One of the most inappropriately named cars ever made, the Dodge Royal Monaco was humungous lumbering barge from America’s automotive dustbin. It’s safe to assume the Dodge was probably not endorsed by the monarch of the tiny French-Mediterranian principality from which it derived its name. Curiously though, in Lego form the Monaco looks brilliant. At least when someone as talented as Flickr’s Dohoon Kim is the builder. See more at the link.
The incredible car above might look like something from science fiction, but it really was a Formula 1 racing car. A winning Formula 1 racing car too. Designed in the mid ’70s, the Tyrrell P34 debuted in 1976 and survived until the 1978 season. It wasn’t the only six-wheel car either, with Williams, March and even Ferrari experimenting with six-wheel layouts, although Tyrrell were the only team to actually race a such a design.
Powered by the legendary Ford Cosworth DFV engine the P34 finished third overall in the 1976 World Championship and fifth the following year, after which it was replaced with more a conventional design – partly because developing tyres for the twin front axels was becoming a problem for the tyre manufacturer Goodyear.
This brilliant Lego recreation of one of the most iconic Formula 1 cars of all time is the work of Greg 998, whose work also featured here last month. Underneath the beautiful 1970s bodywork sits a replica Cosworth DFV engine, and of course the clever twin steering system found on the real car.
You can see more of the Tyrrell P34 and Greg’s other work by visiting MOCpages, and if you’d like to see the current Formula 1 teams having the freedom to design cars like this, write a letter to Mr. Ecclestone. Who will immediately throw it in the bin and come up with a plan to award double points for the last race of the season, or something equally ridiculous. Wait, he already did that!?…
One of TLCB’s favourite groups, MOCpages’ Classic Race Teams, has gone quiet of late. However, MOCpages builder Greg 998 is single handedly keeping the theme going with his expanding garage of superb classic racing machinery. His work includes the Lotus 72, March Ford, Tyrrell 006 and Hunt’s 1976 McLaren shown here, as well as a variety of other historic Formula 1, CanAm and LeMans racers. Just iron your sheets Greg!
Over the past week The Lego Car Blog has been a bit more ‘Truck’ than ‘Car’. Today we return to our job description with a blog post Special to celebrate one of the team’s favourite builders, the incredible Malte Dorowski.
Malte has featured here several times over the years with his beautiful racing cars. Today – after some time away from the Lego community – he has finally returned, with this completely gorgeous Porsche 911 Carrera RSR Turbo.
Built in 1974 and raced by the Martini Porsche works team, the Carrera RSR Turbo heralded a new dawn for racing cars, making 500bhp from just 2.1 litres with the aid of a huge turbocharger. Malte has recreated not only the car but also its incredible flat-6 engine in astounding detail, using a variety of unusual LEGO pieces ranging from flags to robot hands.
The Porsche’s bodywork is just as inventive, with elephant tusks, mini-figure SCUBA flippers and harpoons all making perfectly judged appearances. See if you can spot them all; take a trip to Malte’s superb Flickr photostream or visit his awesome MOCpages account, where he also includes a link to the Classic Race Teams group which has inspired so many creations like his.
Today’s post comes from TLCB regular Karwik, who returns with another stunning Town-scale truck. This time it’s an unusual Skoda 706, a truck that was made for nearly 30 years in Eastern Europe. Kawrik’s superb attention to detail abounds on this model, and you can see more high quality images via his photostream here.
After some big posts last week we kick of the new week with something a bit smaller. This beautiful classic Polish Autosan H9-35 bus was built by Maciej Drwiega on Flickr. It may only be ‘Town’ scale but the detail is as intricate as on the largest model we’ve posted here. You can see more of the Autosan via the link above.
The Lego Car Blog veteran Senator Chinchilla is back, with one of the office’s favourite cars, the brilliant Lotus Esprit. The Lotus though, came from one of the least appetising eras of automotive design. In the late ’70s cars were designed with rulers, and only rulers, interiors were made entirely from nasty grey plastic, and reliability – until the Japanese arrived at least – hovered somewhere between crap and really crap.
Somehow though, Lotus took all this and created one of the most desirable cars ever made. Penned by Giorgetto Giugiaro and his ruler the Series 1 Esprit launched in 1976, featuring a small 160bhp 4-cylinder engine attached to a Citroen gearbox. Not a recipe for speed then, but it looked fantastic and drove brilliantly. And if you were James Bond you could even tick ‘amphibious’ on the options list.
Four years and two series later the Esprit finally got the power it deserved, through the addition of the newfangled turbocharger, and a legend was born. Senator’s Lego model of the S1 is where it all started though, and you can see all the photos of his excellent recreation via Flickr at the link above.
