Tag Archives: 1970s

Radar Love

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This fantastic creation is a ZIL 131, a Soviet V8-powered 6×6 off-road truck built from the 1960s right up to 2012, as used by all manner of dodgy dictatorships and communist regimes around the world. And Finland.

It’s also a vehicle that has appeared on this site several times over the years. This one however, is a little different from most…

Fitted to the bed of Samuel Nerpas’ Technic version is an enormous radar system, as was mounted on the real AMU variants of the ZIL 131. Powered by two separate gasoline engines, the P19 radar antenna would raise, unfurl, and rotate, allowing the Soviet Union to deploy radar in even its most inhospitable parts.

Samuel’s incredible recreation of the ZIL 131 AMU includes that P19 radar system, with four Power Functions motors raising and unfolding the antenna, powering a decoupling clutch, and rotating it 360°.

Four more motors drive all six fully-suspended wheels, whilst another powers the steering, and yet another a compressor to deploy the pneumatically-operated stabiliser legs.

There’s loads more to see of Samuel’s astonishing build at both his Flickr photostream and at the Eurobricks forum, where full build details, imagery of the amazing antenna deployed, and videos of the model in action can also be found. Click the links above to get on the radar.

Today’s (excellent) title song.

Le Mans ’71

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It might be Ferrari and Toyota at the top of endurance racing right now, but there’s one manufacturer that has dominated Le Mans more than any other; Porsche.

Winning the Le Mans 24 Hours on nineteen occasions, the first of Porsche’s victories came in 1970 thanks to this; the magnificent 917K.

Powered by a wild flat-12, the 917 debuted in 1969, where it was… rubbish. Dodgy aerodynamics (which were still largely experimental at the time) made the car terrifying to drive at high speed, but Porsche refined the car, chopping the tail off and later fitting it with two stabilising fins and a magnesium chassis.

The result was the most dominant one-two in Le Mans history, when in 1971 both 917Ks finished some thirty laps ahead of the third place Ferrari.

This spectacular Speed Champions recreation of the ’71 race winning car, complete with its iconic Martini Racing livery, comes from previous bloggee SFH_Bricks of Flickr, who has captured the 917K absolutely beautifully in brick form.

Building instructions are available and there are more stunning images to view at SFH’s photostream. Click the link above to take a look, and wait thirty laps for the Ferrari to catch up.

Porsche vs. Porsche

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Le Mans is getting very exciting of late, with a raft of new works teams entering or re-entering the world’s most revered motor race. Lamborghini, BMW, Cadillac and Peugeot have all joined or are about to, plus – most famously – Ferrari, who took the outright win upon their return last year.

Back in the late-’70s however, the competition was rather more… one-dimensional. Porsche were the only works team competing for outright victory in 1979, and even though their 935 was already several years old, its 800bhp twin-turbo flat-6 and immense reliability meant it was so dominant that one by one all other manufacturers dropped out of endurance racing.

The result was that a third of all the entrants in the 1979 24 Heures du Mans were Porsches, and no other works manufacturers took part. Unsurprisingly, it was Porsche that took victory, competing mostly against their own cars raced by customer teams, with the Kremer Porsche 935 K3 of Klaus Ludwig, and Don & Bill Whittington crossing the line having covered the most distance after 24 hours, followed home by two other Porsche 935s and a 934.

This superb Speed Champions replica of that race-winning car comes from previous bloggee K MP of Flickr, who has recreated both the car and its livery in beautiful detail. Take a look via the link above, and get ready for a much more competitive 24 Heures du Mans than it was in 1979 in just a few days time!

Minnie Winnie

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Fancy a very small camping trip? Prolific bloggee 1saac W. has just the thing. This beautiful Dodge-based 1977 Winnebago ‘Minnie Winnie’ measures just five studs wide (four at the cab), and yet looks every inch millimetre as immediately identifiable as models ten times the size! A clever awning, brick-built ‘W’ motif, ingenious rubber-band based detailing, and some properly clever parts orientation make this one of the best small-scale creations we’ve seen yet, and you can join us on a tiny little vacation at 1saac’s photostream via the link above.

