Tag Archives: Buick

Due South

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A lot of 1970s American cars are described as ‘boats’. It’s not a compliment. However Buick, in a brief moment of unusual inspiration, decided to go all-in on the boat theme with their third-generation Riviera, giving it a spectacular ‘boat-tail’ design from ’71-’73.

The result is one of the most dramatic and iconic American automotive shapes of the ’70s, which became an immediate favourite of this TLCB Writer as a child due to its recurring appearance in an excellent early-’90s TV show.

This superb homage to the third-generation Riviera comes from Jakub Marcisz, who has captured the fabulous shape brilliantly in brick. Working steering, a detailed engine and interior, plus opening doors, hood and trunk all feature, and with building instructions available you can recreate it for yourself.

There’s more to see at both Flickr and Eurobricks, plus if you’re nostalgic for early-’90s crime television you can head Due South via the first link in the text above!

Cruisin’ in ’53

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This gorgeous creation is a 1953 Buick Skylark Convertible, from way back when the American auto industry was the peak of style.

This fabulous Model Team version comes from Jakub Marcisz, who has captured the classic convertible beautifully inside and out.

The hood, doors and trunk all open (via clever double-hinges for smoothness), whilst the interior and engine bay are as carefully detailed as the bodywork.

It’s a fantastic example of the high point of automotive Americana, and you can cruise in the mid-’50s via both Flickr and Eurobricks where’s there’s much more – including building instructions – to see.

Brown Town

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It’s the early-’90s, but no-one’s told Buick, who are continuing to make cars as if it’s 1978. Enormously-sized, enormously-engined, and wearing the hues of two separate but equally disgusting diapers, the Roadmaster was an ode to America’s automotive wilderness years. And yet… now, when everything is an abysmally dreary crossover SUV, Buick’s Roadmaster suddenly looks like the coolest family hauler on the road. Even in baby-poo brown. See this one courtesy of 1saac W.

Blues Brothers

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We considered linking to that infernal late-’90s Italian song in the title, and then thought better of it. But by then it was already stuck in our heads, so if we have to suffer you do too. And if you don’t click on that link we’ll still find a way of annoying you with Eiffel 65’s madness later in this post.

Oh yeah, cars. These six brilliant Speed Champions scale classics were discovered by a soon-to-be-very-fat-Elf on Flickr. They come from previous bloggee Thomas Gion, and clockwise from top left – in various levels of blueness – are a ’69 Chevy Nova, a ’63 Chevy Nova ‘Gasser’, a ’66 Buick Riviera, a ’54 Ford Thunderbird, a ’70 Plymouth Barracuda, and a ’69 AMC AMX Superstock.

Each is excellent and you can check them all out via the link above. Da-ba-dee-da-ba-di!

Grand National Experimental

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Ah Buick. Maker of boring cars for old people, and later re-badged Vauxhalls for old people, they’re about as interesting as a Brother’s Brick parts cataloguing evening.

Except in the late ’80s, when they went mad.

Working in partnership with McLaren, Buick took their soporific Regal sedan and turbocharged the 3.8 litre V6, with the resultant GNX producing almost 300bhp and a 0-60mph time of 4.6 seconds. In 1987!

Quite what they ate for breakfast that day we don’t know but we wish they’d eat it again.

Recreating the Buick ‘Grand National Experimental’ is Rolling Bricks, whose 8-wide Speed Champions scale model captures the aesthetic of the original brilliantly. There’s a detailed engine under the opening hood, room for two mini-figures, and there’s more to see on Flickr via the link.

What’s in a Name?

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‘Gran Sport’ itself is not a bad name. However it does have certain connotations that may be hard to live up to. You probably wouldn’t want to attach it to a lumbering barge of Americana with about as much sporting pretension as a fridge full of cake for example.

Still, that’s what Buick did – without a hint of irony – in 1973, attaching the ‘Gran Sport’ name to their third generation Century, a car with a three-speed gearbox and as little as 190bhp. In body roughly the size of a grocery store. Full of cake.

That said, the ’73 Century GS did look rather wonderful, at least compared to most of the other crap General Motors was building at the time, and Flickr’s Thomas Gion has done a splendid job recreating it in Lego form. Head to his ‘Buick Gran Sport’ album via the link to see more (and find a link to building instructions), whilst we go an eat some cake.

Pedal Power

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This is a 1950s Murray Torpedo Roadmaster, a pedal car based on the Buick design of the late ’40s-early ’50s, and it might be the vehicle that we want in real life more than anything else we’ve ever featured on this website. Although we’re probably a bit fat to get in one these days.

This utterly beautiful replica of the Torpedo Roadmaster comes from Jacob Sadovich, who has built and presented his brick-built recreation of the 1950s pedal car to absolute perfection. Custom chrome, working steering, and an accurate working pedal mechanism feature, and you can jump inside for a go at Jacob’s ‘Pedal Car’ album. Unless you’re a bit fat these days…

Nine Second Nailhead

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Whilst it might look like the dreams of a TLCB Elf that’s been eating a glue stick all night, this specularly shiny creation by Flickr’s ianying616 is based upon a real vehicle. And what a real vehicle…

Built by drag racing legend Tommy Ivo in the late 1950s, the ‘Twin Buick’ dragster was the first gasoline powered dragster to run under nine seconds, recording an 8.69. Powered by two Buick ‘Nailhead’ V8s mounted side-by-side, the car was also the first to record speeds over 170, 175 and 180mph.

