We like a brick-built livery here at The Lego Car Blog, as they – like their real-world counterparts – are able to turn something rather ordinary and ubiquitous (like a DAF 95 truck) into something rather more visually interesting.
Cue Flickr’s joopatkleppie, whose DAF 95 wears the ‘90s livery of haulage firm Jonker Veendam, and that means diagonal stripes…
Jooptakleppie has managed it though, and you can check this diagonally-striped DAF at his photostream via the link.
Rumor has it that Toyota is in the final development phase of a new Celica, over two decades after the nameplate was last used. Seven generations of Celica were produced before the model’s demise, with our favourite being this one; the fabulous early-‘90s fifth gen.
Fitted with pop-up headlights and available with a turbocharged all-wheel-drive powertrain, the fifth gen Celica brought Toyota’s championship-winning World Rally Car to the road, and there was little cooler than that.
This brilliant brick-built replica of the Celica GT-Four was discovered by one of our Elves on Flickr, and comes from previous bloggee SP_LINEUP. With phenomenal attention to detail, ingenious building techniques, and accurate 3D-printed wheels, SP’s Celica is fantastically life-like, and you can even create it for yourself. Find out more at SP’s photostream via the link.
‘Pink Missile’ can refer to recent Iranian military propaganda, what this TLCB Writer calls his, um… nevermind, or – in this case – a battered twin-turbocharged Nissan 240SX drift pig.
Built by Sergio Batista, this Speed Champions scale drift weapon includes pop-up lights, a roll-cage and bucket seats, mis-matched body panels, and a highly detailed twin-turbo engine that definitely wouldn’t fit under the missing hood.
There’s more to see at both Flickr and Eurobricks and you slide in the pink via the links!
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.
An adventure 2,000 bricks in the making… this is the brand new LEGO 77984 Jurassic Park Jeep Wrangler!
Crashing through cinema screens back in 1993, the square-headlamped Jeep Wrangler instantly became an icon of film, despite being quite literally in the shadow of pursuing dinosaurs.
Part of an expansive new LEGO ‘Jurassic World’ line-up that includes dinosaur skeletons, Duplo, and mini-figure scale sets, 77984 brings one of the most recognisable movie cars of all time to the 18+ Icons range.
Constructed from 1,924 pieces, including a trick new canvas roof, 77984 allows for any one of four different variants of the Jurassic Park Jeep to be created. All feature working steering via the spare wheel, a lovely engine under an opening hood, opening doors, a variety of accessories from the movie, plus an info plaque and a Dennis Nedry mini-figure ready to meet a gruesome end.
Expected to cost £179.99 / $199.99 / €199.99, you’ll be able to get your claws on the LEGO 77984 Jurassic Park Jeep Wrangler set from May 2026.
When is a DAF not a DAF? When it’s a GINAF. No, us neither, but this is indeed a GINAF, specifically a M3132-S 360 ATI, which admittedly sounds like a washing machine.
It comes from DAF-building specialist Arian Janssens, who has captured the enormous three axle hook-lift / tipper / crane / trailer arrangement superbly.
Multi-axle steering, a working crane, removable tipping container and hook-lift all feature, and you can see more of this giant GINAF on Flickr via the link.
There are few things cooler than a red (they were all red) Ferrari F40. But if that thing is a blue and yellow F40 racer, that’d do it.
Cue Lachlan Cameron’s spectacular Technic Ferrari F40, which appeared here in road-going form back in 2023, and has now been built – courtesy of Lachlan producing instructions for his models – in a brilliant blue and yellow racing livery by another builder.
Xiao Baiya is behind the F40’s stunning conversion from road car to racer, which includes custom 3D-printed wheels with brakes behind them, and of course the epic decal work required to transform the model into the 1996 Team Ennea Ferrari F40 Le Mans contender.
There’s much more of the F40 to see at its original designer’s photostream, and you can check out our interview with Lachlan Cameron via this bonus link.
The Lego Car Blog Elves like Lamborghinis and monster trucks and things with rocket launchers. Which means they’re pretty unimpressed by this. The Lego Car Blog staff however, rather like humdrum mundanity, and in Europe few things are more humdrum and mundane than an old Opel Astra Caravan (also known as the Vauxhall Astra Estate).
The G-series Astra was launched in 1998, looked quite fantastically boring even back then, and was available in a bewildering range of bodystyles and engines, with a hatch, sedan, station wagon, van, coupe and convertible, a dozen petrol and half-a-dozen diesel engines, production across eleven countries, and Holden and Chevrolet versions too.
