We’re alternately off-roading at TLCB today, thanks to Master MOCer Thirdwigg and this neat Steyr-Puch Pinzgauer, an immensely capable military truck named after an Austrian cattle breed and built until the mid-‘00s.
Constructed from 755 parts of LEGO’s 42213 Technic Ford Bronco set, Thirdwigg’s recreation of the unusual Austrian off-road truck includes working suspension, steering, a mid-mounted piston engine, an opening hood, and – most importantly – a lunchbox.
Building instructions are available and you can click here to swap your American horse for an Austrian cow.
Netflix’s ‘Stranger Things’ may have concluded, but its vehicular legacy continues, with the cars, trucks and vans from the show still inspiring builders.
One such builder is Eurobricks’ paave, who has recreated Hawkins’ police chief Jim Hopper’s 1985 Chevrolet Blazer, complete with a working V8, high/low gearbox, steering, and suspension.
Building instructions are available and there’s more to see at the Eurobricks forum. Click the link above to visit Hawkins one more time.
As the world’s best selling car, the Toyota Corolla has been many things, but not often a 4×4 desert racer. Cue Randy Wilmenta, who has built his 1989 Corolla GT-S into an awesome all-wheel-drive off-roader, which Eurobricks’ 2GodBDGlory has faithfully recreated in Technic form.
With working all-wheel drive courtesy of two Power Functions L Motors (hooked up to both a transverse inline-4 piston engine and a remotely-operable 6+R gearbox), remote control steering, an electronic hand-brake, motorised clutch, pop-up headlights and differential lock, plus suspension, and opening doors, hood and trunk, 2God’s recreation of the unique Toyota packs in as much as its real-world counterpart.
3D-printed wheels and an excellent classic Toyota livery complete a superb build, and you can find out more about the model and the real off-road Corolla it replicates via the Eurobricks forum. Take a look via the link, where you can also watch a video of 2God’s brilliant build in action.
With over four-thousand pieces, the LEGO Technic 42082 Rough Terrain Crane is one of the largest sets ever released. Which means there are plenty of parts with which to create something new. Cue TLCB Master MOCer Nico71, who has constructed a number of alternates from the vast set, with his latest being this; a fantastic Mercedes-Benz Unimog tow-truck.
Utilising around 3,500 of 42082’s pieces, Nico’s phenomenal B-Model features no less than five motorised functions, plus four-wheel-drive, an inline-6 piston engine under a tilting cab, working steering and suspension, and opening doors, toolboxes and compartments.
Like the donor set, a single motor provides motion to a huge array of functions via a sophisticated gearbox, with Nico’s B-Model cleverly including reverse switches so the battery box can be switched on and left.
Working stabiliser legs, an articulated towing-platform, an elevating and extending crane boom, and a winch (which is ingenuously synchronised with the boom to maintain its hook level) are all operable through a series of levers, allowing Nico’s Unimog to function exactly like the real thing.
It’s an astonishing alternate and perhaps the very best B-Model build that this site has ever published, with full details, engineering diagrams, and a link to building instructions available at the Eurobricks forum. Find all of the above and convert your own 42082 Rough Terrain Crane set into this amazing alternate via the link, plus you can watch the model in action via the video below.
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.
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.
We’ve featured a lot of Unimogs over the years here at The Lego Car Blog. Some of which are very big, very detailed, and packed with working features. Today’s is very small, very detailed, and packed with working features.
Built by Flickr’s Reddish Blue, this Unimog U5023 isn’t reddish-blue at all, being rather yellow, and has got as much going on as models ten times its size. There’s working steering and suspension, three drop-sides, working stabiliser legs, and an incredible posable Palfinger crane complete with a functional winch.
An astonishing amount of visual detail joins this wealth of functionality, and is all the more impressive given the model is barely 8-studs wide.
Exquisitely presented, there’s a huge amount more of Reddish Blue’s phenomenally rendered creation to see at his ‘Mercedes-Benz Unimog U 5023’ album, where links to building instructions can also be found. Take a look via the link above at the best small-scale ‘mog you’re likely to see this year.
It’s not a purist day here at TLCB, as we follow four 3D-printed wheels with four more. And a canvas roof. And – most impressively – four exquisitely-made custom portal axles with reduction gears. Those gears are Technic, but the cases in which they are contained are bespoke and beautifully engineered by previous bloggee Michael Kulakov (aka Michael217), who has fitted them to his spectacular fully remote controlled Hummer H1.
LEGO Power Functions L Motors are combined with a third-party Geekservo motor to steer, with the model featuring all-wheel-drive, fully independent suspension, a detailed engine and interior, plus opening doors, hood and tailgate, alongside the aforementioned custom componentry.
Beautiful imagery accompanies Michael’s phenomenal creation, with lots more of the model to see at both his ‘Hummer H1’ Flickr album and at the Eurobricks discussion forum. Click the links above to take a look, and to see the unique engineering deployed in its making.
Communism seemed to ban, amongst others things, inventive vehicle names, which all seemed to be a collection of numbers and letters. Which makes titling a post about one of them rather tricky, but no matter because the model is rather lovely.
It’s a UAZ 469B as built by PigletCiamek, and it’s also got a spicy back-story too, involving explorers and a rocket-launcher. Join the anonymously-named off-roader on an adventure in the desert via the link above.
