The Lego Car Blog Elves are very happy today, seeing as they’re in their cage room watching Ghostbusters on an old TV.
They (and we – because it’s very peaceful) have Flickr’s Alex Jones to thank, and his brilliant ‘Ecto-1’ Cadillac Miller Meteor from the movie.
Four appropriately-‘80s LEGO 9V light bricks and a scary quantity of chrome pieces bring the classic Caddy to life, and you can call Ghostbusters via the link!
We’re feeling so fancy today. This is a Bentley Mulsanne / Turbo R, and as we type this from TLCB Executive Washroom & Sauna, luxuriating in our blogging riches, we can think of few places we’d rather be. And that applies to both the Bentley and the Executive Washroom & Sauna.
Constructed by MP LEGO Technic Creations, this exquisite creation recreates the late-‘80s Bentley in quite fantastic detail. There’s working suspension, steering, opening doors and trunk, and a complete drivetrain, but the true magic is the interior – yes that really is a winged Bentley logo mosaic in the headlining.
‘Wood’ trim, cream everything, and even an LED light in the opening glovebox perfectly encapsulate late-‘80s British luxury. And that’s the best kind there is.
There are more images to peruse at your leisure via MP’s photostream, and we’ll join you there shortly once our butler returns with the towels.
We love an unpretentious workhorse here at The Lego Car Blog, and things don’t come more unpretentious and workhorsey than an FSC Star 200. In white.
This wonderful Model Team recreation of the humble ‘80s lorry comes from previous bloggee damjan97PL / damianPLE, whose model captures the truck from his native Poland beautifully.
Damian’s model includes a mechanical tipper with a locking tailgate, a working inline-6 engine under a tilting cab, opening doors, and steering by both the wheel and ‘HOG’.
Building instructions are available and you can follow the Star on both Eurobricks and Bricksafe, where there’s lots more to see.
TLCB Elves are running for their lives today, because this tremendous Technic remote control Group B rally car is roaring up and down the office corridor. TLCB staff may or may not be at the controls…
Constructed by TLCB Master MOCer Nico71, entered into last year’s BuWizz Gathering, and inspired by a number of ‘80s rally machines, it shows the best of what can be achieved with LEGO Technic and compatible third-party electronics.
Twin LEGO Buggy Motors, Servo steering, all-wheel double-wishbone suspension, a mid-mounted V6 engine, opening doors, hood and tailgate, and BuWizz 2.0 Bluetooth control all feature, as do building instructions so you can create Nico’s model for yourself to terrorise the animals in your own house.
There’s loads more to see at the Eurobricks forum and you can make a beeline there via the link above, plus you can watch Nico’s creation in action via the video below.
YouTube Video
We’re heading back to the turn of the decade today. No the one before that. And the one before that. Yes it’s the late ‘80s, when greed was good and cigarettes were cool.
Cue this glorious pair of classic Formula 1 cars, each made by TLCB Master MOCer Carl Greatrix and each sponsored by the world’s favourite cancer sticks.
Featuring superb custom decals and 3D-printed wheels, Carl has perfectly replicated the McLaren Honda MP4/4 that dominated the 1988 season (winning fifteen of the sixteen races), and the V12-powered Ferrari 641 that came second in the 1990 F1 Championship.
Wonderful detailing abounds and there’s much more to see of both the McLaren and Ferrari on Flickr. Buy a forty-pack of Marlboros via the links above.
This bizarre machine is a 1984 DAF ‘Double-Head’, built to compete in the Paris-Dakar rally by Dutch driver Jan de Rooy, who wanted more power than one DAF truck could provide. So he used two.
Joining two 11.6 litre DAF 3300s back-to-back behind the cabs, Jan created a twin-engined all-wheel-drive 13-ton behemoth, and one of the strangest Dakar competitors to ever enter.
Sadly the DAF ‘Double-Head’ failed to finish, but it set the template for Jan de Rooy to refine the idea and return with a vehicle that would go on to become a Dakar legend…
But we’ll stay in 1984 for now, courtesy of this spectacular recreation of the DAF ‘Double-Head’ by Flickr’s p.vanderloo, who has replicated not just the truck’s mad exterior but its drivetrain too.
A beautifully replicated livery and full LED lights complete the build, and you can head to the desert in 1984 – twice – via the link above.
The early years of turbocharging – characterised by chronic lag and spiky handling – were dominated by a few companies; BMW, Porsche, and – more weirdly – Renault.
Weirdly, because Renault didn’t have a sports sedan or sports car to put a turbo into, so they put one into their dinky 5 supermini. And it was mega.
Mid-rear engined, rear-wheel-drive, and powered by a turbocharged 1.4 litre making 160bhp, the R5 Turbo was a smash hit, and now you can create one for yourself if you own another ‘80s turbocharged icon, LEGO’s excellent 10295 Porsche 911 set.
Featuring working steering, a detailed interior and engine, plus opening doors and hood, Firas Abu-Jaber’s Renault 5 Turbo alternate is the perfect turbocharged twin to the 10295 donor.
Building instructions are available and you can find a link to them, plus all of the superb imagery, at Firas’ photostream. Click the link above to boost on over, or here to learn more about how Firas does it.
The Cornwall Peninsula in the very south of the United Kingdom is famous for its pasties, beaches, cider, and – at one time – mining.
This began with silver and tin, plundered by the Romans, and ended with coal, plundered by the Government.
Mines were a combination of dangerous ‘pits’ and open cast, with the latter exploited by enormous mechanisation in later years. This is one such machine from the time, the 390-ton Ruston-Bucyrus 195-B electric rope shovel.
