Tag Archives: 1970s

War on the Streets

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Lego Toyota Hiace

South Africans love their Toyotas. Reliability is everything in such a vast, dangerous and empty landscape. However this particular Toyota is feared and loathed by anyone not at the wheel.

It is of course the Hiace, and it’s the favoured tool of South Africa’s criminally-run minibus taxi companies, who – much like the drug cartels of South America – are at war over territory, regularly killing one another in order to expand or protect their business interests.

Ageing, dangerously maintained, and wildly overloaded Hiaces make up the majority of the taxi fleets, and almost all are driven with a suicidal abandon that ensures the road ahead of them is quickly cleared.

This 1979 example typical of South Africa’s most dangerous vehicle comes from Flickr builder and regular bloggee Senator Chinchilla, and you can see more (from a safe distance) at his photostream – click the link to make the jump.

Lego Toyota HiAce

 

Hong Kong Fooey

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Lego Technic HK Truck RC

This little 1970s Hong Kong style truck comes from previous bloggee shineyu of Eurobricks. There’s a remote control drivetrain hidden inside the neat Technic body and you can see more at the Eurobricks discussion forum via the link above.

Streaky Bacon

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Lego Porsche 917K Herrmann/Attwood

This stripy porker comes from TLCB favourite Greg998, who has added another gorgeous classic racing car to his already impressive stable.

His latest model is a recreation of one of the most successful (and dangerous) endurance racers of the 1970s; the incredible Porsche 917. This example was driven by Herrmann and Atwood for Porsche Salzburg in 1970, giving Porsche their first ever overall Le Mans victory.

Beautifully built and decaled, you can see more of Greg’s stunning Porsche on Flickr – click here to make the jump to his epic photostream.

French Fancy

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Lego Citroen CX

After a decade making rubbish France’s three manufacturers of mass-produced cars have finally re-discovered their joy de vivre. Perhaps none more so than Citroen, who after years of automotive drivel now have a cracking range of cars on the way following the recently released and thoroughly excellent C4 Cactus.

Today’s find takes us back to the last time France made interesting cars, being a glorious 1970s CX. Built by serial bloggee Ralph Savelsberg it captures the CX’s streamlined shape beautifully and features opening hood, doors and trunk. See more of Ralph’s classic Citroen at his photostream via the link above. Vive La France!

Lego Citroen CX

 

The Maximum Force of the Future

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Lego technic Mad Max V8 Interceptor

TLCB Elves only like two types of movies; those with robots, explosions and car chases, and those with Megan Fox in. Handily the Transformers franchise provides them with all of this, but Mad Max is a fairly close second, despite the Megan Fox shaped hole in it.

We haven’t let them watch the newest addition to the saga yet (the Elves are banned from our local cinema due a series of unfortunate incidents), but the late ’70s original and its ’80s sequel are regular fodder for the old TV/VHS combo situated in their cage room. But only once they’ve brought a Mad Max creation back for us to blog of course.

Today one Elf has been fed and lots more are happily cheering and whooping at the TV downstairs, because this most excellent Mad Max creation was brought into the office.

Hailing from the early original movies, Paave’s V8 Interceptor ‘Pursuit Special’ features Buggy Motor propulsion, a servo for steering, an on-board Li-Po battery, working suspension, and a whirling supercharger pulley.

There’s more to see of his brilliant creation on both MOCpages and Eurobricks – click the links to make the jump.

Technic Mad Max Car

CHiPs

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Lego Kawasaki Police Motorcycle

TLCB favourite Ralph Savelsberg is back with another superb TV show build, although this time it’s one that no-one in TLCB Towers has heard of.

CHiPs was apparently an American 1970s-1980s cop drama, featuring California Highway Patrol’s finest law enforcers, some lovely Kawasaki 1000 motorbikes, and lots of ridiculous freeway pile-ups. We think the Elves would probably love it.

There’s more to see of Ralph’s latest build on Flickr – click this link to hit the on-ramp.

Falconry

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Lego Ford Falcon XA

This beautiful classic Ford Falcon XA comes from TLCB regular Senator Chinchilla. There’s lots more of this Australian classic to see on Flickr – click here to make the jump to the Senator’s photostream.

Lego Ford Falcon

For Your Eyes Only

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Lego Lotus Esprit James Bond 007

The James Bond movie franchise is back to its very best at the moment, being dark, slightly brutal and a bit lonely. Which is exactly as it should be.

In the late ’70s to early ’80s though, the movies were an altogether different proposition, and had become almost a parody of themselves. The one bright spot in this ’70s ridiculousness was Bond’s car; the glorious Lotus Esprit Turbo.

There’s no way the British secret service would have ever selected Lotus as a provider of government vehicles of course, seeing as Bond would have spent more time fixing his Esprit than going anywhere in it, but it made for a very cool movie car. Especially when it was fitted with a few nautical modifications from Q-Branch.

This lovely mini-figure recreation of the iconic ’80s sports car complete with 007 himself comes from TLCB regular ER0L and you can join him on a secret mission on Flickr by clicking the link above.

