Taking advantage of the new year sales is not something this TLCB Writer is inclined to do. Mr. Bean on the other hand, was very excited at the prospect of grabbing himself a bargain. Cue one of the most brilliant vehicular capers in TV history, wherein an ingenious Bean attempts to transport rather more than he should home via his British Leyland Mini. Flickr’s Tomáš Novák is the latest builder to create a brick-built Bean atop a bright green Mini, and there’s more to see of his homage to TV gold at his photostream. Click the link above to push the mop onto the accelerator!
After spending some time with your Mom over Christmas, she said we needed ‘more endurance’. Well today’s post will rectify that (we assume this is what she meant), with no less than five glorious historic Group C / Endurance racers.
Each is the work of TLCB debutant SFH_Bricks, who has recreated an array of classic Le Mans racer winners wonderfully in Speed Champions scale, with some of the best decals (courtesy of Brickstickershop) that we’ve ever seen.
From the iconic Rothmans Porsche 956 (top), the wild V12-powered Jaguar XJR-9 LM, the Sauber C9 (above) that was so fast along the Mulsanne Straight that chicanes were added the following year, the Mazda 787B (below) – still the only car to win Le Mans without using a reciprocating engine, to the Peugeot 905 Evo (bottom) that took victory in ’92, each is a near perfect Speed Champions replica of its amazing real world counterpart.
Each model is presented beautifully and all are available to view at SFH’s ‘Le Mans Collection Series’ album on Flickr, where you can also find links to building instructions at the Rebrickable platform. Click the link above for even more endurance.
It’s not often that The Lego Car Blog Elves are enthusiastic about a Lego model, beyond it resulting in a meal token. Today however, they’re beyond excited, as – in their minds – their ancestors sponsored the 1985 Lotus 97/T that gave Ayrton Senna his debut win.
What with it being the ’80s, John Player Special cigarettes did too – and it’s debatable which is worse for your health – but nevertheless that JPS gold-on-black livery sure does look cool.
This spectacular replica of the race-winning Lotus is the work of recent bloggee Robson M, whose other cigarette-sponsored Formula 1 car, also driven by Ayron Senna, appeared here earlier in the month.
A stunning recreation of the Elf/JPS livery, perfect presentation, and some rather clever building techniques make Robson’s Lotus 97/T well worth a closer look, and you can jump to 1985 via the link above, along with a bunch of excited TLCB Elves.
It’s the early-’80s, and if you’re in the back of a Ford LTD Crown Victoria it means one of two things; you’re either paying a fare to cross a city, or you’ve been busted.
Cue Jakub Marcisz‘s wonderful 1983 Ford LTD Crown Victoria police car, resplendent in a black-on-white highway patrol livery with a red/blue light-bar, rear-facing red lights in the rear window, a detailed V8 engine, and the optional ‘push bar’, so law-enforcement officers can ram you before shooting.
There’s lots more to see at Jakub’s superb ‘Ford LTD 1983’ album on Flickr; click the link above to bust on over, or here to see another LTD Crown Victoria with a few modifications that even the cops don’t get…
It’s 1997, the year the Kyoto Protocol ensured that CO2 emissions were reduced to avert climate change, a small ethical start-up called Google registered their domain name, and Will Smith cemented his legacy as a forever wholesome family rapper.
It was also the year that said wholesome family rapper starred in one of the biggest movies of the decade; ‘Men in Black’, wherein an organisation ‘more secretive than the C.I.A. and more powerful than the F.B.I.’ went on a recruitment drive to help protect Earth from the scum of the universe.
Will Smith’s character of course got the gig, entering him into a top secret world of memory-erasing pen thingies and carboniser fission guns, plus the rather unique vehicles that the ‘Men in Black’ had at their disposal, including a fleet of 1987 Ford LTD Crown Victorias.
Previous bloggee Peter Zieske has captured the effects of pushing the aforementioned button beautifully in brick form, with the result perhaps even more visually believable than its movie counterpart.
Further images of Peter’s brilliant transforming ‘Men in Black’ Ford LTD Crown Vic can be found at his Flickr album, and you can click here to take a look, whilst we ponder the fact that the entire world seems to have been on the receiving end of the ‘Men in Black’s memory-erasing pen thingy since 1997…
If 2020 had a word (aside from ‘dumpsterfire’), it would be ‘mask’. Enacted to protect the vulnerable and elderly from an unknown and deadly disease, laws requiring the wearing of masks were widely adopted across the world, much to the anger of a small but very vocal minority of morons.
