Tag Archives: 1960s

Stud Bug

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In contrast to this site’s bodged operation and shoe-string budget, TLCB usually publishes models at the exotic end of the vehicular scale. Sleek, powerful, rare… the cars we feature are the opposite of both this site and the cars found in our office carpark. But not today!

Yup, this time we have a vehicle that is far more befitting of our social status, being cheap, common, and rather dumpy, it’s the humble Volkswagen Beetle, a car built in its millions to transport the masses.

Better yet this is a deeply uncool unmodified one, as 99% of those on the world’s roads are,  driven not by hipsters on their way to a trendy festival, but by ordinary workers to ordinary places.

It comes from gaehno of Brickshelf, and not only does it look fantastic – constructed as it is in traditional studs-up fashion using basic System pieces – it’s also packed with brilliant Technic functionality.

A working flat-four-cylinder engine is mated to a four-speed gearbox, there’s functioning steering, a working parking brake, switchable windscreen wipers that operate as the model drives, opening and lockable doors, front trunk and engine cover, adjustable seats, folding sun visors, and even an opening glovebox.

There’s more of the model to see at gaehno’s Brickshelf gallery, and you can take a look at one of the world’s least glamorous cars, built in a beautifully unglamorous way, via the link in the text above.

Fall in the Forest

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It’s nearly summer here in TLCB’s home nation, but somewhere in the world it’s autumn, which is all the excuse we need to publish this gorgeous autumnal scene from regular bloggee 1saac W.

1saac’s beautiful Volkswagen ‘T2’ split-screen is pictured camping in a fantastic fall forest, complete with trees as wonderfully crafted as the bus beneath them. Join the tranquility at 1saac’s photostream via the link above.

Trucking Tuesday

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It’s a trucky sort of day here at The Lego Car Blog. Today’s second classic lorry comes from previous bloggee Martin Nespor, who has elected not to tell us what it is. No matter, because it’s still a lovely build, with a removable cab and ‘wooden’ load bed, a beautifully detailed chassis and engine, and there’s a matching drawbar trailer too. There’s more to see at Martin’s photostream, and you can check out all of the top-quality images via the link above.

Do As The Romans Do

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Or, in this case, do as everyone else does. This a Roman SR 113/114 truck, built in Romania in the 1960s, using – as many Communist manufacturers did – designs licensed from Western companies.

Early Roman trucks were clones of Soviet ZIL designs, however by the late ’50s Roman looked west for their engineering sources. Launched in 1958 the SR 113/114 truck used a Ford-designed engine mounted ahead of a French cab, and was available in a tipper, crane, military specifications.

Mercedes-Benz and Perkins engines powered export versions, and the model was built for around a decade before being superseded by designs licensed from West Germany’s MAN.

This excellent recreation of the Roman SR113/114 is the work of newcomer Pufarine, who has captured the classic Romanian truck beautifully. Fitted with Power Functions remote control drive and steering, Pufarine’s model also features opening doors, a raising hood, and a dropping tailgate, and there’s more to see at both Flickr and Eurobricks.

Click the links above to do as the Romans did. Which, as it turns out, was whatever the Soviet Union, America, France, and West Germany were doing.

Dictators Welcome

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Are you a discerning despot living life at the top? Do the buildings project your image, the people bestow you with affection, and toil not for their own glory but for that of the motherland?

Have you passed laws to ensure the populous knows what to read, the correct sexual orientation, and for whom to vote?

Do your political opponents keep having unfortunate accidents, such as falling to their death from a balcony, dying in a plane crash, being shot on a bridge, or unexpectedly passing at a penal colony?

Then we have the car for you!

Styled just like those inferior American automobiles, only vastly superior in every way, this is the GAZ-13 Chaika, powered by a glorious 195bhp 5.5 litre V8 mated to a push-button transmission, and designed only for those holding the most unchallenged leadership.

Instructions are available and if you’re appropriately autocratic, dictatorial, and under-endowed you can contact [Maks] to secure your GAZ-13 Chaika now!

 

My Other Car’s a Truck

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LEGO’s 10290 Creator Expert Pickup Truck set has spawned several excellent alternates thus far, and today we have another.

Built by FanisLego, 825 of the original set’s 1,677 pieces have been repurposed to create this lovely early Ford Bronco, complete with steering (ish), opening hood, doors and tailgate, a detailed engine, and superbly accessible interior.

Building instructions are available and you can convert your own 10290 Pickup set into the first iteration of Ford’s recently re-born icon at Bricksafe via the link above.