There’s a certain segment of the off-roading community who like to intentionally get stuck, just so they can winch themselves out again. Which to us feels like deliberately getting fat so that you can join Weight Watchers. But it nevertheless explains why ‘Matt’s Off Road Recovery‘ has over two million YouTube subscribers. Because when someone is really stuck, intentionally or otherwise, they’ll need this…
‘This’ is Matt’s all-wheel-drive, all-wheel-steered hot rod wrecker, as faithfully recreated here by Technic engineering genius Anto. Staying true to the unique real-world off-road tow-truck, Anto’s model features all-wheel-drive and all-wheel-steering (with three selectable steering modes, as per one of our favourite ever LEGO Technic sets), a working V8 piston engine, immense multi-link live-axle suspension, opening doors, toolboxes and hood, plus no less than five working winches.
It’s a hugely impressive replica of a fantastic one-off real-world vehicle, with loads more to see – including engineering diagrams and over forty superbly presented images – at both the Eurobricks forum and Anto’s ‘Matt’s Off Road Recovery Heavy Wrecker’ album on Flickr. Get stuck in via the links above, plus you can watch this amazing model in action via the video below.
A working piston engine, all-wheel suspension, HOG steering, plus opening doors and hood all feature, and with building instructions available you can swap your own Bronco for a Samurai too.
There’s more to see of gyenesvi’s Bronco B-Model at both the Eurobricks forum and Bricksafe, where an extensive gallery of imagery is available, and you can take a closer look at this alternative off-roader via the links above.
We love weird old vehicles here at The Lego Car Blog. Whilst other automotive sites are enthralled by the latest Lamborghini, we’re more interested in obscure British saloons, communist-era economy cars, and Japanese boxes. Or this.
‘This’ is a Werner Uniknick UK52/60, a 1970s German forestry tractor based on the already awesome Mercedes-Benz Unimog, but cut in half and then re-attached with an articulated pivot in the middle.
This tremendous Technic recreation of our new favourite thing comes from previous bloggee and TLCB Master MOCer Nico71, who constructed it for the recent BuWizz Gathering 2025 in Slovenia.
Powered by a BuWizz bluetooth battery and four Power Functions motors, Nico’s Uniknick features remote control four-wheel-drive via portal hubs, articulated steering via twin linear actuators linked to the steering wheel, and a motorised winch, plus centrally-oscillating suspension, a working and removable four-cylinder engine, and opening doors and hood.
It’s a build as impressive as the real-world vehicle it replicates, and you can recreate it for yourself as Nico has produced building instructions too. There’s much more to see at the Eurobricks forum (including links to instructions) and you can articulate your way there via the link above.
By American standards Ford’s new Bronco isn’t particularly large. But as this writer is not American, it still looks pretty massive. Which means this is much more to his liking, Suzuki’s diminutive Samurai.
Constructed only from the parts found within the LEGO Technic 42213 Ford Bronco set, damjan97PL / damianPLE shrinks the fat Ford into a rather smaller off-road alternative, complete with opening doors and hood, working steering and suspension, and a three-cylinder engine.
There’s more to see at both Eurobricks and Bricksafe, and you can put your Bronco on a B-Model diet via the links above.
It wasn’t just British and Italian cars in the late-’70s and ’80s that failed to start in the morning and/or dissolved if they got wet. No, the French made some awful cars too, including today’s, the woeful Renault 20.
Sitting at the top of their line-up, there was (much like the aforementioned British and Italian cars) a lot to like about Renault’s executive hatchback, including some innovative engineering that included both crumple zones and side-impact protection.
But none of that mattered when the cars were heroically unreliable, tragically underpowered, and rusted within just a few years of leaving the forecourt, resulting in a resale value of almost nothing at all. Still, there is one Renault 20 we like, the pioneering Turbo 4×4 Dakar, with a 1.6 litre turbocharged rally engine and all-wheel-drive courtesy of the rear axle from a Renault Trafic van.
Constructed by Flickr’s NV Carmocs, this 8-wide replica of the Renault 20 Turbo 4×4 captures the 1982 Dakar-winning car beautifully, thanks in part to a superbly accurate livery and some brilliant photo editing.
There’s much more of NV’s Renault 20 to see at their photostream, and you can head to the desert in 1982 via the link above, where the lack of rain and a whole load of available spare parts were probably sorely missed by every other Renault 20 owner at the time…
‘What’s that crunchy sound?’ muttered this TLCB Writer to himself as he sat in TLCB Office. A weary trudge out to the corridor revealed the source, as a remote control 4×4 drove forwards and backwards over a small pile of flattened TLCB Elves.
On seeing a human the Elf at the controls abandoned its activity and fled the scene cackling maniacally, leaving its vehicle of choice (and the pile of Elves underneath it) behind. We’ll administer first-aid to the victims later, but first let’s take a look at the model!
It’s a K5-series Chevrolet Blazer, as recreated superbly in Technic form by Madoca 1977. A suite of Powered-Up electronics are packed inside, providing remote control four-wheel-drive, steering and a high/low gearbox.
Madoca has also engineered a properly clever drivetrain, with linked pendular suspension that automatically locks the differentials at high rates of axle articulation. No wonder it made such light work of squashing our mythical workers.
There’s lots more of Madoca’s model to see – including images of the ingenious engineering within – at the Eurobricks forum, plus you watch the Blazer in action via the video below. Click the links to take a closer look.
We’re alternately off-roading at TLCB today, thanks to Master MOCer Thirdwigg and this neat Steyr-Puch Pinzgauer, an immensely capable military truck named after an Austrian cattle breed and built until the mid-‘00s.