Tommy went on to build several other wild drag racers throughout the ’60s and 70’s whilst also sidelining as sit-com actor. Now in his 80s he was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2005, with his racers still appearing at shows around the world.

Ianying’s expertly presented recreation of Tommy’s ‘Twin Buick’ captures the insanity of the real car brilliantly and there is a huge gallery of further imagery to see on Flickr. Click the link above to head to the strip and buckle up for the most exciting nine seconds of your life*.

*Insert your own ‘Your Mom’ joke.

Classic Car Garage

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After posting definitely Not a Car yesterday, here’s over a dozen! Ralph Savelsberg‘s brilliant expanding classic car garage includes some wonderful pieces of beautiful, historic and iconic American metal. And a Buick Roadmaster.

Many of the cars have featured here at The Lego Car Blog over the years and you can see more of Ralph’s scene at the Great Western Lego Show in the UK later this year, or on Flickr via the link above, which is probably more convenient.

Beastly Buick

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Buick might be best known for making miserable floaty nonsense for old people to drive around Florida, or more recently cars for China, which would probably finish a few Buick drivers off if they knew about it, but the brand has occasionally built an interesting car.

Back in the early ’70s everyone was having a go at muscle cars, even Buick, who chucked a larger engine, trunk spoiler, lurid paint, and a hood-mounted tachometer (why?!) on their Skylark coupe to create the GSX.

This most excellent Lego replica of the Buick GSX (in ‘limemist green’) is the work of Ralph Savelsberg aka Mad Physicist of Flickr who has recreated the lesser-known muscle car superbly in his trademark style. Head to Ralph’s photostream via the link above for the complete gallery and you can read his interview as part of TLCB’s Master MOCers series by clicking here.

Come Fly With Me

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Lego Hover Cars

It’s a bumper haul today at The Lego Car Blog, thanks to Tim Henderson and his wonderful collection of retro-futuristic hover cars. Loosely based on all manner of classic American machinery, Tim’s hover car concepts update their historic counterparts with a whole lot more vertical ability.

Lego Hover Car Station Wagon

Models include a Buick Skymaster (apt name!) station wagon (pictured above), a pair of Pontiac Grand Prix (pictured below) and Mercury Meteors (more apt naming!) (top), and a very cool Blacktron-esque Dodge Charger and Chevrolet Caprice (bottom).

Lego Hover Cars

There’s more to see of each build, all of which contain a mini-figure and some delightful detailing, plus many more besides, at Tim’s ‘Hover Car’ Flickr album. Click on the link and leave gravity behind!

Lego Hover Cars

*Today’s title song, which has instantly made this blog 37% classier.

American Classics – Picture Special

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Lego Classic Car Garage

Ralph Savelsberg, aka Mad Physicist, is one of the most prolific bloggees here at TLCB. One of our Master MOCers and a writer for the The Brothers Brick (everybody boo!), Ralph has been building stunning Miniland scale vehicles for years, and years, and years. His creations number in the hundreds, but until now he’s had no-where to put them. Finally though, a few are getting a home!

Lego Classic Car Garage

This brilliant classic car workshop, inspired by some of the workshop-builders that have appeared here in recent times, contains everything you’d expect to find in a modern repair facility, plus of course, some wonderful classic American cars. Six of the eight vehicles have appeared here at TLCB in some form or another, with the Ford F150 pick-up and a Hudson Hornet making their debuts today (we think!).

Lego Classic Car Garage

Amongst the classics are a Pontiac Bonneville, Ford Fairlane Crown Victoria Skyliner, Buick Riviera, Chevrolet Impala, Chevrolet 3100 Stepside pick-up, and the aforementioned Hudson, all expertly recreated in miniature. There are also two dreadful modern pick-ups; a ’90s Ford F150, and if that wasn’t bad enough there’s the simply awful (but superbly replicated) Dodge Ram too.

Lego Classic Car Garage

We’ll stick with the classics, and there’s more to see of each beautiful ’50s-’60s slice of Americana via the links above to the respective articles here at The Lego Car Blog, and you can see more photos of the complete workshop via Ralph’s Flickr photostream – click here and enjoy!

Go Wildcats!

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Lego Buick Wildcat II

This gorgeous Model Team recreation of Buick’s stunning 1954 Wildcat II concept car was discovered by one of our Elves on MOCpages. Built by Beni Henzen it has one of the most beautiful interiors we’ve seen in a Lego car, plus opening hood, trunk and doors. It also enabled us to Google images of the Kentucky Wildcats cheerleading squad for ‘research’ purposes, so we’re pretty happy here in the office. Click the link above to see more of Beni’s Wildcat, or join us on Google to see Kentucky’s finest…

Maximum Madness

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Lego Mad Max Cars

There have been three Mad Max movies to date, and with the latest re-ignition of the franchise promising a few more films to come our Elven workforce, whose second love after Megan Fox in Transformers is post-apocalyptic violence, are very excited. The Elf that discovered this photo is something of a hero amongst its colleagues today then, and it has also earned itself three meal tokens. We have seen a couple of these builds from Flickr’s Tim Inman aka rabidnovaracer before, but they look damn cool together don’t they? You can see more of his three Mad Max – Fury Road vehicles at his photostream via the link above.

Wroll-back Wrecker

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International Harvester Durastar Rollback Wrecker

This beautifully built International Harvester roll-back wrecker, complete with ’70s Buick, comes from TLCB regular Ralph Savelsberg aka Mad Physicist. There’s more to see at Ralph’s photostream, plus you can read his interview as one of the eleven builders in TLCB’s Master MOCers series by clicking here.

Lego International Harvester Tow Truck