My Other Car’s a Camaro

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LEGO’s 10304 Icons Chevrolet Camaro Z28 set has proven a hugely popular source of alternative builds. Half-a-dozen have already reside in our archives, including a Porsche 911, Pontiac Firebird, and even a Golf GTI.

Today we’re adding another, as TLCB Master MOCer Firas Abu-Jaber has turned the ’70s American 2-door coupe into, well… a Japanese one.

Launching two years after the Camaro, the Datsun 240Z ‘Fairlady’ took the US by storm, offering good performance, reliability, and relative efficiency, all for just $200 more than an MGB.

This brilliant 1:13 replica of Japan’s most successful ’70s sports car recreates the 240Z solely from the parts found within the 10304 Chevrolet Camaro set, and includes a detailed engine under the raising hood, a realistic interior behind opening doors, an opening tailgate, and working steering too.

There’s lots more of this 10304 alternate to see at Firas’ ‘Fairlady 240Z’ album on Flickr, where full details (including a link to instructions) can be found. Switch your Camaro for a 240Z via the link above, plus you can read the builder’s interview here at The Lego Car Blog via the Master MOCers third link in this post’s text.

Definitely Not a Supercar

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The Lego Car Blog isn’t just about hypercars and monster trucks. Nope, we also deal in crummy ’70s French hatchbacks!

This one is a Peugeot 104, first released in 1972 and surviving until 1988, by which point over one-and-a-half-million had been produced.

Fewer than a dozen survive on the roads in TLCB’s home market though, so we doubt we’ll ever see one. Fortunately(?) however, today we can revisit cheap French motoring (that isn’t a Citroen 2CV or Renault 4) courtesy of previous bloggee Levihathan, who has recreated the Peugeot 104 in Technic form.

Working steering, a 4-cylinder piston engine, rear-wheel-drive, front and rear suspension, plus opening doors, hood and hatchback all feature, which ironically classifies the build as a Technic ‘Supercar’, which we love!

You can check out Levihathan’s Technic recreation of France’s peak small car of the ’70s at their ‘Peugeot 104z’ album on Flickr, and we’ll probably be back with a monster truck or something soon.

Put the Sausage in the Hole

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Yes, we’re trying to mess with search engines again. This is a Mercedes-Benz LK ‘Rundhauber’ (round bonnet) box truck, and its creator 1saac W. began the build by inserting a LEGO sausage into a 1×1 round-with-bar-attachment piece. His words.

Crude beginnings aside, the result is rather excellent, and there’s more to see of 1saac’s sausage-insertion construction at his photostream. Click the link above to put it in.

We’re All Like, People of the World Man

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It was the Eurovision Song Contest last night, and if any non-European readers tuned in during the vote reveal, they may have thought they’d accidentally arrived at a 1970s Vietnam War opposition rally.

Almost every country’s host took the opportunity to remind us that the competition’s songs were not in fact banal Euro-pop as we thought, but the source of love and world peace. Urgh. It’s enough to make us want to start a fight.

It was more straightforward back in actual 1970s, when world peace was dispensed not by pseudo-intellectual television hosts, but by Volkswagen-van-driving-hippies with names like Waterfall and Crystal, via beads, tie-dye, and foreign narcotics.

Cue previous bloggee 1saac W., whose Volkswagen T2 bus is so peaceful it has itself been tie-dyed. A kaleidoscope of coloured plates, afforded by LEGO’s ever expanding colour-pallet, make up the VW’s groovy exterior, and you can collect your beads and foreign narcotics from Waterfall and Crystal at 1saac’s photostream via the link above.

You’ll be contributing to world peace about as much as this does anyway…

Conscripts & Criminals

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Deaths from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine now number several hundred thousand, with many times that number injured. The seemingly random shelling of schools, hospitals, and parks continues, with machines such as this one launching 110kg shells over twenty miles.

Built by Flickr’s Константин Тихомиров, this 2CZM Pion ‘Malka’ self-propelled cannon was introduced in 1975, when Russia and Ukraine formed the two largest republics within the Soviet Union, and stood together against the West.

