Tag Archives: Bus

Minneapolis Metro

Leave a reply

This splendid creation is a 2000’s New Flyer D60HF Metro Transit bus, which – in this case – can bend its way around the streets of Minneapolis thanks to an articulated pivot at its centre. The work of previous bloggee JLiu15, this fantastic Model Team replica of a staple of the Minneapolis transit system is packed with motorised functionality, including doors, drive and steering, with a whole lot more to see on Flickr. Head to JLiu15’s ‘Motorized 2003 New Flyer D60HF Metro Transit Bus’ album via the link above to hop on board the No. 535.

This is the Self Preservation Society

Leave a reply

It’s 1969, career criminal Charlie Croker is out of prison, and he’s just learned that his friend has been murdered by the mafia whilst planning a $4 million gold heist. Charlie decides to continue the job left by his departed fellow thief, breaking back into prison to enlist the help of crime lord Mr. Bridger before heading to Italy with a convoy of fast cars, a converted coach, a minibus, a Land Rover, and three Mini Coopers.

What follows is the greatest movie car chase of them all, with the definitive cliff-hanger ending, and the vehicles from which Flickr’s FifthPixel has recreated brilliantly in brick!

His adapted Bedford VAL Harrington Legionnaire coach, Land Rover Series 2A Safari, and – the target of the whole operation – OM Furganato Sicurezza Bullion van beautifully encapsulate the period motors from the movie, plus he’s constructed the Ford Thames 400E minibus, Alfa Romeo Guilia police cars, and construction machinery used by the mafia to dispatch their foes too.

You can find FifthPixel’s entire ‘The Italian Job’ vehicular cast at their photostream; take a look via the link above plus you can click here for a few snippets from the film’s wonderful chase sequence.

Every Day’s a School Day

Leave a reply

Of all the thousands vehicles that The Lego Car Blog has featured over the years, we’d bet this is the one that hits the most of you in the feels.

Created by Master MOCer and prolific vehicle builder Ralph Savelsberg (aka Mad Physicist), this splendid mini-figure American school bus is so perfect we can practically hear the windows rattling and someone at the back getting wedgied.

There’s more of Ralph’s bus to see on Flickr and you can jump back to your childhood for a bumpy seatbelt-less ride to school via the link above!

The Commuter

Leave a reply

We like cars here at The Lego Car Blog. Which probably isn’t a surprise. But what might be more surprising is we rather like buses too. No, we’re not those weirdos who get excited about route changes and new seat upholstery, but buses play a vital role in keeping congestion down so that we can, erm… drive our cars.

Cue the MCI D-Series, a ‘Commuter Coach’ (or ‘Really Big Bus’ to us) produced by the Illinois-based and unimaginatively-titled ‘Motor Coach Industries’ since 1992.

Powered by an array of different engine options (or even electricity), the 45ft tri-axle coach carries thousands of commuters to their place of work and back again right across North America (plus, in prison transport form, to… erm, prison). This one is a D4500CT in New Jersey Transit livery, as created brilliantly in Technic form by previous bloggee JLiu15.

JLiu’s build features mechanised opening doors, remote control drive and steering, a fully-fitted interior, suspension, and wonderfully accurate replica decals, with much more of his fantastic creation to see at his ‘LEGO Technic MCI D4500CT Commuter Coach’ album on Flickr.

Click the link to climb on board and start your commute.

We’re All Like, People of the World Man

Leave a reply

It was the Eurovision Song Contest last night, and if any non-European readers tuned in during the vote reveal, they may have thought they’d accidentally arrived at a 1970s Vietnam War opposition rally.

Almost every country’s host took the opportunity to remind us that the competition’s songs were not in fact banal Euro-pop as we thought, but the source of love and world peace. Urgh. It’s enough to make us want to start a fight.

It was more straightforward back in actual 1970s, when world peace was dispensed not by pseudo-intellectual television hosts, but by Volkswagen-van-driving-hippies with names like Waterfall and Crystal, via beads, tie-dye, and foreign narcotics.

Cue previous bloggee 1saac W., whose Volkswagen T2 bus is so peaceful it has itself been tie-dyed. A kaleidoscope of coloured plates, afforded by LEGO’s ever expanding colour-pallet, make up the VW’s groovy exterior, and you can collect your beads and foreign narcotics from Waterfall and Crystal at 1saac’s photostream via the link above.