Italian-American Icon

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Lego De Tomaso Pantera

Tempting as it is to dip into a Family Guy-like Italian-American stereotype for this post, having rightly got into trouble before, we’ll simply stick to saying that Italian design plus American power is a pretty good combination. Oddly it’s a formula that hasn’t often appeared, but De Tomaso gave it a good go for two decades following the launch of the Pantera in 1971. This neat Model Team example has been built by serial bloggee Senator Chinchilla, and you can see more of his brick-built classic on Flickr by clicking here.

Flunder

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Lego Porsche 908/02 LH Flunder

With the news today that the Volkswagen Group has made a spectacular blunder the Elves were duly sent out to find a MOC that we could relate to the story. Unfortunately the Elves are idiots, so this 1970 Porsche 908/02 ‘Flunder’ is as close as they got. Still, it’s only one letter away and to be fair to them here at TLCB Towers they do hear a lot of words beginning with ‘F’…

Anyway, back to Volkswagen. Today’s news that the company have rigged the NOX emissions of their diesel vehicles in order to bypass air quality laws is one heck of a blunder. Actually, it’s not even a blunder. It’s a thoroughly despicable, bordering on evil, business decision to put profit ahead of peoples’ well-being. The NOX levels emitted by the affected Volkswagen Group vehicles are up to 40 times the legal limit, directly damaging the lung tissue of those that breathe it, and causing a variety of respiratory diseases and even biological mutations. Yup, we’re going to stick with ‘evil’.*

So far Porsche, a subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group, are unaffected by the scandal – although only because they don’t yet use the group’s 4-cylinder diesel engines.

The glorious 1970 Porsche 908/02 ‘Flunder’ pictured above comes from a time when emissions could legally be quietly ignored, being powered by a three-litre flat-8 engine making just under 400bhp (and it still emitted less NOX than a modern VW diesel). The 908 raced alongside the bigger 917, being favoured on twisty tracks where the 917 was too cumbersome, and the example above raced at Le Mans in 1970 in the hands of Rudi Lins and Helmut Marko.

Previous bloggee Greg 998 is the builder and you can see more of his beautiful 908 on both MOCpages and Flickr.

Lego Porsche 908 Flunder

*TLCB – somewhat unbelievably – predicted this back in March(!). We’re still awaiting a call requesting our services from the investigators at the Environmental Protection Agency. We’re sure it’ll be any day now…

What We Have Here is a Total Lack of Respect for the Law!

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Lego Pontiac Trans-Am Smokey and the Bandi

Ralph Savelsberg continues his fantastic run of movie cars with an epic from 1977 – the famous black n’ gold Pontiac Trans-Am from ‘Smokey and the Bandit’. Brick Reynolds makes an appearance too. Get Eastbound and Down on Flickr at the link above.

BanZai!

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Lego Datsun 240Z

Flickr’s _Tiler could have his own page here at TLCB, so regularly does he appear. His latest build is a model that we want so much it hurts. His brilliant wide-arched Datsun 240Z shows you don’t need to build big to build special. You can see more of _Tiler’s 6-wide masterpiece at his photostream – click the link above to make the jump.

Elf For a Day

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Lego Freightliner Truck

Our Elves have barely a rudimentary grasp of even the English language, so unfortunately foreign-language sites are largely missed here at TLCB. However, a Doktor Brick member (Pat) got in touch with a suggestion from the German Lego forum, so it’s over to him as guest blogger…

We at Doktor Brick have some really good car builders and designers… Today I’d like to present you this excellent Freightliner Truck from the 1970s. The model is 8-studs wide and fits well into the latest Lego City universe. Pet-tho is the builder and you can see all of his photos (plus some explanation in German) by clicking here.

If you’d like to get in touch with us as Pat has done you can do so by visiting the Feedback and Submission Suggestions page. We’ve even archived the hundreds of previous comments so the page won’t take an hour to load anymore too!

Beer Baron

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Lego Beer Wagon Hot Rod Tom Daniels

Legendary hot rod creator and Hot Wheels design consultant Tom Daniel built some amazing vehicles during his illustrious career. This superb Lego recreation of his iconic hot rod the ‘Beer Wagon’ comes from legendary Lego car creator and LUGNuts curator Lino Martins, and it’s his second entry into TLCB Summer Building Competition.

Lego Elven Vomit

Featuring a slew of chromed pieces, bright yellow paint and a monster engine Lino’s Beer Wagon has scored a barrel-load of points in the competition. He earned himself a few bonus points too – having read a potted history of Elven illness, Lino captured the moment a few of our Elves discovered the beer in the back of the truck. Things did not end well, and we have a feeling that the office airhorn may be even more effective than usual today.

You can see more of the Lino’s Beer Wagon and its effect on TLCB Elves by clicking here, and you can read the full competition details, prizes up for grabs and scoring criteria by clicking this link to TLCB Summer Building Competition page.

TLCB Summer Building Competition

Flower Power

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Lego VW Camper

We’d steer clear of this flower-laced Volkswagen T2 camper – it’s most likely filled with smelly hippies and dirty bong water. But it does make for a neat Lego model. Filip Gabryel is the builder and there’s more to see here.