The machines operated by each now fire upon one another, with this one wearing Russian insignia. This means it’s likely supporting a front-line of conscripts and convicts, disposable to Putin in his bid to return the ‘glory’ days of the Soviet Union.

You can see more of Константин’s creation via the link above. Please note that we’re publishing his creation despite holding views in opposition to his own, as if we were only able to hear the story as told by Russian state-owned media, we might share them also. Fortunately we’re rather freer, and thus – as we often do with creations relating to the Ukraine War – here are some extra links work clicking.

UNHCR  |   World Vision  |  Affaires Mondiales Canada

LEGO Technic H2 2024 | Set Previews

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Our sneaky Elves, returning from successfully sneaking, have found yet more H2 2024 sets for us to reveal. This time it’s the turn of Technic, with no less than four brand new sets to be added to the line up. Each is an officially-licensed real-world vehicle too, which means in this writer’s case he may finally be able to afford a Koenigsegg!

LEGO Technic 42173 Koenigsegg Jesko Absolut

And here it is, the 42173 Koenigsegg Jesko Absolut. Named after a bottle of vodka and theoretically capable of a top speed of well over 300mph, just 125 Jesko Absoluts will be produced, which means the real deal will be comprehensively out-numbered by its LEGO brother.

Aimed at ages 10+, the new 801-piece set includes a working V8 engine driven by the rear wheels via a differential, ‘hand of god’ steering, and the Jesko’s ‘dihedral synchro-helix door system’. Which basically means they open upwards.

Arriving in August of 2024, expect 42173 to cost around £47 / $50, and for bedroom floors everywhere to become the venue for some serious top speed testing.

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LEGO Technic 42176 Porsche GT4 e-Performance

From the world’s theoretically fastest car, to LEGO’s actual fastest, this is the brand new Control+ powered 42176 Porsche GT4 e-Performance.

Also aimed at ages 10+ and with a similar parts count, 42176 claims to be the fastest remote control LEGO set yet. Servo steering and motorised drive are powered by a new on-board rechargeable battery, operated via the Control+ app.

Said app also controls the working LED lights (via some trick new lighting pieces), and provides ‘live data feedback’, so drivers can perfect chasing the cat.

A range of real-world sponsorship decals (gone are the days of sets wearing stickers saying such things as ‘Race’, ‘En-Jin’, ‘Fuel’ and suchlike) enhance a reasonable approximation of the GT4’s shape, and you’ll be able to get your hands on the fastest LEGO set yet for £150 / $170 when it races into stores on August 1st.

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Lego Technic 42182 NASA Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle LRV

Some of the Lego Community’s very favourite things to create are lunar rovers, with hundreds of all shapes and sizes uploaded each year. All of them can can trace their existence back to this; the Lunar Rover Vehicle, or ‘LRV’.

Packed inside the Apollo 17 mission, the lunar rover carried scientific equipment and astronauts across the moon’s surface, and now – thanks to the new 42182 NASA Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle LRV* set – builders can reimagine this astonishing moment in human history at home.

Constructed from over 1,900 pieces, many of which are accurately coloured in gold and bronze, 42182 can be folded up just like the real thing (or, less exotically, a wheelchair), and features working steering and suspension, brand new tyres, plus tools, some ‘moon rock’, and three separate attachable equipment sets including the wonderfully named ‘Traverse Gravimeter Experiment’.

Which might not sound like much for £190 / $220, but with a black box aimed at ages 18+ and a description using phrases such as ‘a mindful project’, 42182 is targeted very much as a ‘display’ piece, despite its Technic billing. And – as a display piece at least – the 42182 NASA Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle LRV* is out of this world.

*Yes LEGO named 42182 twice. But if it’s good enough for Ferrari and Lamborghini…

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But wait, didn’t you say ‘four brand new sets’? We sure did. We’ll be back with the fourth new addition soon, and it’s a goodie…

My Other Car’s a Camaro

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Bored of your handlebar moustache, wearing leather jackets, and chewing a toothpick in an alley? Then it’s time to cease your Camaro ownership and switch to something far smaller, much lighter, and altogether more classy. Yes this superb Volkswagen Golf GTI Mk1 by TLCB Master MOCer Firas Abu-Jaber has been constructed only from the pieces found within the official LEGO Icons 10304 Chevrolet Camaro Z28, yet appears completely unconstrained by the set parts source.