It’s also rather ironic that the ideology displaying said anger about being asked to wear a mask for protection seemed to have no qualms with carrying a gun… for protection. Sigh.
Anyway, with winter approaching and COVID on the rise again, we may have to get used to another round of mask wearing, which leads us neatly-and-in-no-way-tenuously on to these rather good creations by nickgreat.
Suggested by a reader, Nick’s models recreate the vehicles from the mid-’80s cartoon TV show ‘M.A.S.K’, in which the ‘Mobile Armoured Strike Kommand’ (because ‘M.A.S.C’ wasn’t as cool) fought ‘V.E.N.O.M’, the Vicious Evil Network of Mayhem, whilst wearing super-powered helmets (or masks. Ah… it all makes sense).
And if that isn’t the ideal marketing recipe for a range of plastic toys we don’t know what is.
With vehicles such as the ‘Rhino’, ‘Switchblade’, ‘Thunderhawk’ and ‘Jackhammer’ – that could transform into fighter jets, gun turrets, and hydroplanes – plus a protagonist named ‘Matt Trakker’, you’d be forgiven for thinking M.A.S.K might be the most American thing since excessive patriotism, but it was in fact French, and animated in Japan.
Nick has created seven of the transforming vehicles from the ’80s TV show superbly in mini-figure scale, three of which are pictured here, and you find the full array of ‘M.A.S.K’ models at his album on Bricksafe.
Put on your mask and take a look via the link above, or alternatively shout angrily about masks being part of a global conspiracy or something, depending upon your IQ.
This is a ZSD Nysa 522, a Polish communistical van based on the FSC Zuk, only a little nicer (hence our terrifically amusing title!). The Zuk was itself based on an FSO, which was based on a GAZ, making the Nysa the last link in effectively one long chain of Iron Curtain automotive misery.
Said Iron Curtain meant the Nysa 522 remained in production – unbelievably – until 1994, by which time the newly democratic Polish government could elect to import vans that weren’t based on the design of a Russian passenger car from the 1940s.
This lovely Model Team recreation of the ZSD Nysa 522 comes from previous bloggee and weird-Eastern-European-communist-era-specialist Legostalgie, who has captured its characterful styling beautifully. There are opening doors, including a clever sliding one on the passenger side, a detailed engine, and a lifelike interior, and there’s much more to see at Legostalgie’s ‘Nysa 522’ album on Flickr, where a link to building instructions can also be found.
Click the link above to take a look, and the link above that to see all of the weird-Eastern-European-communist-era vehicles from Legostalgie that have appeared here at The Lego Car Blog to date. All are fantastic, but we think this one is even a little Nysa…
The news this week contained the exciting announcement that four peoples’ republics, previously under the oppression of the Ukrainian Neo-Nazi regime, decided – through definitely-not-rigged-in-any-way-referendums – to join the Russian Federation!
A concert in Moscow’s Red Square celebrated President Putin’s signing of the republics into becoming Russian territory, with many in attendance stating they were kindly bused in for free by the Russian authorities, with a few so in awe and wonder they seemed not even to know why they were there!
Here at The Lego Car Blog we’re joining in the celebrations marking the return of the Soviet Union by busing in our own Soviet Union, er… bus, courtesy of previous bloggee Samolot.
This Kavz 3270 was built from the 1970s until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and was based on the GAZ-53 truck. Samolot’s Technic recreation captures the Soviet-era bus brilliantly, with remote control drive, steering, 4-speed gearbox, and a rotating destination board all controlled by a LEGO Mindstorms robotic brain, plus there’s working suspension, a V8 engine, and opening doors too.
There’s lots more to see of Samolot’s lovely Kavz 3270 bus at Bricksafe and via the Eurobricks forum, where you can also watch a video all the motorised features in action, including the neat rotating destination board above the cab.
Come to think of it, Russian buses will be able to add four new locations to their boards now, because when President Putin wields pen, it definitely makes something so, and certainly negates any words such as ‘sham’, ‘in violation of the United Nations Charter’, and ‘illegal under international law’.
For information on Russia’s annexation, whoops; we mean ‘liberation’ of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, take a look at these pages from United Nations, Amnesty International, or Wikpedia.
James Bond’s Aston Martin DB5 is probably the most famous movie car of all time. But it’s far from 007’s only Aston Martin. There was the ‘Casino Royal’ Aston Martin DBS (good), ‘Spectre’s DB10, (which didn’t even exist, so bad), and the stupid Vanquish ‘Vanish’ in ‘Die Another Day’ (worst).