You’ll be contributing to world peace about as much as this does anyway…

Build Small

Leave a reply

Sometimes you don’t need ten thousand pieces to build something blogworthily good. A few hundred might be all that’s required, and previous bloggee IBrickedItUp is proving that today with three top-quality small-scale creations.

Each combines clever techniques, an eye for detail, and excellent presentation to great effect, and all have building instructions available too.

IBrickedItUp’s Jeep Wangler crossroads (plus some neat street furniture), City Bus, and ‘Back to the Future’ DeLorean DMC-12 time-machine can all be found at their Flickr photostream, alongside a range of other real-world vehicles recreated in miniature from a small number of relatively available pieces.

Click the link above to take a closer look, and see what your pieces could create.

Flying Across New York

Leave a reply

Many Marvely-type superheros have flown across New York. Or run. Or swung on spiderwebs. Or been propelled by their supersuit/hammer/insertmagicspaceitemhere.

The real heroes of New York however, take the bus.

Nurses, firefighters, police officers, teachers… the people that keep NYC’s engine running, whilst simultaneously not being able to afford to live in it.

Cue the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s New Flyer XD40 buses, transporting hundreds of unsung heroes across New York City every day.

This superb brick-built recreation of true hero transport comes from previous bloggee JLui15, who has not only captured the New Flyer and its MTA livery beautifully, he’s packed it with working functions, including motorised drive, steering, and opening doors controlled via an SBrick.

There’s much more of the New Flyer XD40 to see at Flickr, Eurobricks, and in the video below, and you can join the everyday heroes transiting New York on board via the links in the text above.

YouTube Video

 

Gaseous Emissions

2 Replies

A fart on a bus is a most unwelcome travelling companion. Although it is immensely funny if you cut one just before your stop. Anyway, here’s a bus powered by compressed natural gas, being a Gillig CNG. Emitting around 20% less CO2 than diesel equivalents, CNG buses run mostly on the same stuff that exits your body, with this one (the bus, not a fart) being formed by previous bloggee 1saac W. of Flickr. There’s more to see at 1saac’s photostream and can toot on over via the link above.

Welcome to Russia!

1 Reply

The news this week contained the exciting announcement that four peoples’ republics, previously under the oppression of the Ukrainian Neo-Nazi regime, decided  – through definitely-not-rigged-in-any-way-referendums – to join the Russian Federation!

A concert in Moscow’s Red Square celebrated President Putin’s signing of the republics into becoming Russian territory, with many in attendance stating they were kindly bused in for free by the Russian authorities, with a few so in awe and wonder they seemed not even to know why they were there!

Here at The Lego Car Blog we’re joining in the celebrations marking the return of the Soviet Union by busing in our own Soviet Union, er… bus, courtesy of previous bloggee Samolot.

This Kavz 3270 was built from the 1970s until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and was based on the GAZ-53 truck. Samolot’s Technic recreation captures the Soviet-era bus brilliantly, with remote control drive, steering, 4-speed gearbox, and a rotating destination board all controlled by a LEGO Mindstorms robotic brain, plus there’s working suspension, a V8 engine, and opening doors too.

There’s lots more to see of Samolot’s lovely Kavz 3270 bus at Bricksafe and via the Eurobricks forum, where you can also watch a video all the motorised features in action, including the neat rotating destination board above the cab.

Come to think of it, Russian buses will be able to add four new locations to their boards now, because when President Putin wields pen, it definitely makes something so, and certainly negates any words such as ‘sham’, ‘in violation of the United Nations Charter’, and ‘illegal under international law’.

For information on Russia’s annexation, whoops; we mean ‘liberation’ of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, take a look at these pages from United Nations, Amnesty International, or Wikpedia.

Where Eagles Dare

Leave a reply

1968’s ‘Where Eagles Dare’, starring Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton, is widely regarded as one of the finest war movies of all time. That’s despite it featuring hairstyles, make-up, pharmaceuticals, and a red bus from a decade (or even two!) later than the time of its setting.