Recreated in 1:28.5 form, this spectacular replica of the Ruston-Bucyrus 195-B comes from recent bloggee Beat Felber, to work alongside his Terex 33-11C mining truck.
Like his previously featured Terex, Beat’s electric rope shovel is packed with electronics to bring it to life, with four Power Functions motors driving the tracks, two the swing motion, another the main winch, and an eighth the dipper handle. No, we don’t know what a dipper handle is.
Finally two CaDA micromotors power the bucket door release and motorised access ladder, there are two sets of LEDs lighting the model, and the whole lot is controllable remotely via twin SBricks.
It’s a hugely impressive feat of engineering, with lots more of the model to see at Beat’s ‘Ruston-Bucyrus 195-B’ Flickr album – where it’s pictured alongside the Terex 33-11C with which it would have worked mining Cornish coal.
Grab a pasty and a cider and head to 1980s Cornwall via the link above.
It’s been a quiet week here at TLCB Towers. Elves have returned, creations have been published, and no-one’s been squashed at all. Until today.
This enormous lime green machine is a 1980s Terex 33-11C, actually one of Terex’s smaller mining trucks, and one that was used extensively in Britain’s open cast mines.
It comes from Flickr’s Beat Felber who has not only expertly recreated the 33-11C’s exterior, he’s fitted his spectacular creation with remote control drive, steering, and tipping, courtesy of an SBrick programmable Bluetooth controller and a suite of Power Functions motors.
Being a mining truck of course, Beat’s Terex is much too slow to run over any TLCB Elves, but the Elf that found it took great care loading it up with gravel from the pot plant in the corridor, reversed slowly up to some of its unsuspecting colleagues, and promptly tipped the load on top of them. And then ran them over. Sigh.
Points for Elven ingenuity we suppose. Anyway, whilst we tidy that up you can check out more of Beat’s superb Terex 33-11C at his Flickr album of the same name. Click the link above to take a look.
We’re trucking across the Netherlands today, thanks to two brilliant brick-built Dutch trucks. Well, one’s German, but it’s in use by a Dutch building materials company, so it still counts.
The first (above) is the work of serial bloggee Arian Janssens, and is a lovely classic DAF FA 3300 ATI with a matching drawbar trailer in tow. Working steering, openable load areas, and beautiful detailing all feature, and you can see more of Arian’s DAF via the link above.
Our second Dutch truck (below) is a 2010s MAN TGX, also outfitted with a three-axle trailer, plus a crane, a superbly replicated livery, and a suite of remote control motors to bring it to life. Flickr’s z_onno is its maker and you can see all the images of this excellent modern-day MAN via the link in the text above.
We maintain that the scariest vehicle – other than a government-registered SUV in Minneapolis of course – is the Volkswagen Transporter camper, what with them being almost exclusively driven by top-knot wearing, ethnic peace crisp eating, alternative lifestyle evangelists. And now that we’ve successfully antagonised both the hard-right and hard-left in one sentence (there’s no bias here!), on to the model!
This neat Volkswagen ‘T3’ camper comes from Flickr’s HCKP13, who’s captured the ’80s bus brilliantly in brick form. There’s more of the model to see at HCKP13’s photostream, and you can head to a parking lot outside Starbucks to steal the free WiFi whilst bemoaning capitalism via the link above!
The big news this week is that of a scumbag despot who has massively overreached his electoral mandate being seized and tried by a scumbag despot who has massively overreached his electoral mandate.
The result is that New York City now hosts a Venezuelan President in court facing charges of drug trafficking and terrorism, after previously convicting – on 34 counts – the man that has brought him there.
Which brings us seamlessly to today’s creation, this splendid 1978 Autocar DK Trashmaster garbage truck, for decades the default vehicle for tidying NYC’s streets.
Constructed by previous bloggee Sseven Bricks, this excellent recreation of New York’s most recognisable garbage truck captures its appearance brilliantly, and includes a working trash compactor alongside some wonderful visual attention to detail.
Sseven’s Flickr photostream hosts full details and imagery of the build, and you can take the trash to the curb in NYC (or a president, whether Venezuelan or American) via the link in the text above.
We’re a Lego car blog, which is why all of today’s posts haven’t been cars… OK, we sometimes suck at our brief, but this is a lovely model nonetheless. A DAF FAS 2200 DU, it comes from serial bloggee Arian Janssens, who has both constructed and presented his latest classic truck beautifully.
Working steering, folding drop-sides, a posable grab crane (complete with a mechanism to slide it along the load bed), a steered drawbar trailer, and loaded pallets all feature, with almost two-dozen images of the model available to view showcasing its exceptional attention to detail. Take a closer look at Arian’s ‘DAF FAS 2200 DU’ album via the link above.
There is surely no better car than an ’80s Volvo estate for carrying a Christmas tree. Unfortunately for Flickr’s Sseven Bricks, this classic lump of Swedish medal is a sedan, and thus his tree has had to go on the roof. We’re not quite sure we’d have strapped it in the orientation he has, but who are we to argue. Dodge the low bridges to get home via the link above!
Flickr’s Szunyogh Balazs has appeared on these pages several times before, with vehicles that are fast, loud, or both. But not today, because his latest creation is at the opposite end of the vehicular spectrum. This is the communist East German Trabant, a car made fro cardboard for people that had no choice.
Almost three million Trabant 601s were made, making it the East German equivalent of the West German Beetle. Although the Beetle became a Polo. And a Golf. Whereas the Trabant carried on until the collapse of the Soviet Union and reunification of Germany in 1991. There’s more to see of Szunyough’s splendid Lego Trabant 601 on Flickr, and you can head to the other side of the iron curtain via the link above.
