Poop poop! It’s time for a vintage car here at The Lego Car Blog. Because vintage cars are cool. This one – inspired by the classic LEGO 5920 Island Racer set – uses parts from the Speed Champions 96907 Lotus Evija plus a raft of black hoses and clips beautifully. Entitled simply ‘#50’, there’s more to see courtesy of Flickr’s atp357; click the link above for a vintage race.
A long time ago it wasn’t diesel, electricity, or gasoline that powered humanity’s vehicles, but steam. Very heavy, with minimal range and requiring regular impractical refuelling, steam-powered vehicles were nevertheless immensely powerful – far more so than those powered by other fuels – and thus they were the engines of choice for heavy duty applications, even as all other vehicle types moved on.
This is one such steam vehicle, Nikolaus Löwe‘s fabulous Fowler traction engine, here outfitted with a working crane. Connected to the tractor-part via a wonderfully complicated-looking arrangement of ratchets and gears, Nikolaus’ creation harks back to an era of coal, soot, noise, and perhaps a little magic.
Get steamy at Nikolaus’ photostream via the link above, whilst we ponder if today’s electric fuel of choice – being very heavy, with minimal range and requiring regular impractical refuelling, but nevertheless immensely powerful – really marks a century’s worth of progress from when this was trundling down the roads.
No, it’s an NS omC! OK, that’s maybe not as catchy as the famous Superman musical lyrics, but we have at least learned something here at The Lego Car Blog, having had no idea what an ‘omC’ was before today.
What it is, is an ‘Oilmotor Vehicle’, a combustion-engined carriage used by the Dutch Railways during the 1920s as a cheaper, easier-to-run alternative to steam locomotives.
This one – being a ‘C’ designation – is for third-class passengers, which is where you’d probably find TLCB staff. There were ‘BC’ versions too, where first-class passengers such as The Brothers Brick’s Contributors could luxuriate away from the peasants.
Constructed by TLCB debutant Malik Geldermans, this 1:45th scale replica of the NS omC beautifully captures the real ‘Oilmotor Vehicle’ thanks to some truly fantastic building techniques.
Presented perfectly, there’s more of Malik’s model to see at his ‘NS omC’ album, and you can take a closer look on Flickr via the link in the text above.
Not the Mazda Demio… Not the Mazda Demio… ‘2015 Mazda Demio’. Damnit!!
A cycle of disappointment familiar to anyone who’s played ‘Gran Turismo Sport’. However today’s ‘gift car’ is not a 2015 Mazda Demio, and is in fact rather good.
Cunningly created by previous bloggee K P and suggested to us by a reader, this neat vintage Dodge Coupe comes packaged inside its own brick-built case, aping the format commonplace with metal scale models.
A clever two-colour ‘ribbon’ wraps around the box encasing the Dodge and there’s more to see of K P’s uniquely presented creation at their photostream via the link above, plus you can click on the following links to check out our reviews of IDisplayIt and BOXXCO‘s cases for rather larger LEGO models…
From one of the most extravagant vintage cars to one of the least. This is the Austin 7, so called because it had seven horsepower, and it was one of the most popular inter-war cars on the British market.
Produced from the early 1920s until 1939, the 7 was less than half the weight of the Ford Model T and proved incredibly popular, being sold under license in France, Germany, and even in Japan (although rather less-licensed) as the first Nissan.
This lovely Town scale recreation of the 7 comes from serial bloggee _Tiler, who’s captured it beautifully. Bicycle wheels, a rubber-band grille, and some cunningly constructed cycle-wings accurately portray the tiny vintage car, and there’s more to see at _Tiler’s photostream via the link above.
“It was a rich cream colour, bright with nickel, swollen here and there in its monstrous length with triumphant hatboxes and supper-boxes and tool-boxes, and terraced with a labyrinth of windshields that mirrored a dozen suns”.
It was also – in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel ‘The Great Gatsby’ – a Rolls Royce. However Baz Luhrmann, never one to let reality interrupt the stylised nature of his films, cast a 1929 Duesenberg Model J in his 2013 move adaptation, set in 1922.
Despite deviating from both the book and, er… time, the Duesenberg Model J was the perfect vehicle with which to represent the extraordinary opulence of the story’s titular character. The fastest and most expensive automobile of the time, the Duesenberg Model J was the car of choice for America’s ultra-wealthy, with bodywork created by any number of American or European coach-builders, a weight of up to three tons, and a straight-eight engine that could, if optionally supercharged in ‘SJ form’, make 400bhp.
This astounding model of the Duesenberg SJ used in 2013’s ‘The Great Gatsby’ is the work of the fantastically talented Adrian Drake and is – like its real-world counterpart – quite unfathomably long.
Measuring 144 studs from front to rear bumper, with a complete interior behind four opening doors, LED lighting, and the most intricate and incredible brick-built wheels we’ve ever seen, Adrian’s creation is fit for the most mysterious of 1920s millionaires.
It also wears a truly jaw-dropping body, created from a myriad of overlapping bricks, plates and tiles, that can only be accomplished when building at a scale as large as this.