Like the set that donated its parts, Firas’ Golf GTI alternate includes working steering, opening doors, hood, and trunk, plus a detailed interior and engine, and you can take a closer look via Firas’ photostream by clicking these words. Or you can keep growing that moustache.

…Otherwise We Get Angry!

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Or ‘…Altrimenti Ci Arrabbiamo!’ in its original Italian, is a 1974 movie – unwatched by TLCB we must confess – starring the two least Italian-sounding actors we’ve ever heard of.

Terence Hill and Bud Spencer, who were actually Italian as it turns out, compete in the film for a Puma Dune Buggy via beer and sausages. Or something like that. Our Italian’s not great.

And despite the Puma looking and sounding as un-Italian as its co-stars, it too was a product of Italy, built on the platform of the Volkswagen Beetle much like the more famous American alternatives.

This excellent Speed Champions example comes from previous bloggee Versteinert, who has captured it (and Terence and Bud in mini-figure form) brilliantly. There’s more to see at Vertsteinert’s ‘Puma Dune Buggy’ Flickr album, and you can win a dune buggy by eating Italian sausage (probably) via the link in the text above.

Wetter Than an Otter’s Pocket

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We all know that James Bond can seduce any woman in less time than it takes to read this sentence. Yup, if you’re a girl (What? We have female readers! Probably…), you’d already be, well.. you know.

Cue László Torma, and this magnificent Speed Champions Lotus Esprit S1, the star the 1977 Bond film ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’. Of course in the aforementioned movie, Bond’s Lotus was fitted with a few optional extras courtesy of Q-Branch / the Pinewood special effects department, which meant that his Esprit could get rather more aquatic than most.

A car submarine chase of utter ridiculousness was the obligatory result, in which Bond seemed to spend as much time no-doubt-successfully seducing his female passenger as he did trying to evade the generic goons sent in pursuit.

Eventually 007’s Lotus sprung an inevitable leak (because even non-aquatic Esprits would do that), but by then he’d already defeated his adversaries and secured certain relations with his glamorous fellow submariner.

With building instructions available and the ability to become (well, be rebuilt as) a submarine, we’re looking forward to the effect László’s Lotus Esprit will have on the females here in TLCB Office. You can give it ago yourself via the link above, plus you watch the real car submarine in the iconic movie scene here.

Retro Racer

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Formula 1 is, these days, quite fantatsically uniform. Restrictive regulations aimed at creating closer racing have stifled the freedom to innovate, and thus nineteen of the world’s best racing drivers – plus Lance Stroll – tend to circulate (albeit closely) in near-identical cars in whatever order they started in.

However in the 1970s thing were rather different. Formula 1 cars looked like this. Or this. Or this. And none were driven by Lance Stroll. Cue Tino Poutiainen‘s ‘Kingston ’73’, which is – technically – not a real 1970s Formula 1 car. But it could be. And for that it’s magnificent.

You can take a look at Tino’s brilliant not-actually-a-Formula-1-car via the link above. It’s much more interesting than watching Max Verstappen having another ‘very lovely’ day at the office, whilst eighteen of the world’s best racing drivers – plus Lance Stroll – finish the race behind him in whatever order they started in.

Little Red Corvette*

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The Lego Car Blog archives are full of Chevrolet Corvettes. From official sets to large scale replicas, Corvettes of every generation have been replicated in LEGO. The C3 iteration, built from 1986 to 1982, appears a number of times too, yet we still like to see another little one. Particularly if it’s in Boogie Nights red.

Cue previous bloggee László Torma, who has constructed this lovely C3 ‘Vette in 8-wide Speed Champions scale. Despite the small size László’s model is instantly recognisable as the third generation of Chevrolet’s iconic sports car, and building instructions are available so you can create it for yourself.

There’s more of the model to see at László’s ‘Corvette C3 Stingray’ album on Flickr, and you can make the jump to his Little Red Corvette via the link above.

*Today’s title song.