Most G-series Astras were bland 1.6 litre petrol hatch and station wagons though, just like this splendid brick-built example from Flickr’s Mansur Soeleman, who has recreated his grandfather’s final car as a gift to him.
There’s a detailed interior, space for four mini-figures, and you can take a ride with Mansur’s grandfather via the link above.
Japanese performance cars, and Nissan in particular, used to be on top of the world. With all-wheel-drive, all-wheel-steering, and a twin-turbocharged inline-6 engine, the ‘R32’ generation Nissan GT-R dominated early-’90s Class A racing.
Around 50,000 road-going examples were produced alongside the racing counterparts, with the GT-R quickly becoming one of the cars of Japan’s golden performance era.
This phenomenal brick-built replica comes from Eurobricks’ NoEXIST, who has not only replicated the R32 GT-R’s exterior wonderfully via a blend of Technic and System parts, he’s included the car’s defining all-wheel-drive, all-wheel-steering, and twin-turbocharged inline-6 engine, plus all-wheel independent suspension, working steering, and opening doors, hood and trunk.
Building instructions and a remote controlled version are both available, and there’s more of this amazing Nissan GT-R recreation to see at the Eurobricks forum, where full build details, links, and a video of the RC version can also be found, with the complete image gallery available at Bricksafe. Click the links above and jump back to peak ’90s Nissan.
These days car manufacturers are delighted to work with video games makers. What you drive virtually as a kid may one day influence what you decide to drive for real. But back in the ’90s video game licensing was still rather hit-and-miss, which meant there was a glorious variety of eccentrically-named vehicles available that were inspired by – or downright copies of – real world cars.
Namco’s ‘Ridge Racer’ was one such title that eschewed licensing in favour of some tremendous own-brewed vehicles, including the ‘Assoluto Bisonte’, ‘Terrazi Troop’, ‘Age Solo Dirigient’, and – our favourite – the ‘Lizard Detector’.
Flickr’s Studworks takes us straight back to racing circa-1998 with his brilliant Speed Champions homage to the cars of ‘Ridge Racer Type 4’, complete with superb replica liveries printed by Brickstickershop.
Building instructions and access to the stickers are available, and you can fire up your PS1 to take the ‘Lizard Detector’ up ‘Wonderhill’ via Studworks’ ‘Ridge Racer Type 4 Cars’ album here!
The Lego Car Blog Review Library is packed with over one-hundred LEGO sets, books, compatible products, and even a theme park. But it didn’t have moustache. Until now…
Yes today we’ve finally reviewed the magnificent championship-winning facial topiary of mini-figure Nigel Mansell. And the car that transported it; the wonderful Williams-Renault FW14B.
Constructed from 799 pieces and aimed at ages 18+ (more on that later), the Icons 10353 Williams Racing FW14B brings one of Formula 1’s most famous racing cars to the LEGO range as part of the expansive array of Formula 1 cars past and present released in 2025.
It also brings one of the best enhancements LEGO have made to their vehicle line up in, well… ever, because 10353 features new proper, staggered-width slicks. Hurrah! These are even correctly branded ‘Goodyear’, forming part of 10353’s superb set of accurate sponsors, with only the tobacco ones (this was the early ’90s) absent.
These sponsors are all stickers of course, with the few printed tiles reserved for livery duty, but it’s an F1 car, so that’s appropriate. Gloriously, the technical details of the Williams Racing FW14B are all brick-built – no sticker-based laziness here – and some are really quite intricate. Whilst others are really quite pointless…
Before we explain why, 10353 begins with a large black box we’re used to seeing for the adult ‘display’ sets, inside which are a number of bags, now paper rather than plastic (good job LEGO), the aforementioned stickers, and the instructions.
The latter include some reasonably complicated sub-assemblies, and a little Nigel Mansell mini-figure progresses along the bottom of the pages as you build to chart your progress (although sadly he’s in profile so his moustache is obscured). Another nice touch is that a few pages include a fact about either the real car, or explain what it is you’re recreating in brick-form, which is something we think could benefit many sets, not just the 18+ ones.
The working features of 10353 are limited to steering and a removable engine cover, this set is all about visual display. As evidenced by the fact the last bag of pieces is reserved solely for a display stand, whilst the first contains mini-figure Mansell and an iceberg upon which he can stand for some reason.
