Tag Archives: Cadillac

American Achievement

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It’s the day after that Alaskan summit, in which presidents Trump and Putin held, to quote Trump, a “10 out of 10” discussion, in which they “got along great”. Except it achieved nothing at all. Still, we suppose Trump and Putin do have much in common, so that’s nice.

But when America does put its mind to Europe, it can achieve great things. Cue the Cadillac V-Series.R, General Motors’ entrant into the burgeoning WEC Hypercar class, and now a race winner sitting third in the sizeable top-tier class of the championship. Which bodes well for Cadillac’s forthcoming entry to Formula 1.

Built on an Italian Dallara chassis and run by the British Jota Sport team, it also proves that America can benefit from European expertise. We hope that might be remembered in round two of the Ukrainian peace talks that perhaps should include Ukraine.

Oh yes, the car! This superb Speed Champions replica of the Hertz Team Jota Cadillac V-Series.R comes from prolific Le Mans Hypercar builder SFH_Bricks, who has captured the racer and its golden Hertz livery beautifully. Building instructions are available and you can head to the heart of European racing in an Italian-British-American collaboration via the link above.

My Baby Drove Up In a Pixel Cadillac*

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“Why don’t you post digital creations?” we get asked here at TLCB. Well mostly it’s because they rarely look like this.

These two spectacular ’59 Cadillacs come from serial bloggee 1saac W., who has put down his real pieces to painstakingly build each design in Studio before rendering it in Blender. As you can see here, the results look phenomenal, with ingenious parts choices and some deeply complex ‘SNOT’ techniques used in their creation.

Inevitably AI will soon be producing ‘Lego’ creations by the thousand that look like this, so enjoy the talent in these two at 1ssac’s photostream by clicking these words. These Caddies may be digital, but they’re no less magnificent for it.

*Today’s slightly butchered but nevertheless excellent title song.

The Road to El Dorado

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This is a 1953 Cadillac Eldorado, a humungous (at 5.6 meters long / 2.3 tons) and humungously expensive 2-door luxury convertible, that – in first generation guise – lasted just one year and 500 units.

With unique sheet metal from the Cadillac upon which it was based, the first generation Eldorado was an ultra-exclusive automobile, and included such luxuries as air-conditioning (a $7,000 option at today’s prices), power windows, a heater, and that mark of unrestrained decadence; windscreen washers.

This lovely Lego recreation of Cadillac’s high-watermark comes from previous bloggee SFH_Bricks, who has captured it beautifully in brick form. Ingenious building techniques and top-notch presentation abound, and there’s more to see of SFH’s magnificent ’53 Eldorado via Flickr. Click the link above to take a closer look.

More Endurance

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After years of very limited top-tier competition, the fastest class at Le Mans undergoing a spectacular resurgence. Works teams from Ferrari, Toyota, Porsche, Peugeot, and Cadillac all entered in 2023, with BMW, Lamborghini and Alpine all set to join in the coming years.

The 2023 24 Heures du Mans was won by a jubilant Ferrari, returning almost six decades after their last win, following an epic race-long battle with favourites Toyota. Joining his previously blogged classic Le Mans endurance racers, SFH_Bricks has recreated the 2023-winning Ferrari 499P brilliantly in Speed Champions form, alongside a host of other Hypercar-Class teams from this year’s event.

The second place Toyota GR010, doubtless still miffed at being slowed down by the FIA ‘Balance of Performance’ rules that likely cost them the win, the wonderfully-liveried (if uncompetitive) Penske Racing Porsche 963, and the third-placed Cadillac V-Series.R join the Ferrari 499P in SFH_Bricks’ ‘Le Mans 2023 Hypercars’ album.

Each Le Mans Hypercar wears an accurate livery -created in collaboration with brickstickershop – and is presented flawlessly, with building instructions available too. Join the 2023 race courtesy of SFH via the third link in the text above, plus you can check out the top-tier Le Mans cars from decades past via the second.

Dead Good

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It’s another tenuous Halloween titl… oh, this one actually is Halloween related? Points for us!

Previous bloggee Jonathan Elliott is the owner of this magnificent ’65 Cadillac Miller Meteor hearse, and the bat-filled gravestone that it’s pictured alongside. Well, not the owner of the gravestone per-say…

No matter, it’s a dead good build and you can pay your respects at Jonathan’s photostream via the link!

Ambition is a Dream with a V8 Engine

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Blue suede shoes, white rhinestone jumpsuits, cheeseburgers, and pink Cadillacs. Just some of the things the great Elvis Presley was famous for besides his captivating musical performances.

Elvis’ first pink Cadillac was a ’54 Fleetwood that he purchased in 1955, and it lasted all of a few months before the brake lining crapped out and the car was incinerated by the ensuing fire. Undeterred, Elvis bought a ’55 Fleetwood in blue, and had it repainted in custom pink by a neighbour, before he gave it to his Mom as a gift.