The Elves are a bit grumpy this morning, as this post wasn’t found by them, but by one of our readers. Still, they should’ve been quicker. Alexander Paschoaletto is a previous ‘Featured TFOL’ here at TLCB, and he joins us as a Guest Blogger to explain his find:
If you’re looking for amazing recreations of remarkable Le Mans cars, then Greg 998 must be in your favorite builders list. From iconic Porsches to historic Ferraris, Greg knows how to ally functions to design.
His latest model, the great Ferrari 312 P(b) in 1:8 scale, features both steering and suspension. Not only this, he also made it according to the original colours and stickers! Having built the ’71 model myself and knowing how difficult is it to keep the proportions, I can only hope to be as skilled as him in the future. Keep building, Greg!
You can check out Alexander’s recommendation on MOCpages here.
Previous bloggee Maciej Drwiega makes his third appearance in three months here at The Lego Car Blog with this superb 1978 Kenworth K100C Cab-Over Flat-Top. Maciej is rapidly becoming one of the premier truck builders on Flickr, and you can see this and his previous creations via his photostream here.
The Lego Car Blog Elves are wising up on the builders to watch in their hunt for the best vehicular creations the web has to offer. Flickr’s Thietmaier has featured on these pages a few times before with his excellent Town scale vehicles, so his latest creation, a beautiful 1970’s Volvo F88 Articulated flatbed truck, prompted a race back to the office from several Elves keen for a meal. The winning Elf is currently tucking into a green Smartie, whilst the losers have been despondently ejected from the office to continue their search. See more of the Volvo at Thietmaier’s photostream here.
This spectacular Model Team creation was discovered on Flickr by one of The Lego Car Blog’s multitude of Elves (if anyone knows what the collective term for Elves is please let us know). It’s a 1970 Plymouth Superbird, built by the car geniuses Bing-Bong Brothers. The Superbird was the American manufacturers first attempt at applying downforce to a race car, with the aim of generating more stability and grip for NASCAR oval racing.
The rules stated that the race car must be based on a road-going vehicle, and thus Plymouth created just under 2,000 Superbirds for the road, so you could look as ridiculous on the street as it looked on the track. You might think the colossal rear wing was placed optimally to generate maximum downforce whilst minimising drag, but actually it’s that high simply to allow the trunk lid to open!
It’s estimated around 1,000 Plymouth Superbirds survive today, and those that remain are amongst the most expensive and sought after muscle cars ever built. You can see more of the ‘Brothers far more affordable LEGO version at their excellent photostream via the link above.
The chase. The desert. The shack. The girl. The roadblock. The end. Nick Barrett recreates the ultimate road movie with his superb forced-perspective scene from the legendary 1971 film ‘Vanishing Point’. The piece earns him a place in the MOCpages 2013 MOC Olympics semi-finals, and you can see the amazing techniques that Nick used to create the above shot at his MOCpage here.
Long before this Lego Car Blogger was born there was a time known as ‘The ’70s’. The ’70s were a weird and wonderful era, where Radio 1 DJs roamed the earth and everyone was forced to wear massive trousers or brown, and listen to disco-funk continuously. LEGO were just starting to hit the stratosphere during this period, and their pre-curser to Model Team was beginning to produce some excellent large-scale vehicles.
One of these was the 392 F1 car from 1975, a marvellous primary-coloured affair complete with genuine sponsorship decals. Jens M. – one half of the building duo ‘LegoExotics’ – has reimagined the original, retaining the ace look and colouring whilst bringing it up-to-date by incorporating today’s modern smooth pieces. See all the photos on Flickr at the link above.
Our second ’70s redux comes from Bobofrutx, who’s taken the 855 mobile crane set from 1978 and given it a similar facelift. His version of the ’70s classic includes the features that showed the beginnings of Technic, including working 4-wheel steering, a rotating and extending boom and a working winch.
You can see all the photos at Bobofrutx’s photostream via the link above, and you can read The Lego Car Blog’s reviews of some of the classic 1970’s sets by clicking on the ‘Reviews’ tab in the main menu.
Probably the first ‘Supercar’, whatever the guys at Ferrari think, is something that didn’t wear a prancing horse on the front. It wore a bull. The Lamborghini Countach was the wildest poster car of the ’70s and ’80s, and therefore maybe the wildest car ever. It was also fairly rubbish, being impossible to drive or see out of. But perhaps that’s what made it Super. Rolling Bricks recreates the ’70s icon using a brilliantly simple palette of regular white pieces. See more over on Flickr at the link above, or on MOCpages here.
…in the garage with the wrench. Lino M‘s Cluedo-themed Chevelle SS is one of Flickr’s latest great models. See it at the link.