Said bus, a 1952 Steyr, stars prominently in the closing scenes, as the characters make their escape to an airfield where a Junkers JU-52 is waiting.

This brilliant brick-built recreation of that iconic ‘Where Eagles Dare’ scene is the work of SirLuftwaffles, who has captured not only the wrongly-cast Steyr bus and Junkers JU-52 from the movie wonderfully, he’s placed them within a stunning forced-perceptive alpine setting that looks so good we feel as though we’re making the escape too.

Style your hair for the ’60s, climb aboard a ’52 bus, and head to a snow-covered European airfield in 1944 via the link above.

#buslife

Leave a reply

#buslife. It’s like #vanlife, only harder to park. But with the end of civilisation a genuine possibility thanks to mankind’s continued CO2 output, perhaps now is the time to buy an old bus and park it in readiness for the arriving apocalypse.

Norton74 thinks so too, having equipped two of his mini-figures with this beautifully ramshackle bus for the post-apoc world, built while he (and we) sweltered in record 40°C heat. Thanks Climate Change.

A myriad of wonderful details make Norton’s heatwave-built bus an absolute delight, and you can take a closer look at his mini-figures’ post-apoc future (and perhaps ours too…) on Flickr. Click the link above to join dystopian #buslife.

Get Bent

Leave a reply

Ah the bendy bus. Commonly used at airports when those raised tubey tunnel things are too far away, and – until recently – found clogging up the streets of TLCB’s home capital.

However whilst the bendy bus works a treat on the wide open concrete of an airport (unless you’re the unfortunate sole stuck standing on the articulation point as it meanders back to Terminal 4), they absolutely do not work on the streets of a two-thousand year old city.

Many American cities though, are rather like airports, what with their wide open concrete, multitude of fast food outlets, and overly-zealous armed security. This makes the bendy bus a much more appropriate method of public transportation there than in London*.

Fortunately this bendy bus, a New Flyer Xcelsior XD60, is transporting commuters in the right place, as evidenced by the excellent ‘Newark Penn Station’ destination boards. And the American flag on the side.

Constructed by JLui15’s Studio, this brilliant brick-built bendy-bus not only looks spectacularly accurate inside and out, there’s a full remote control drivetrain hidden within it too.

Custom replica decals enhance the realism, as does the working articulation in the middle, and there’s loads more to see of JLui15’s incredible creation at their ‘Motorized New Flyer XD60 Articulated Bus’ album on Flickr. Click the link above to ride to Newark Station, New Jersey.

*On the flip side of course, the average American bus passenger would probably get wedged in the winding stairs of a Routemaster double-decker, so the inappropriateness goes both ways.

On the National Express

Leave a reply

On the National Express there’s a jolly hostess
Selling crisps and tea
She’ll provide you with drinks and theatrical winks
For a sky-high fee
Mini-skirts were in style when she danced down the aisle
Back in ’63
But it’s hard to get by when your arse is the size
Of a small country

We have Flickr’s Vince_Toulouse to thank for allowing this tenuous link to a Divine Comedy song, and his delightfully strange ‘Intercity Express’. Art deco style, an inspired colour choice, and the ingenious repurposing of previously-useless ‘Life on Mars’ air-pump pieces make us want to hop on-board to wherever this is going. We’ll have some crisps and tea, thanks.

Enhanced Bust

Leave a reply

Redfern1950s has given himself a lift. Published here earlier in the month, we titled Red’s rat rodded school bus after the name your Mom used ‘professionally’, and – just like your Mom – Red’s recently enhanced things to make them a whole lot more… noticeable. Jacked suspension and comically enormous tyres complete the look and there’s more to see of Red’s enhanced Busty Rusty on Flickr here.

Busty Rusty

1 Reply

Coincidentally the name your Mom had when your Dad first met her at the bar where she worked, and also today’s title, befitting this glorious rat rodded school bus by previous bloggee and Master MOCer Redfern1950s (aka red 2).

With an exposed Cummins diesel up front and a roof-chop the length of the seating area this probably isn’t as comfortable transport as it once was, but kids are short and who wouldn’t want to go to school in this?

There’s more to see of Red’s brilliant creation on Flickr via the link above, plus you can read how he builds models like this one via his Master MOCers interview by clicking here.