Undercover detectives need an understated, invisible ride. Something that draws no attention, that can slip by unnoticed. A Dodge minivan for example. Or a Toyota Corolla. Not a bright red Ford Gran Torino with a giant white vector stripe down each side.
Still, maybe things were different in the ’70, and Starksy & Hutch’s wheels still seemed to nab them plenty of crooks. Cue Pasq67‘s 8-wide recreation of one of TV’s most famous vehicles, complete with Starsky & Hutch mini-figures and ‘magnetic’ pot-plant flashing beacon. Oh, and a giant white vector stripe down each side of course.
Head to Pasq’s Flickr album via the link above for all the imagery and click here for a nearly twenty-minute montage of the real Gran Torino in action!
Technic Supercars are not defined by the type of car they would be in the real world. Most would still be super cars of course, but some… some are little more mundane. Like a Fiat 125p for example. And we love them for this.
This heroically humdrum Technic Supercar is the work of Porsche96, who has created Fiat’s 1960s sedan in unbelievable accuracy. In fact Fiat’s regular 125 was too flashy for Porsche96, who decided to built the 125p version; the Polski-Fiat built under license by FSO in Poland until a scarcely believable 1991.
Porsche96’s recreation of the Polish peoples’ car includes all of the prerequisites to be classified as a Technic Supercar, plus a whole lot more besides. Working steering, a functioning four-cylinder engine and four-speed gearbox, and all-wheel suspension tick all the Supercar boxes, whilst remote control for the drive, steering, and even gearbox (thanks to a suite of Power Functions motors and servos, plus an SBrick and BuWizz battery) goes much further indeed.
There are opening and locking doors, an opening bonnet with a working interior release mechanism, adjustable seats, LED head and tail lights, and also fully removable bodywork.
It all adds up to Porcshe96’s Fiat 125p being one of the most accurately engineered (and brilliantly built) Technic Supercars that we’ve ever featured, even if the real world car is about as far from a super car as it is possible to be. Which somehow makes this model all the cooler.
There’s much more to see including a full build description on Eurobricks, the complete and extensive gallery of images can be found on Bricksafe, and building instructions are available via Rebrickable. Plus you watch this amazing Technic Supercar in action via the brilliant video below.
This is a 1970s C110-series Nissan Skyline GT-R, known as the ‘Kenmeri’ because the advertising campaign for the C110 Skyline featured a couple called Ken and Mary. Yes, really. Still, Nissan’s marketing department were to take British old people’s names literally soon after, with the ‘Silvia’, ‘Gloria’, and even the ‘Cedric’.
Back to the C110 GR-R, which was only sold for 6 months – and only in the Japanese domestic market – before the oil crisis of 1973 ended sales at less than 200 units. High performance cars were looked down upon in Japan during the crisis and the Kenmeri was quickly pulled from production, making it an incredibly rare car today.
TLCB regular Jonathan Elliott has added one more C110 GT-R to the list though, with this brilliant 7-wide Speed Champions style recreation of Nissan’s rarest Skyline variant. Jonathan has captured the real car beautifully there’s more to see at his photostream – click the link above to make the jump.
Short things are sometimes good things. Shortbread for example. Being short-listed. Skirts. Salma Hayek. OK, we’re getting off track, but this Volkswagen T1 Camper ‘Shortie’ by 1saac W of Flickr is definitely a good thing, and you can see more of it at his photostream just a short click away.
You’re stuck inside, we’re stuck inside, build us a B-Model to win an awesome prize! Two more TLCB readers have done just that, building alternates from the Technic 42098 Car Transporter and Creator 10242 Mini Cooper respectively. First up (above) is cleansupgood‘s pick-up truck, shown here in digital form but also built for real. Opening doors, a dropping tailgate, a working V8 engine and functioning steering all feature and you can see more of Clean’s 42098 B-Model via Bricksafe at the link above.
This post’s second entry comes from newcomer Jan Geurts, who has repurposed the Creator 10242 Mini Cooper set to build another British classic, the MG Midget. Jan’s 10242 B-Model includes opening doors, an opening hood (with a detailed engine underneath), and an opening trunk complete with an external luggage rack. There’s more to see on Flickr via the link above, and if you’d like to enter your own B-Model into TLCB Lock-Down Competition you can read the contest details here.
The Space Race was an incredible time. Not only were the two world Superpowers spending millions on things to blow one another up and poison the earth for a hundred-thousand years, they were also spending millions sending things into space. Probably so they could use it to blow one another up and poison the earth for a hundred-thousand years, but still – it was pretty cool.