On Green… I’m Going for It

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The immortal words of Dominic Toretto, back in 2001 when he was a common street-racing thief and not an international spy or whatever the hell he’s supposed to be now he’s ten movies in.

Of course things didn’t end well for Dom after the lights did turn green (there’s a lesson there kids; real racers keep it at the track. And they don’t just race in a straight line), but fortunately Brian O’Conner was on hand to resupply the overgrown baby with another ‘ten second car’.

And fortunately for fans of the franchise (or those of you simply wanting to smash into a Dodge Charger with a freight train) previous bloggee IBrickedItUp has created both of the star cars from ‘The Fast and the Furious”s final scene in 6-wide Speed Champions form.

Building instructions are available so you can recreate the aforementioned scene at home, and you can live your life a-quarter-mile-at-a-time via the link above.

500 Green Bottles…

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Here at The Lego Car Blog we do not understand America’s obsession with enormous pick-up trucks. Seemingly used to carry only an American flag, a ‘MAGA’ bumper sticker, and an anti-vaxxer in denial of the election result, they’re a world away from the pick-up we’ve got here.

This is the Fiat 500 Camioncino, a tiny two-seat pick-up truck, capable of carrying… well, not very much. But easily what most American pick-ups seem to.

The cutesy brick-built version pictured here today is the work of Nuno Taborda, who has based it upon the official LEGO 10271 Fiat 500 set, much like the real Camioncino was adapted from the 500 city car too. With the rear seats, roof and bodywork replaced by a load bed fitted above the rear-mounted engine, there’s space for a few dozen green bottles to make their way to the piazza. And that’s considerably more than what’s in the beds of 95% of American pick-up trucks.

Join Nuno trundling across Italy in a pick-up truck small enough to fit in the bed of an F-150 via the link above. And there’s not a bumper sticker in sight.

Drove my Chevy to the Levy*

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The end of the ’60s seemed to mark the death of the American Dream. Picked up by Tarantino’s ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ and Don McLean’s ‘American Pie’, he drove his Chevy to the levy, but the levy was dry. If Don was disillusioned by Americana in 1971, how much further it has declined since then.

Yet the 1960s – and the American Dream found within them, its loss lamented by Don – are nevertheless worth celebrating, as successive generations cling on to a memory they never had.

No where is this more true than in automobiles, where new generations preserve and salute classic cars and trucks from an era in which they were not part, such as this fantastic 1966 Chevrolet C10 pick-up truck by Jakub Marcisz.

Complete with opening doors, hood and tailgate, working steering, and a brilliantly executed body, Jakub’s C10 has TLCB Team romanticising about the decade of civil rights, the space race, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, the assassination of JFK, race riots, Stonewall…

Perhaps then, the American dream was as flawed and unreachable for most in the 1960s as it is today, and Don’s ‘American Pie’ could have been applied just as pertinently a decade earlier. The cars though, like Jakub’s superb ’66 Chevy, surely were America’s automotive high-point.

*Today’s most poignant title song.

Where’s Buffy?

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We’ve not seen the TV show ‘Supernatural’. It sounds like ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’, only without Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And we only watched that show for, well… Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Still, whilst it’s missing the obvious key ingredient, ‘Supernatural’ does feature a cool car; an awesome black ’67 Chevrolet Impala.

This top-quality Model Team example of that car comes from previous bloggee Szunyogh Balázs, who has constructed and captured his Supernatural Impala model beautifully.

There are four opening doors, a detailed engine under an opening hood, an accurate brick-built drivetrain, and the trunk opens to reveal a weapons rack for hunting ghosts and ghouls. Although it might just be the content of the average American’s trunk.

There’s more of the model to see at both Eurobricks and Flickr, and you can take look via the links above if – unlike us – you haven’t already got distracted Googling pictures of Buffy the Vampire Sla…

Concordeski

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This is a Tupolev Tu-144D, and if looks like Concorde, that’s because it kind of was. Only much, much worse.

Rushed into the skies to beat Concorde to supersonic air-travel (which – by a few months – it did), the Tupolev Tu-144D flew just 102 commercial flights between the sixteen aircraft built, of which only 55 – for just seven months in 1977-78 – carried actual passengers. Which means that half of all the total Tu-144D flights only flew cargo. Supersonic cargo. Yay communism.

By 1983 the Tu-144D programme was halted completely, due to the aircraft’s unreliability, crashes and development issues (although weirdly NASA used the Tu-144D for supersonic testing up to 1999), and the aircraft were put on display around the Soviet Union, where they remain today.