Now Mrs. Presley didn’t have a driver’s license, which meant Elvis continued to drive the Fleetwood through ’55 and ’56 (which sounds like a rather cunning ‘present’ to us), during which time it was repainted again due to an accident whilst in the hands of his guitarist.

After completing his military service in 1960, Elvis lent the Caddy to his friend and road-manager, buying himself a new ’61 Cadillac Coupe deVille, before the Fleetwood was parked up in a carport.

Many white rhinestone jumpsuits and cheeseburgers followed, the latter of course contributing to Elvis’ untimely death on the toilet at his Graceland home.

The musical world mourned his loss, and Graceland became a museum to Elvis’ life. Fortunately the ’55 Cadillac Fleetwood that Elvis had purchased, painted, gifted, crashed, painted, and lent had somehow survived, and it was saved to go on permanent display in the Graceland museum.

This lovely homage to that car, and the home in which it rests, comes from Joey Klusnick, who has recreated it beautifully in Miniland scale. A complete album of images can be found at Joey’s photostream, and you can head to Graceland in a ’55 Pink Cadillac via the link in the text above.

Fleetwood Brick

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Not entered into TLCB and BrickNerd’s Festival of Mundanity contest, but gosh would it do well it if it were, is Michael217’s magnificent Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham.

The height of ’90s crappy Americana, the Fleetwood was a near six metre long, two ton barge propelled by a 5.7 litre V8 with less power than a Parish Council.

We love rubbish cars like this here at The Lego Car Blog, because… well, we’re poorly engineered, badly steered, and shoddily built too.

Despite both TLCB and the ’90s Cadillac Fleetwood sharing these characteristics, Michael217’s wonderful Model Team recreation certainly doesn’t. Both beautifully made and presented, Michael’s model captures the enormous boxy Brougham brilliantly, with a superbly realistic engine bay and interior too.

All four doors open, as do the trunk and hood, there’s independent suspension (which is likely considerably better than that used by the real thing), plus full remote control drive and steering courtesy of twin L Motors and a Servo.

It’s a glorious build and one that’s definitely worth a closer look; head to the Eurobricks discussion forum or Michael217’s ‘Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham’ album at Bricksafe for all the imagery.

Oldtimey Thursday

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OK, there’s no such thing as ‘Oldtimey Thursday’, except perhaps at Shady Oaks nursing home where every day is oldtimey. But today is a Thursday and we do have some oldtimey vehicles!

TLCB Elves of course, do not like oldtimey winga-dinga vehicles one bit. They’re slow, they don’t have racing stripes, and they look silly. But the Elves don’t write these posts, we do (they can’t write at all really. We tried giving them a box of crayons once but they ate them), and on occasion we do quite like oldtimey winga-dinga vehicles.

These excellent oldtimey examples all come from Łukasz Libuszewski of Flickr, and are (from top to bottom); a Ford Model T in convertible and pick-up variants, a lovely 1920s postal truck, and a Cadillac V16.

Each is built and presented beautifully and there’s more to see of these, plus lots more brick-built oldtimers, at Łukasz photostream. Click the link above to make the trip. Winga-dinga…

Dip it Low*

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Suggested to us by a reader on our Facebook page, newcomer Drop Shop today makes their TLCB debut with two spectacular Model Team low riders. Both the 1980s Chevrolet Monte Carlo ‘Mad Monte’ above and ’66 Cadillac ‘Sinister Series’ below are immaculately constructed, and each has been dropped to a pavement-scraping height that looks simultaneously gloriously impractical and magnificently evil.

With all-black bodywork and custom chrome the models must have been a nightmare to photograph, but Drop Shop shows how it should be done with excellent presentation utilising great lighting and a clean monotone background (see how you can do this for yourself by clicking here), showcasing the creations superbly.

Drop Shop has uploaded a few other builds alongside the Mad Monte and Sinister Caddy which continue the low theme, including a beautiful dropped ’63 Cadillac Fleetwood Convertible and a slammed Ferrari 288 GTO (which is sacrilege, but undeniably well-made!).

Click the links above to see more of the two models featured in this post, here to see Drop Shop’s complete photostream, and we’re pretty sure that Drop Shop’s future creations will be be making appearances here at The Lego Car Blog.

*A personal thanks to Drop Shop for reminding us that the video to today’s title song exists.

Caddy Powered Classic

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We like usual cars here at The Lego Car Blog, and they don’t come much more unusual than this.

‘This’ is a 1954 HWM Cadillac, built for amateur racer Tony Page and raced across England in the mid 1950s. Page took the Cadillac engine from his previous racing car, an Allard J2, and fitted it to a chassis and body from Hersham & Walton Motors of London, who built competitive Jaguar-engined sports and Formula 2 cars in the early ’50s.

After racing successfully for a few years Page sold the car, whereupon it raced in New Zealand until 1970 when it disappeared into storage. The car surfaced again in 2012 when it was acquired by a new owner and fully restored.

This gorgeous recreation of the HWM Cadillac comes from Tim Inman of Flickr who has done a stellar job of recreating the one-off classic, complete with a detailed replica of the Cadillac engine that powered the car. There’s more to see of Tim’s excellent build at his photostream – click the link above to make the jump to the full gallery.