It was the U.S. that got to the moon first (and is still the only nation to have done so)*, but it was actually the Soviet Union that won pretty much every other race, sending the first satellite into space, the first man, the first woman, and conducting the first EVA (extra-vehicular activity); or spacewalk to us non-astronaut types.
Of course getting there was only half the battle, as getting home again (unless you were a Soviet dog) was just as tricky. To that end the Soviets developed this in the 1970s; the remarkable Zil 4906. They may have won the Race for Space but the Americans had a much better Naming Department.
The ZIL 4906’s boring title hid its remarkable ability, being a 6×6 amphibious off-road crane designed to fit aboard a transport plane and recover the Soyuz astronaut capsules from the vast Russian wilderness.
Powered by a standard Zil 150bhp V8 the 4906’s weren’t fast, but they could go literally anywhere, with six-wheel-drive, four-wheel-steering, and two propellors with rudders for water recoveries.
This amazing Technic recreation of one of the Soviet Union’s coolest designs comes from previous bloggee Samolot, who has replicated the 4906’s incredible drivetrain brilliantly in Lego form. Two Control+ XL Motors power all six wheels, with a separate driveshaft for each side. This allows a gearbox to transfer power to the propellors when in water, whilst the L Motor that steers the front and rear axles also turns the two rudders.
A second L Motor controls the differential locks, whilst a fourth powers a compressor that builds pressure for the pneumatic crane, which the real Zil 4906 used to fish the Soyuz capsules from watery landings. A LEGO Education WeDo motor winds the crane winches and all of the above is controlled via bluetooth courtesy of LEGO’s new Powered Up Control+ system.
It’s a remarkable build and one that is definitely worth a closer look, which you can do at Eurobricks – where full build details are available, Bricksafe – which houses a complete image gallery of both Samolot’s Technic Zil 4906 and the real deal, and via the excellent video below.
YouTube Video
*Unless you believe it was filmed in a studio, the Earth is flat, and that climate change is a hoax invented by Al Gore. In which case go back to school.
We didn’t get ‘The Dukes of Hazzard’ here in TLCB’s home nation, but we wish we had. After all, what’s not to like about a Dodge Charger jumping over a river, a tractor, a train, a barn, a truck full of outhouses, a truck full of barrels… you get the idea.
Unfortunately this meant hundreds of ’69 Dodge Chargers – now incredibly valuable cars – were sacrificed in the name of entertainment, but they were a bit less valuable in the ’70s and ’80s.
Flickr’s Chris Radbone has put one back though, with his enormous Model Team recreation of the Duke Boys’ ’69 Dodge Charger ‘General Lee’, complete with working steering, a V8 engine, a 5-speed gearbox, and authentic ’01’ decals and flag-with-slightly-racist-connotations on the roof.
His near 8kg model also includes working suspension, so presumably he can jump it over various household obstacles in proper ‘Dukes of Hazzard’ fashion. Head to Chris’ photostream to join the good ‘ol boys!
It’s time for a Picture Special here at the TLCB because this might just be our favourite creation of 2020 so far. This specular model is a Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona Competizione, recreated in stunning detail by Manuel Cara of Flickr.
Manuel’s breathtaking replica of Ferrari’s early-’70s racing Daytona captures the real car with astonishing accuracy, including custom period-correct decals, a detailed engine bay underneath an opening hood, and a race-accurate interior inside opening doors.
Clever techniques are in abundance, particularly around the window frames, but our favourite pieces are those wonderful headlights. There’s more to see at Manuel’s Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona Competizione album on Flickr – click the link above to make the jump and join us there.
It’s 1969, Man has landed on the moon, the Jumbo Jet makes its debut, and Woodstock hosts 350,000 spectators at the greatest musical festival the world has ever known. Things couldn’t get any cooler. And indeed they didn’t, as the era of free love ended almost as precisely as the decade did, the oil crisis hit, the world went on strike, and everything became a shade of beige or brown.
Hot Wheels ended the decade on a high too though, with their spectacular concept ‘Splittin’ Image’, recreated here in beautiful accuracy by TLCB favourite Lino Martins, complete with oversize engine and twin canopies.
A little over fifty years later and history seems to be repeating itself, with the world spiralling towards some kind of bleak apocalypse, factories shut, hospitals full, and even brown making a comeback on cars. It seems a perfect time to revisit Splittin’ Image then, not just because it hinged on the pivot between two very different times (as we suspect we are too right now), but also because with two separate cockpits it’s perfect for social distancing!