A stunning collection of imagery reveals Adrian’s ‘The Great Gatsby’ Duesenberg SJ in phenomenal detail, and you can find it – along with the builder’s other works – on Flickr. Click the link above to take a ride across 1920s New York, and here to see the real movie car doing just that in Baz Lurhmann’s gloriously over-the-top film interpretation.
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.
Built from 1923 to until the Second World War, the Austin Seven was Britain’s answer to the Ford Model-T, except it may have been even more influential.
Powered by a 10hp 750cc straight-4, weighing just 360kg (less than half a Model-T!), and with a 75 inch wheelbase, the Seven proved ridiculously popular, replacing almost every other British cyclecar and economy car of the 1920s.
The design became the first BMW car (being built in Germany under licence), the first Nissan car (being built in Japan, er… not under license), was produced in France and America, and formed the basis of both the first McLaren racing car and the first Lotus.
It was also, being British, given a silly nickname, becoming known as the “Chummy”. Nope, we don’t know why either.
This rather wonderful Town-scale recreation of the Seven “Chummy’ comes from previous bloggee _Tiler, who has both built and presented it beautifully. There’s more to see of this pedigree build at his Flickr photostream, and you can head to 1920s Britain via the link in the text above.
The late ’20s and early ’30s are a much romanticised time. Art deco architecture, wild opulence, delightful dancing, extravagant hats, tuberculosis, fascism, the Great Depression…
Anyway, the vehicles and buildings from the time really were marvellous, and it’s these (rather than tuberculosis and unemployment) that Andrew Tate (no, not that one) has chosen to capture in brick form.
Andrew’s wonderful ‘Streamliner Van’ pictured above is part of a much larger – and absolutely stunning – ‘Metropolitan Club’ scene, and there’s much more to see of both it and the club at his photostream.
Put on your best hat and click the link above to join in.
This fictional First World War era biplane was discovered by one of our Elves on Flickr, and you can practically hear the rush of the propellor. Kirill Simerzin is the builder and you can take the skies a century ago via the link to his photostream above.
This ace looking aircraft is a Savoia S.21 racing floatplane, as featured in the Japanese animated movie ‘Porco Rosso’. Like most things from Japanese cartoons (fighting robots, ball-stored transforming creatures, giant lizards, and improbably-proportioned schoolgirls to name a few), the Savoia S.21 not real, but it is titled after (and vaguely inspired by) an actual 1910s Italian floatplane.
Flown by a cigarette smoking, wine drinking, moustachioed pig, the S.21 is used to hunt air pirates, who are like regular pirates, only in the air. Look, it doesn’t have to make any sense, the plane’s still cool, and there’s more to see of this Lego version courtesy of LEGO7 on Flickr via the link.
This is a Baureihe 57 / Prussian G10, a German steam locomotive built in the 1910s-’20s for heavy goods transport. Around 2,600 Prussian G10s were produced, with an extra one – pictured here – arriving courtesy of Pieter Post, who has recreated the steam train in beautiful detail. Powered by a hidden Power Functions L Motor and BuWizz bluetooth battery, Pieter’s Prussian G10 is depicted navigating a wonderfully constructed forest track, complete with a transformer building and the best pine trees we’ve ever seen. Top of the billing however, is the smoke – which looks as real as anything made from plastic bricks could possibly be. Click the link above to smoke your way through a German forest in the 1920s.
Today’s beautiful brick-based image comes from previous bloggee Pieter Post, who – in collaboration with two other builders – has created this gorgeous Prussian P8 steam locomotive, tender, prisoner car, post and luggage car, and passenger coaches, along with the stunning heather-landscape in which it is pictured.
Produced for a Lego train show in the Netherlands, Pieter and his compatriots’ 1920s steam train includes a BuWizz bluetooth battery powering bespoke LED lighting and three L Motors concealed within the tender and boiler driving custom wheels.
Full details can be found and Pieter’s photostream and you can traverse the heather on board his Prussian P8 steam locomotive via the link in the text above.
This is a Lanz HL12 Bulldog, a 1920s German tractor powered by a single cylinder ‘hot bulb’ engine that was so ubiquitous, in some parts of Germany tractors are still known as ‘bulldogs’.
‘Hot bulb’ engines featured very few moving parts, no carburettor, no cooling system, and – much like the flux-capacitor in Doc Brown’s time machine – could run on almost anything.
This one has been recreated wonderfully by Nikolaus Löwe, who has replicated not only the engine but the Lanz’s full suite of 1920s mechanicals, and there’s more to see at his ‘Lanz HL12 Bulldog’ album via the link above.
We love vintage cars here at The Lego Car Blog. Particularly ones that go ‘aaoogha!‘ Because we’re idiots.
This marvellous Ford Model T would certainly go ‘aaoogha!’ if it were real, and there’s more to see of this beautifully presented vintage motoring icon courtesy of _Tiler. Check it out at his photostream via the link.
Oh go on, one more…