Mod My Horse

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It’s been a while since one of our the Elves found a ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ creation, but they’re now all happily watching it in their cage room giving us a few hours of peace.

Their reward comes courtesy of Flickr’s Kale Frost, who has recreated the double-decker Cadillac from the post-apocalyptic movie rather well in Lego form. He’s also done so by basing his design loosely (very loosely) on an existing set, uploading a video alongside his model that provides a few hints to how the process to turn a LEGO set into something else entirely can begin. As the No.1 question we receive here at TLCB is ‘How do I build this?…’ it could prove a useful watch for many readers.

Head to Kale’s photostream via the link above for more images, and if you’re yet to try building your own creations and are unsure of how to start, take a look at the video – it could be the beginnings a whole new building chapter…

I Ain’t Afraid of No Ghost

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If there’s something strange in you neighborhood
Who you gonna call? (Ghostbusters!)
If there’s something weird
And it don’t look good
Who you gonna call? (Ghostbusters!)
I ain’t afraid of no ghost
I ain’t afraid of no ghost
If you’re seeing things running through your head
Who you gonna call? (Ghostbusters!)
An invisible man
Sleeping in your bed
Who you gonna call? (Ghostbusters!)

 

This excellent (and enormous) Technic recreation of the ‘Ecto-1’ Cadillac Ambulance from ‘Ghostbusters’ comes from thewdarren of Flickr and it’s packed with bustin’ paraphernalia. And a V8 engine, because that’s cool. There’s loads more to see at thewdarren’s Ecto-1 album via the link above, you can check out LEGO’s own official Ghostbusters set here, and you can watch the video for very probably coolest movie theme ever by clicking here!

CadZZilla

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Bearded classic rockers ZZ Top have appeared here a few times over the years. Or rather, their cars have, being associated with them almost as much as their music. This 1948 custom Cadillac Series 62, known as ‘CadZZilla’, was built for lead guitarist Billy Gibbons in 1989 by legendary customiser Boyd Coddington at a cost rumoured to be near $1m. The CadZZilla has since become one of the most famous and revered customised vehicles in the world, with even a Hot Wheels toy replica available.

This spectacular Model Team version of the iconic hot rod comes from previous bloggee and TLCB favourite Tim Inman (aka rabidnovaracer) who has recreated the wild shape brilliantly in Lego form, along with a complete engine and interior, opening doors, and a seriously purple paint job. There’s much more to see at Tim’s photostream on Flickr – click the link above to take a closer look.

Gigahorse

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Lego Mad Max Fury Road Gigahorse

It’s been a while since the last ‘Mad Max – Fury Road’ vehicle featured here at The Lego Car Blog. This means the Elves haven’t watched the movie in ages, seeing as they’re only allowed to do so if they find an appropriate creation.

Cue much Elven celebration today therefore, when one of their number returned to the office with this, a rather excellent recreation of the Gigahorse stacked Cadillac from Flickr’s hachiroku24.

Not only has hachiroku replicated the movie car brilliantly, he’s also made instructions available so you can build one for yourself. Head over to his photostream via the link above for more.

Fine Vintage

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Lego Mercer 5 Sporting 1920

LEGO’s Speed Champions sets have brought some of the most exciting new and classic real-world cars to Lego fans in brick form. From modern McLarens to classic Mustangs, the range covers about 60 years of motoring greats. But what if it went back into the annuls of automotive history just a little further…

These three gorgeous Speed Champions style vintage cars come from Flickr’s Łukasz Libuszewski, who has done a wonderful job recreating their largely-forgeotten shapes in our favourite Danish plastic.

Lego 1928 Cadillac

The first (top, in red) is a 1920 Mercer 5 Sporting, built by the American motor car company that manufactured high performance cars from 1909 until the Great Depression put them out of business in 1925 some 5,000 units later.

The second (above, in green) is also a vintage American, but from a company that survived the depression era and is still making cars today. Founded in 1902 Cadillac are one of the oldest car companies in the world and have been owned by General Motors since 1909. The model pictured above dates from 1928 and Łukasz has used some ingenious building techniques to recreate the cycle-wings and carriage-type body typical of the time.

Lego Lancia Lambda 1922

The final of Łukasz’s three vintage builds (above, in brown) comes from the other side of the Atlantic and Italy, where Lancia have been producing cars since 1906. Lancia are now sadly a shadow of their previous greatness and today produce just one car (an ugly Fiat knock-off), making us fear that they’ll be gone altogether before long.

This 1922 Lambda was the polar opposite of their hateful modern offering, a revolutionary design that pioneered independent suspension, the world’s first unitary body, and that produced almost 70bhp from its four-cylinder engine.

The Lambda has been recreated beautifully by Łukasz in the model pictured above and there’s more to see of it the other excellent vintage Speed Champions cars shown here by visiting his photostream – click here to see some of the finest cars of 1920s.