It’s Halloween! Which means ’tis the season of pumpkins, spooky monsters, and skimpy outfits. Unfortunately we don’t have any images of the latter, but we do have a spooky monster-driven vintage pick-up truck loaded with pumpkins, which is good enough for us. Regular bloggee _Tyler is the builder and you can click here to ghost your way to his photostream.
The Trabant 601 may not have seemed a formidable police car, but seeing as most of the East German population would have had, at best, their own Trabant 601, and more likely a crappy motorcycle or a pushbike, it was probably a sufficient deterrent.
Perhaps less so by the early ’90s though, when – after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the reunification of Germany – East German criminals suddenly had access to the Mercedes-Benz E-Class.
This example comes from _Tiler, who’s been sitting on some official LEGO ‘Polizei’ stickers for a decade just for this moment. Join him keeping the streets of East Germany safe via the link above.
It’s the action movie favourite! Escalating explosions, an elaborate Michael Bay camera pan, and the hero shouting an expletive can only mean one thing, the SWAT team are here!
This TLCB Writer doesn’t live in America, so he doesn’t actually know what SWAT are or what they do, besides arriving late and looking cool in action movies, but he’d happily use de-marco‘s ace SWAT van to recreate said scenes in miniature in TLCB office.
Instructions are available so you can be Michael Bay at home too (click here for a ‘how to’ inspiration guide), and you can find out more at de-marco’s photostream via the link above.
The vicuna, the smallest species of camel, stands no taller than a metre and weighs less than 50kg. That’s your random fact of the day and you’re welcome.
Cue today’s post, which is – we think – the smallest camel (Trophy) creation we’ve featured, standing only four studs wide and weighing, er… we don’t know. Not a lot.
It comes from Jan Woznika, instructions are available, and there’s more of the build to see at his ‘Land Rover Defender Camel Trophy’ album by clicking here.
This pleasingly-coloured classic tow truck was found by one of our Elves on Flickr today, and the only thing detracting from its perfection is that it’s pictured here towing what looks like a Toyota AE86, an impossibility because – as we all know – Corollas never break down.
Otherwise TLCB regular de-marco has nailed it, and you can recreate his ‘Old Tow Truck’ for yourself as instructions are available. Head to de-marco’s photostream via the link above for more.
We have a happy Elf today, with not one but five finds! Kinda. The bumper haul is courtesy of Thomas Selander and his neat Town-scale Mercedes-Benz car transporter, complete with four 4-wide cars on board. Whilst we decide how many meal tokens this is worth you can check out more of Thomas’ build at his photostream via the link above.
You really don’t need a billion bricks and a friend at The Brothers Brick to be blogged*. It does help if some of your bricks are yellow though…
This is de-marco‘s 4-wide ‘Yellow Off-Roader’, it’s excellent, there are building instructions available, and there’s more to see at the link.
*Unless you want to be blogged by The Brothers Brick of course.
**Another excuse for us to link to this. Sorry, we’ve had a lot of sugar today.
Cities can be wonderfully diverse places, where different cultures, races, and even languages mix together to create a greater whole. The automotive industry is rather similar, although these days certain quarters see this as some kind of evil globalisation, rather than countries making what they’re best at to, again, create a greater whole.
However back in the 1950s sharing production between countries wasn’t really a thing yet, until Nash came along with their design for a new sort of car (in the U.S. at least), railing against ‘bigger is better’ by making something… smaller. Their revolutionary mindset continued to production, which wouldn’t have been profitable in the U.S.
Instead Nash turned to Austin/Rover in England, who were selected to produce the car on behalf of Nash and fitted it with their own B-Series engine. The car became the ‘Metropolitan’ upon it’s return to the U.S where, in yet more revolutionary thinking, it became the first post-war American car marketed specifically to women.
The Nash Metropolitan received mixed reviews from an American motoring press rather unwilling to try anything that wasn’t sixteen feet long, but these proved to be rather different when people bought the Metropolitan and actually used it, whereupon it surpassed expectations.
It wouldn’t be until the oil crisis of the 1970s that America really took small cars seriously though, and marketing to women was probably further behind that even, yet Nash and Austin’s collaboration had proved the concept some two decades earlier.
Fast forward to today and we seem to be in some sort of ‘Tenet’ style inversion, as ’50s style ‘bigger is better’ and ‘not foreign’ are climbing America’s agenda once again. We’ll stick with the little ’50s Nash Metropolitan though, a revolution ahead, and now perhaps behind, the times…
Oh yeah, Lego… This beautiful little 4-wide recreation of the Metropolitan comes from previous bloggee 1saac W., and there’s more to see at his photostream. Click the link to join the revolution.
