Building an instantly recognisable vehicle from Lego bricks isn’t always easy, and it becomes increasingly difficult the smaller the scale becomes. That’s why LEGO have recently upped the size of their Speed Champions sets, to better capture the real-world cars they aim to imitate (with varying degrees of success).
Cue previous bloggee RGB900, who has not only constructed this immediately identifiable Honda NSX, he’s even managed to do so in the ‘old’ 6-wide Speed Champions scale. A few of the building techniques probably wouldn’t pass LEGO’s requirements for an official set, but there are no sticker-based cheats here!
There’s more to see of RGB’s excellent NSX on Flickr, and you can do just that via the link above.
Honda’s current range of drab uninspiring boxes shows just how far a manufacturer can fall from their height.
Back in the 1990s Honda were on top of the world, winning Formula 1 races, building exceptionally popular cars most of which had a fun version, and even pioneering Hybrid technology before – for reasons unknown – looking that gift horse in the mouth.
All of which makes Honda’s current range of cars look narcoleptic by comparison. We mean, just look at this one.
No car highlights how far Honda’s slide into dismal mediocrity has come from than this; the amazing Honda NSX.
Built to be an everyday supercar, the NSX wasn’t massively fast (although little was back in 1990), but it was joyously engineered, comfortably beating Ferrari, Lamborghini and others in terms of its technical accomplishment.
Despite this, badge snobbery was just as prevalent in the 1990s as it is today, and the NSX was largely overlooked in favour of the established (and worse) competition. Not so now, where NSXs (and all cars from Japan’s heyday) are in serious demand, perhaps helped by the fact that Honda now make absolutely nothing exciting whatsoever.
This means that Honda’s spectacular engineering masterpiece is now way out of reach of us here at The Lego Car Blog, despite the vast fame and riches that blogging Lego models brings.
Cue TLCB debutant Pingubricks, who has recreated Honda’s finest moment brilliantly in brick form. Pingu’s Model Team NSX captures the design of the real car wonderfully, and there are opening doors, trunk, engine cover, and even working pop-up head lights via a lever in the cabin too!
There’s more to see of Pingu’s spectacular Honda NSX at the Eurobricks forum, and you can join us there via the link in the text above.
When tuning companies take their hammers to supercars they usually get it very wrong (see here, here and here, and try not to be sick), but there is one exception; Rocket Bunny. Founded in Japan by Tops Racing Arts Kyoto, Rocket Bunny kits are produced in a humble little workshop, with careful attention to detail and a few of very ordinary cars parked outside – the very opposite of the flashy (and hideous) European tuners above. The results have become world-renowned, and there are few tuning brands cooler than Rocket Bunny anywhere right now.
This brilliant Lego recreation of a Rocket Bunnied Honda NSX comes from TLCB regular Simon Przepiorka, who has not only captured the brand’s signature look to near perfection, he’s made instructions available so that you can too. Head to Simon’s photostream via the link above for the full gallery and to find the all-important instructions link.
Few cars of the 1990s had as much impact as this one. Honda’s NSX shocked the world upon its launch at the start of the decade. A mid-engined supercar from the makers of the Civic, priced at just over half that of a comparable Ferrari 348. Sure it made ‘only’ 270bhp – a figure beaten by a Hyundai i30 these days – but it weighed little, being the first mass-produced car with all-aluminium bodywork, and the V8-powered Ferrari only had 30bhp more.
Honda continued building the NSX right up until 2005, although only around 18,000 were made in that entire production run. Today the NSX is worth substantially more than the Ferrari it undercut at the time, making it, and many other Japanese icons from the ’90s, properly profitable investments.
Fortunately for those of us who can’t afford the real thing serial bloggee Simon Przepiorka has a brick-built solution in the form of this superb small-scale Lego recreation. Simon has captured the NSX’s aesthetics brilliantly, and there’s even a detailed interior and engine behind the opening doors and engine cover.
There’s more to see of Simon’s fantastic Honda NSX at his photostream – click the link above to make the jump to when Honda were at the very top of their game…