But there was one other good one; the wonderful Aston Martin V8 used in the Timothy Dalton era. The car recently reappeared in the mostly-very-good ‘No Time to Die’ that wrapped up Daniel Craig’s time in the role, and Jonathan Elliott has recreated that car superbly in Speed Champions scale.
Beautiful attention to detail, building techniques and presentation are in abundance, and there’s more to see of 007’s ‘other’ Aston Martin at Jonathan’s photostream. Click the link above to cue that famous music…
Much like a Genesis piano solo, today’s creation is very ’80s, and really very long indeed. This DAF F241-Series Space Cab by Flickr’s Arian Janssens includes an enormous three-axle drop-side trailer, complete with a crane mounted in the middle, and its own steering – such is its length. The truck’s rather impressive too and you can check both truck and trailer at Arian’s ‘DAF FTG ATI Space Cab’ album via the link above, whilst we congratulate ourselves on making it through this post without referencing a johnson.
The brand new 10304 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 set is a fantastic addition to LEGO’s real-world vehicle line-up. But what if you prefer your Chevy’s a little more… trucky? Previous bloggee Tomáš Novák (aka PsychoWard666) has the answer, having converted his 10304 Camaro into this excellent mid-80s Chevrolet C10 pick-up, using only the parts from the official LEGO set.
Building instructions are available if you fancy having a go yourself, and there’s more to see of Tomáš’ classic Chevrolet B-Model at both his Flickr photostream and the Eurobricks forum. Click the links above to swap one Chevy for another.
This is an FSC Zuk, a Polish one-ton truck based on an FSO based on a GAZ from the ’50s. And we love it. Because it’s crap.
Like pretty much everything from behind the Iron Curtain, the Zuk was cheap, simple, and produced for far longer than it should have been. It’s TLCB of trucks.
This lovely Model Team recreation of the FSC Zuk in curtain-sided flatbed form comes from Soviet specialist Legostalgie of Flickr, who has captured the Polish workhorse beautifully. Expert detailing and some rather clever building techniques make this one of our favourite vehicles of the year so far, and there’s lots more of it to see at Legostalgie’s photostream – Click the link to make the jump.
The Lego Car Blog regularly chastises LEGO for their increasing and often unnecessary use of stickers in sets. Said sticky pictures have been dubiously deployed to create details that should be constructed from actual LEGO pieces, until that is, they inevitably peel off and you’re left with no details at all. We hate them.
So here’s a creation covered in a veritable butt-ton of stickers…
No, we’re not consistent. But nuno_g_teixeira’s be-stickered recreation of the 1981 Monte Carlo rally-winning Renault 5 Turbo is glorious.
Underneath the beautifully accurate decals, custom 3D-printed wheels, steering wheel and Recaro seats applied by Nuno is Lachlan Cameron’s brilliant Technic Renault 5 Turbo road car that appeared here last month.
Nuno’s fantastic rallyfication of Lachlan’s design replicates the rally-winning Renault in spectacular detail, largely thanks to the incredible period-correct livery of which you can see more at Lachlan’s photostream. Maybe stickers are alright after all…
The Ferrari F40 was a technical marvel when it was revealed in 1987. The last car personally approved by Enzo Ferrari, the F40 deployed twin-turbo-chargers to produce around 500bhp from its relatively small 2.9 litre V8, featured electronically adjustable suspension, and became the first series-production car in the world to be built from composite materials; carbon fibre and kevlar.
Often overlooked, it’s the F40’s composite bodywork that is its most ground-breaking feature, and Darren Thew has recreated the complex opening front and rear carbon fibre clamshells brilliantly in Technic form.
Working steering, suspension, pop-up headlights, and a realistic V8 engine live underneath the huge opening pieces, and there’s more to see of Darren’s excellent Technic Ferrari F40 on Flickr.
Click the link above to take a look inside the clam.
If you like trucks, this post is for you! Specifically, if you like 1980s DAF FA and FT trucks this post is for you, but that’s probably a bit niche. Still, there must be a DAF fan club somewhere.
Anyway, this suite of DAF trucks was discovered by one of our Elves on Flickr, and it’s now hoping for five meal tokens.
Previous bloggee (and, unsurprisingly, DAF-building specialist) Arian Janssens is the man behind it, having constructed a DAF FA 95.380 ATI sleeper cab transporter and trailer, plus a DAF FA 800, FT 2100, FT 2500, and a DAF 400 flatbed for it to haul. That’s a lot of ’80s Dutch trucking.
All are excellent recreations of their real-world counterparts, and there’s more to see of all five Model Team DAFs at Arian’s ‘DAF FA 95.380 ATI Truck Transporter’ album. Click the link above to join the DAF fan club.
