TLCB Elves are all making ‘NEE-NAW’ noises today, which isn’t annoying at all. The cause is this, ilya_laushkin‘s incredible MAZ-7313-AA60 8×8 airport fire truck. Catchily-named it isn’t, but masterfully-engineered it is, with eight-wheel-drive, four-wheel-steering, fully independent suspension (via twenty-six shock absorbers!), LED lighting, and bluetooth remote control courtesy of two SBricks. There’s much more of ilya’s amazing MAZ-7313 to see on Flickr, including some shots alongside the real thing. Click the link above to make the jump.
It’s a grey January winter’s day here at TLCB Towers, and we’re already pondering sunnier climes. So too is Vaionaut of Flickr it seems, having built this wonderful Douglas DC-3 airliner. Launched in the 1930s the American Douglas DC-3 revolutionised air travel, becoming the default airliner for decades thereafter, and is – incredibly – still in use today. Vaionaut’s beautifully built model is pictured here in German Bavaia livery (complete with a neat 1972 Munich olympics decal) and there’s more to see of his gorgeous creation at his photostream. Click the link above to take to the skies.
We nearly titled this as ‘Stair-rested Development’… but whilst jokes about your Mom feature here regularly, that was one pun to far. Anyway, this is the stair truck from Arrested Development, recreated (rather wonderfully we might add) by TLCB regular, Master MOCer, and Brothers Bricker (boo!) Ralph Savelsberg aka Mad Physicist.
Somewhat surprisingly, considering how excellent Ralph’s model is, it functions too, with the staircase neatly extending like your Dad does when watching Game of Thrones (jokes about your Dad are fine too…). There’s more to see of Ralph’s superb airport stair truck at his photostream – take a look at his extension via the link above.
This TLCB writer was busily watching Taylor Swift videos today when a sound most peculiar arose from the Elves’ cage room. It was as though a VHS machine was trying to eat a small woodland creature.
Sigh. A traipse downstairs revealed no woodland creatures of any kind, but it did uncover an Elf, two thirds of which was indeed inside the VHS machine, being rammed further into the mechanism by several of its colleagues.
Another sigh, Mr. Airhorn was awakened from his slumber, and the aforementioned Elf removed from his antique televisual prison.
The cause of the disruption was this, Cologebrick‘s superbly detailed Town-scale Oshkosh Striker airport fire truck in a gloriously bright shade of green. Apparently fire trucks aren’t allowed to be green (they’re red), and thus an Elven disagreement spiralled into its usual violence.
We have since sat all the Elves down and taught them that whilst some colours are more traditionally associated with certain things, anything can be any colour, any colour can be anything, and the world is all the better for it.
The discovering Elf has been awarded two Smarties (green and red) for its troubles, and you can see more of Colognebrick’s neat green Oshkosh on Flickr via the link above.
Flickr’s de-marco is becoming a regular here at The Lego Car Blog with his ever-growing garage of superb 5-wide Town vehicles. Here are no less than six of our favourites from his latest batch, all of which are available to view at de-marco’s photostream and many include building instructions too!
As well as brilliant 5-wide cars and SUVs de-marco has built some of society’s more unusual vehicles, which are of course the ones we’re featuring here. Yes, we know we’re a bit odd. From a functioning skip lorry (top), to a fire engine (above left), freezer-truck (above right), and airport step truck (below) all de-marco’s builds are wonderfully creative, instantly recognisable and – most importantly – playable miniaturisations of their life-size counterparts.
All of de-marco’s builds include a few neat working features and they’re also packed with the related paraphernalia associated with their task, including traffic cones and roadsigns in the rear of the highway maintenance truck (below left) and a hand-truck for delivering water-cooler bottles attached to the water delivery truck (below right). Which as everyone knows is a pointless tool, because water-carrying trucks are always annihilated by passing car chases.
There’s more to see of each truck at de-marco’s Flickr photostream by clicking here, where you can also find links to building instructions so you can build these for yourself. Click the link above to take a look!
