions.

Fame, glory, and maybe even a few $ could await! Read how you can get started in the building instructions game via the link below.

Become a Lego Professional – Part 5;

SaperPL – How to Make (and Sell) Building Instructions

Brown Rat

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You’re never more than 6ft from a rat. Or something. We’re OK with that here at TLCB Towers, because we’re certainly never more than 6ft away from a TLCB Elf, which is probably worse.

Cue Sergio Batista and his brown rat rod, which makes us all very close to a rat today. There’s more to see at Sergio’s photostream, where you can get even closer should you wish. To his rat, not a TLCB Elf. You wouldn’t want that…

Bulkwagen

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This is a DAF FAS 2600 ‘Bulkwagen’ in Hendrix livery, and it comes from DAF-building specialist Arian Janssens. Arian’s classic DAF 2600 joins his extensive line-up of Dutch trucks, with some simply exquisite detailing throughout to accurately capture the (somewhat odd) design of the 1960s original.

Replica decals, vintage Technic wheels, working steering, and excellent presentation make this worth a closer look, and you can do just that via the link to Arian’s photostream above.

Big Red Truck

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If you’re a TLCB Elf, seven, or indeed a member of TLCB Team, then you probably like Big Red Trucks.

This Model Team / Technic Freightliner Classic is definitely a Big Red Truck, and what’s more it has some proper Technic functionally too, with working steering, inline-6 piston engine, and fifth-wheel hitch, plus opening doors and hood.

Anton Kablash is the builder and there’s more to see on Flickr here, if you like Big Red Trucks too.

Bar & Grill

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Giant grilles and light bars; the default styling ‘signatures’ of every new car launched today. Of course if every car has them then they’re not signatures at all.

Lexus have adopted these styling defaults as much as anyone, but – to TLCB at least – Lexus’ efforts do look rather good. Especially when compared to certain other premium car makers…

Adopting both the giant grille and light bar is the recently refreshed Lexus IS, which has been recreated brilliantly here by Flickr’s SP_LINEUP. The ingenious building techniques probably mean SP’s model isn’t quite as robustly made as the real thing, but you can’t argue with the visual accuracy.

There’s more to see of SP’s giant grille and light bar (and the Lexus IS F-Sport they’re attached to) at his photostream via the link.

Floating Fiat

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Fiat, like many of motoring’s earliest names, began as much as an aircraft manufacturer as an automotive one. By 1969 though, the aircraft division had been separated from Fiat’s vehicle group, which – as anyone who has owned a 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, or even 2000s Fiat will testify – was probably a very good thing indeed. Fiat electrics at 30,000ft don’t bear thinking about…

Bravely returning Fiat to the clouds however is Brick Spirou, who has modified the official LEGO 10271 Fiat 500 set into something rather more airborne. Four funky repulser engines equip Brick’s Fiat for the skies, whilst the giant engine-lid-mounted rear wing is presumably mounted upside-down for lift rather than downforce.

There’s more of Brick Spirou’s 10271 Fiat 500 hovercar to see on Flickr via the link above, plus you can click here for a bonus LEGO set that has also received the hovercar treatment.

Motoring Mundanity

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Aaaand here it is; the pinnacle of mundane motoring. It’s the plain white rice of cars. It’s anything by Will.I.Am since ‘Where is the Love?’. If it were a country it would be Belgium. TLCB’s fridge has more character than this. Yes, it’s the mid-2000s Toyota Corolla Sedan. In white.

There are interesting iterations of the Corolla of course, and the current one is actually a rather funky looking thing (even more so when the Gazoo Racing version arrives), but this one… er, no.

Which means it’s exactly the sort of thing we’re’ looking for in the Festival of Mundanity Competition we’re co-hosting with BrickNerd.

Flickr’s 1saac W. is the lucky duck who owns one of these in real life, and has recreated the world’s best selling car in brick form in the hope of winning some most excellent prizes.

He’s scored some decent mundane points, but there’s a long way to go, with a load of new entries appearing in the Flickr group over the last few days. You can check out these and 1saac’s brilliantly boring build via the links above, and if you’re inspired to build you own entry (we haven’t had any large scale cars yet) you check out the competition details here or over on BrickNerd, where mundane objects are the order of the day.

Tediously Tracking

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A 1990s Asian-American econobox is the definition of mundane motoring. There was the Toyota Corolla rebadged as the Geo Prizm (which was somehow even more boring), the miserable Daewoo Matiz rebadged as a Chevrolet, and this; the Suzuki Vitara rebadged as the Geo Tracker.

This Lego version comes from Flickr’s Thomas Gion, who has constructed it for the Festival of Mundanity competition, and earned some decent mundane points in the process.

However, he’s also lost a few by building his Tracker in yellow and putting a surfboard in the back. Thomas, Thomas… white with a brown box in the back would have been so much more mundane.

Despite this monotonous faux-pas it’s still a worthy entry and you can check out more of Thomas’ Tracker on at his photostream via the link, plus you can read the contest details and see the prizes on offer for the most boring builds by clicking here.

Forever Sweeping

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A proportion of mankind are – let’s be honest – knobs, and if you chuck your litter on the ground, you’re part of this subset.

Fixing this problem, at least on hard-standing areas, is the humble street sweeper truck, which will brush up all the detritus dropped by the aforementioned cockwombles, before they re-litter the streets and it has to do it all again. And again.

Representing this infinite loop of tedium is Zsolt Nagy (aka kodlovag), whose Technic sweeper truck perfectly captures the mundanity of the real thing.

There are working brushes underneath (plus a detachable one up front), that can be powered either as the truck is pushed along or by the on-board Power Functions motor. A tilting cab, functioning steering, and a working piston engine complete the Technic features, and there’s more of the model to see at both Flickr and Eurobricks.

Click the links above to tidy up.

Anything but Mundane

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The Festival of Mundanity Competition is beginning to receive some wonderfully dull entries. This flying Porsche 911 Turbo is not one of them. Suggested by a reader and built by BobDeQuatre, this futuristic Porsche is based on the official LEGO 10295 Porsche 911 set, only with a few choice modifications.

These apparently include “two anti-grav generators, and a powerful VV hydrogen repulsor motor, integrated into the old bodywork without disrupting the lines. The interior features very old accessories like the strange levers between the two seats, but also top notch controls”.

Which makes for a vehicle that we really hope becomes a reality one day. Until then you can join us in dreaming at Bob’s ‘Porsche 911 Turbo VV’ Flickr album or at the Eurobricks forum here.