Britain has many famous TV cars. Ford Capris, Jaguar MkIIs, Volvo P1800s, and, er… the Reliant Regal Supervan. Yes, they really called it that, meaning it held the most ironic name in vehicular history until it was finally surpassed by the Mitsubishi Carisma in the late ’90s.
Flickr’s de-marco has captured the classic three-wheeled delivery van to perfection, and only the addition of ‘Trotters Independent Traders’ to the sides could make it any more cushty.
Click the link above to head to Peckham sometime in the 1980s. Lovely jubbly.
(If you have absolutely no idea what we’re on about, click here…)
A footballer with a drinking problem, a guy in every pub in the Midlands, and a Soviet truck maker. GAZ (Gorkovsky Avtomobilny Zavod) have produced vehicles for almost 90 years, mostly (as with everything in the times of the Soviet Union) for the military. These days they also produce vehicles for Volkswagen, Chevrolet, and others under license, but it’s their military trucks they remain most known for, like this excellent mini-figure GAZ-66 built by Flickr’s de-marco. Clever techniques abound and there’s more to see of de-marco’s truck at his photostream – click the link above to check it out.
We love classic 4-wide Town creations. Whilst oddly proportioned and a bit frumpy looking compared to modern Speed Champions or City sets they were the heart of the LEGO range for decades. Previous bloggee de-marco‘s ‘semi-truck’ looks like it has come straight from Town’s golden age, managing to resemble both the truck from the 6541 Intercoastal Seaport set from 1991 and a soviet MAZ-504. There’s more to see at de-marco’s photostream, where you can also find a link to video building instructions should you wish to build this for yourself.
You don’t need a billion bricks and a personal connection to the staff here at The Lego Car Blog to see you creation appear on this site. A few well-chosen bricks and excellent presentation are all you need. That and a TLCB Elf to wander onto your page, but they’re normally pretty good at finding models, otherwise they don’t get fed.
We have two small-scale examples to prove the case today, the first being this lovely Town-scale tow truck from previous bloggee de-marco. Great photography and a neat brick-built tow hitch count in its favour and there’s more to see of this and de-marco’s other builds on Flickr at the link.
Today’s second slice of simple building comes from fellow past bloggee Pixeljunkie with his gorgeous Datsun 2000 Roadster. More brilliant presentation is in evidence (and if you’re not sure how to take photos like these take a look here) with the model enhanced by some wonderful period-correct stickers. Head to Pixel’s photostream via the link above to see more of his top-notch build.
It’s blue Smarties all round today as three Elves returned to TLCB Towers, each with a blue town-scale creation. It turns out all three are the work of the same builder, Flick’s de-marco, who is becoming a regular on these pages. Each has been constructed in LEGO’s classic ‘Town’ style (a favourite here at TLCB) and recreates a well known(?) real-world vehicle in mini-figure scale.
The first of de-marco’s build is perhaps the most true-to-life, a classic Dacia 1300 from a time when the Romanian brand was independent from Renault, but also simply built discontinued Renault products (and fairy badly at that…). It turns out that the Dacia 1300’s ugly blocky sloping shape is perfect for recreation from angular LEGO bricks and the result looks remarkably close to the real thing.
de-marco’s second Town vehicle is a classic Austin/Morris Mini in British police ‘panda car’ specification. LEGO’s ‘Maersk’ blue with white doors and a single blue light (using a piece from LEGO’s 9V lighting sets) works a treat, even if the car looks a little long for the famously small classic car.
Lastly de-marco has built something a little larger, in the form of this excellent Kamaz drop-side truck. As with all three creations the details are spot on, yet simple enough to fit into a Town scale build, and there’s more to see at de-marco’s photostream via the link. There are also video instructions available for each build – you can find a link to these under each image in de-marco’s photostream should you wish to jazz your own Town up with some iconic classics!
We’re not quite sure why anyone would want a communist crap-box like a UAZ truck, but nevertheless this mini-figure scale model of one by Flickr’s de-marco is rather a lovely thing, and he’s made video building instructions available too so that you can build your own. Click the link to make the jump.
Volkswagen campers have long been a favourite vehicle to recreate in LEGO form. From the official 10220 set to life-size brick-built replicas, via TV stars, Technic, workshops and tenuous links to the worst music video ever made, the VW Transporter has appeared here in almost every shape, size and theme.
Today we can add a mini-figure camper to that impressive roster thanks to previous bloggee de-marco and this lovely 4-wide iteration of the classic van. Complete with a front mounted spare, surfer-dude mini-figure and the pre-requisite roof-mounted surf board there’s more to see of de-marco’s Volkswagen camper on Flickr, where there’s even a link to video instructions.
Take a look via the final link in the text above, plus you can click the other links that preceded it to read our past inane gibberish on the subjects of air-cooled Volkswagens, vloggers, and terrible ’80s synth-pop.