It’s a bumper crop today at The Lego Car Blog! Previous bloggee de-marco has been very busy of late, building a plethora of 5-wide Town-style vehicles.
Ranging from beautifully constructed classic pick-up trucks above, through a Humvee, an airport luggage tug, and even a Baywatch-esque coastguard vehicle (allowing us to get Pamela Anderson into the tags), de-marco’s small-scale creations are wonderfully life-like replicas of their real-world counterparts.
You can view each of the 5-wide models featured here, plus lots more besides, courtesy of de-marco’s Flickr photostream. We’ll get you started with the Lada Niva pictured at the top of this post, which is our favourite – but then we’re a bit weird like that. Choose your own via the link above!
This enormous airport tug has been built by filsawgood of Eurobricks, and it’s something pretty special. Not only does it look – for a tug at least – rather good, it features a wealth of ingenious Technic engineering underneath, all operated by LEGO’s excellent Power Functions remote control system.
There’s all-wheel-drive powered by two XL motors, independent all-wheel-steering controlled by two servos, a motorised elevating cabin, powered chassis jacks, a mid-mounted V10 piston engine, three IR receivers and two battery boxes. It’s an awesome bit of kit well worth your click, and you can see all the images and read the full details of the build at the Eurobricks discussion forum via the link above.
Today we have a very special creation to share with you, one that’s had the whole office pouring over it all afternoon.
This amazing Technic model is the work of previous bloggee Lucio Switch, and it’s a sight common to all major airports, the essential Airport Crash Tender. Lucio’s creation looks – as you can see from these images – remarkably lifelike, but even more impressive is what this model can do.
Hidden inside are fourteen Power Functions motors controlled by five IR receivers and the previously blogged SBrick. These operate everything from the 8-wheel-drive, the 4-wheel-steering, the rotation, lifting and extension of the fire extinguishing arm, the emergency lights, and the direction of second extinguisher nozzle mounted on the front bumper.
Oh, and one more function… working water cannons. Yes, this Lego model really can pump water and extinguish a small fire! LEGO’s own Pneumatic System is used to pump air into the water tanks, forcing out the water for use when things are getting a bit hot. It’s probably the most amazing Lego vehicle you will see this year – you can see all the images on both MOCpages and Flickr – we can’t recommend making those clicks highly enough!
With the Elves still moping at the cancelation of the Top Gear TV show we’re turning to you for Lego models to feature. This one was suggested by a reader, and it’s a bit of an odd creation. At first glance it looks like a neat, but straightforward, airport tug. It’s got Power Functions remote control of course, but then so do half of the Technic creations we feature these days. But it’s far more than meets the eye.
There are three XL motors for drive, plus another two servos for the front and rear steering. And then things start to get nuts:
There are eight pneumatic cylinders – powered by compressor – that extend stabilising jacks under the chassis. Why? Because this is also a crane. And a snow plough. And a bull-dozer.
Additional motors are used for power-take-offs (PTOs) at the front and rear, allowing a variety of different attachments to be connected using Thunderbirds-esque genius. Then there are another two pneumatic cylinders (taking the total to ten) that lift the two independent cabs up on arms so the driver/s can see over whatever it is they’ve attached to the front PTO. Oh, and twelve pairs of LED lights and another two motors for the winches.
We’re not sure that such an incredibly able vehicle exists in real life, but if it did it would probably be the only vehicle that would ever be needed. For anything. Ever. It’s all been brilliantly engineered by previous bloggee Desert752, and you can see more details of how it all works on MOCpages.
Following the sinister MAZ 7907 featured earlier this year, the Elves have snaffled another, and this one performs slightly more friendly duties. Nexus7.1‘s MAZ 543 airport fire truck is a beautiful bit of kit, recreated by way of some fiendishly clever brickwork. See the full gallery on Flickr at the link above.
This monster airport firetruck was suggested to us by a Lego Car Blog reader, ER0L, who became an Elf for the day and uncovered it on Brickshelf. Hypo is the engineer behind the creation, and he’s constructed some superb functions. Check out the video to see it in action…