This one however, is on display on SvenJ.‘s desk, having been beautifully constructed in brick form. Ingenious building techniques, detailed landing gear, and an accurate ‘Aeroflot’ livery make Sven’s Tupolev Tu-144D a wonderfully realistic replica of the Soviet supersonic airliner, and there’s more of the model to see on Flickr.

Click the link above to buy your supersonic ticket. Or perhaps just take a look, and then fly Concorde instead…

My Other Car’s a Camaro

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Whilst the ‘pony car’ revolution was sweeping America in the ’60s, pioneered by the Ford Mustang bringing affordable power to the masses, here in the UK we decided we wanted a piece of the action too.

Thus Ford of Europe decided to create its own sporty car for the common man, and the rather excellent looking Capri was born. Produced with twelve different engines ranging from 1.3 to >3.0 litres, there was a Capri for everyone, and it showed in the wildly successful sales figures.

Two generations of Capri followed the 1968 original, with the model name finally retired in the mid-’80s as buyers switched to hot hatchbacks. It’s the first generation we have pictured here, as built by previous bloggee Szunyogh Balázs (aka gnat.bricks) entirely from the parts found within the official LEGO Icons 10304 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 set.

Opening doors, hood and tailgate all feature, as does a detailed engine and a life-like interior, and there’s more of Szunyogh’s Ford Capri 10304 B-Model to see on Flickr. Click the link above to take a look at the UK’s equivalent of the Ford Mustang, built only from the parts of its fiercest rival.

Little Haulers

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After a few car-less days we have a trio of vehicular creations to showcase today. None are cars mind…

Still, they are excellent, hence their appearance here, and each proves you don’t need a million pieces or to know The Brothers Brick secret handshake to see your creation blogged.

First up is a vehicle from way back at the very beginning of the ‘Fast & Furious’ franchise, Brian’s Ford F-150 Lightning, complete with ‘The Racers Edge’ decals and a bed full of rather easily stolen car parts. Previous bloggee IBrickItUp is the builder and you can drive to Toretto’s to order a ‘tuna on white with no crust‘ via the link above.

Today’s second small-scale vehicle comes from Justus M., whose classic RV is quite magnificently beige. It also features some simply ingenious suspension, deploying your Mom’s recently blogged ‘golden handcuff’ pieces to brilliant effect. You can see how Justus has done it via the link to his photostream above, where you can also find a video of the springy ‘cuffs in action.

Today’s third and final creation is two really, with Thomas Gion‘s ace 1969 Dodge A100 van and BBQ smoker trailer in tow. As Thomas also goes by the moniker ‘HotDogSandwiches’ it’s a rather appropriate pairing, and you can grab a bun and tuck in to a perfectly smoked sausage via the link in the text above.

Flight 714 to Sydney

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The news that Putin’s… er, “chef” has been killed in a private plane “accident” is the top story of the moment, but private air travel seems fraught with peril even if you haven’t pissed off an under-endowed dictator, with a long list of celebrities lost to private air disasters over the years.

Of course it tends to be the rich and famous using private jets, a theme that French comic ‘The Adventures of Tintin’ explored way back in 1968 with ‘Flight 714 to Sydney’. Owned by a ‘millionaire who never laughs’, the fictional Carreidas 160 jet was hi-jacked by Tintin’s arch-nemesis Roberto Rastapopoulos in an effort to steal millions from the aircraft owner’s Swiss bank account. Also there was a volcanic eruption, telepathy, and aliens for some reason. 

Anyway, the plane ended up in the ocean, adding further weight to the cool-but-perilous argument, and Tintin flew commercial thereafter.

This lovely recreation of the aforementioned fictional jet – and the characters from the comic – comes from Stefan Johansson, who’s used some lovely techniques to capture the swoopy shape. An opening cabin door and detailed landing gear also feature, and there’s more to see at Stefan’s ‘Carreidas 160 – Flight 714 to Sydney’ album via the link above. It’s just probably best you don’t get on board…

Titchy Tanker

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This dinky 1950s Mercedes-Benz Unimog ‘Gasolin’ tanker probably isn’t going fill many gas tanks, but it’s going to look properly cute filling what it can. Christoph Ellermann‘s is the builder behind this wonderful classic off-road tractor, and you can fill your tank in the ’50s, as long as too many people haven’t filled theirs first, via the link in the text above.