Frankly we’re not sure these add anything to the set, other than perhaps being the ’18+’ differentiator (whilst 10353 does feature some advanced techniques, it’s no more technical a build than many younger-rated sets), however the Williams-Renault FW14B itself is excellent.
Immensely detailed, 10353 includes enough greebly-grey pieces to keep even the Lego Space Community happy, with probably a dozen of these, plus the same number of bows and clips, completely alien to this TLCB Writer.
Many of these parts form the mighty Renault V10 engine, accessible once the engine cover is removed, but weirdly many more are hidden elsewhere in the model with no way to access them whatsoever. The only person who’ll see that detail is you during the build process, before you cover them up forever with blue and yellow bodywork.
We’re not quite sure why LEGO chose to add invisible internal detail to a model that’s designed to be put on a shelf, and for us both it – and the display stand and iceberg – are rather superfluous, inflating the price beyond where it needed to be. At £70 / $80, 10353 is far too expensive.
However the car is spectacular to behold, more delicate than most LEGO sets, and more visually detailed too. It’s also currently available for quite a bit less than the £70 / $80 launch price, which means that even if you – like us – feel the stand, iceberg, and invisible detailing are pointless costly additions, you can make the Williams Racing FW14B absolutely worth your investment.
Now this is a common sight in our home nation. The badly-modified ’90s BMW M3; ill-fitting bodykit, 3D-lettered private registration plate, and absolutely, without question, a low-level drug dealer behind the wheel.
They’re our version of an ageing Trans-Am, and they are to be avoided like a sexually transmitted disease. Which will most likely also be present in the carpets.
This one (in both coupe and convertible forms) comes from Flickr’s ZetoVince, and looks like every single E36 M3 parked on double-yellow lines in the crap parts of London. Which means Zeto has nailed it.
There’s more of the Bimmer to see at Zeto’s photostream, and you can collect your stash from the driver via the link above.
The mid-’90s were a high watermark for Renault. Their Espace multi-purpose-vehicle was a smash hit, creating an entirely new class of car in Europe that other manufacturers scrambled to copy, whilst on track their V10 Formula 1 engine was winning absolutely everything with Williams and Benetton. And then in 1995, in moment of utter genius, they decided to merge the two…
The result was the Renault Espace F1, a one-off carbon-fibre minivan with a mid-mounted 800bhp V10 F1 engine, a top speed of nearly 200mph, and publicity other manufacturers could only dream of.
This fantastic recreation of Renault’s unhinged MPV is the work of Flickr’s Sergio Batista, and features replica decals, 3D-printed wheels, LED lights, a detailed engine and brick-built suspension, plus – in authentic Espace tradition – space for multiple mini-figures. There’s lots more of the model to see at Sergio’s photostream you can race back to when Renault were on top via the link above.
This is the Northrop Grumman B-2A Spirit, otherwise known as the ‘Stealth Bomber’. In service since 1997 and designed to be invisible to radar, the B-2 is the only known stealth bomber capable of carrying nuclear bombs, which means it’s probably a good thing there are only twenty-one of them.
Well, twenty-two today, courtesy of previous bloggee Kenneth Vaessen. Constructed a decade ago but only recently photographed, Kenneth’s spectacular 1:36 scale B-2A Spirit is built from around 12,000 pieces, with working bomb bay hatches, flaps and landing gear doors, a folding crew entrance, refuelling receptacle, and a wing-span of nearly five feet (146cm).
It’s a jaw-dropping replica of one of the world’s most recognisable (and feared) aircraft, with more superb imagery available to see at Kenneth’s ‘LEGO Northrop Grumman B-2A Spirit 1:36’ album. Click the link above to be spirited there for a stealthy closer look.
This splendid creation is a Porsche 911 (964) Turbo, and it isn’t quite possible to build in black. But is is possible to build it in red, which is why we’ve pictured a black one here obviously.
Designed by previous bloggee ArtemyZotov, this fantastic 1:12 recreation of the early-’90s 911 features opening doors, front trunk and engine cover, a fully removable body, working steering, independent suspension, and a detailed flat-6 engine.
Artemy has produced building instructions too, so you can recreate this outstanding model for yourself, although only in red. Which is fine by us at it looks the business in red.
Artemy didn’t have all the red pieces for his design, hence the black build with a few (cough) clone parts, however you can see what the 911 looks like rendered in red at the Eurobricks forum, plus you can find the full gallery of the black brick-built version you see here at Bricksafe.
Take a look via the links in the text above and perhaps create Artemy’s brilliant 911 Turbo for yourself. In red of course.