Head to Lino’s photostream via the link above, isolate yourself in one of the cockpits, and hope things aren’t about to go all 1970s on us.
This beautiful racing car is a Renault Alpine A442, built by Renault-owned Alpine in the mid-1970s and powered by a tiny Renault 2 litre turbocharged V6 with one aim; win Le Mans. First entered in 1976 the team won on their third attempt in ’78, an all-French victory at the country’s most prestigious racing event.
This incredible replica of the race-winning Alpine comes from Jerac of Flickr, who has recently re-photographed his model on a new glass background creating the brilliant mirror presentation you see in the images here. Accurate decals complete the realism and you can see more of Jerac’s astonishing build at his photostream.
Jerac’s phenomenal presentation is aided by his superb glass background, but you don’t have to use one to showcase your creations beautifully. Check out some hints on how to best present your models with just natural light and a sheet of card by clicking here.
Italy, no stranger to maniacal despots itself, had a nice little business selling its old products to scumbag dictatorships in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. The most famous of these is probably the Polski-Fiat 126, built under license in Poland alongside the Italian made, and actually quite good, Fiat 126.
The two cars were almost identical in the 1970s, with the Polski version using a few lower specified components but otherwise being indistinguishable save for a little ‘p’ on badge.
The Italian-made 126 ceased production in 1980 after an eight year production run, however the Polski-Fiat version, with its Communist standard long waiting list (with Poles largely dependent upon coupons from the Government to buy one), survived for another twenty years, by which point it really was a turd.
This wonderful model of the Polski-Fiat 126 isn’t a turd at all though, being a thoroughly excellent recreation of the humble Polish peoples’ car. Built by previous bloggee Dornbi of Flickr it captures the real 126p beautifully (and is pictured above alongside an equally good communist counterpart Trabant).
Head to Poland (via Italy) sometime in the 1980s at Dornbi’s photostream by clicking on the link above.
This beautifully presented Datsun 240Z ‘Fairlady’ could be yours! Well, not this one; it’s owned by builder SP_LINEUP, but he’s also released his superb restomod classic Datsun as a kit available to buy. The model includes opening doors that reveal a wonderfully detailed interior, and an opening hood under which lives an accurately replicated RB26DET engine. See more of SP’s stunning Datsun 240Z at his photostream – click the link above to make the jump.
Green is very much in fashion right now. Totally misreading the memo is Michael217 of Eurobricks, whose ‘green’ car is a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda dragster.
Powered by a LEGO Buggy Motor and with Servo steering (not that dragsters really need it), Michael’s ‘Cuda is fully RC, and – as you can see – it really is very green. We’re not sure it’s Greta Thunberg’s sort of green though.
Head to the Eurobricks forum via the link to see more of Michael’s build and to find a link to the complete gallery of images.
Cars in the 1970s tended to look like this. Or this. Or this. Or this. And then the Lamborghini Countach came along, from space.
Launched in 1974 the world hadn’t seen anything like it, and the car instantly became a cult bedroom wall icon. It’s fortunate however, that most people know the Countach from a poster rather than from driving one, because they would probably be rather disappointed.
Why not stick to this then, Jerac‘s incredible Model Team replica of the 1970s icon. Jerac has captured the Countach’s wild shape to perfection and he’s even made instructions available so you can build your very own. Which means you can own a Countach for the looks without having to drive one, which really is what the car is all about.
Head to Jerac’s photostream via the link above to find of all his superb images plus a link to building instructions too.
Not all Skylines are equal… You may know the Nissan Skyline as the all-wheel-drive turbocharged supercar killer, but the reality is it’s much more than that. By ‘more’, we might also mean ‘less’ though, as this boring 1600cc estate car is in fact a Nissan Skyline.
The Skyline name in Japan (and elsewhere) is used on standard family boxes as well as the turbocharged monsters that were exported to Europe and America, which are based on these humble beginnings.
This particular Skyline is a C110 series, produced from 1972 to 1977 and marketed as the Datsun K-Series in some export markets. A GT-R version was available, fitted with a 2000cc straight-six, but most were 1600 and 1800cc inline-fours making well under 100bhp. The estate, as built here by previous bloggee Matthew Terentev, was a peculiar thing in that it had no windows between the C and D pillars, making it sort of a van. Until we looked this up we had assumed Matthew had chosen to blank off the rear windows to hide the Power Functions remote control components that he has fitted to his model.
As it turns out, his design is remarkably accurate and one that’s worth a closer look. You can do just that at his Nissan Skyline 1800 Wagon album on Flickr. Click the link above for the most boring route into Skyline ownership…
