If you’re seven, or a TLCB Elf, then this post is for you. This is Tim Inman‘s Chevy Nova, only it isn’t quite as per the cars that left the Chevrolet factory in 1963. Inspired by the German DTM racing series, Tim has outfitted his Nova with a wild aero package consisting of flared arches, ground-effect skirts, a front splitter, rear diffuser, and the biggest rear wing we’ve ever seen. There’s more to see of Tim’s Super Nova on Flickr and you can join the rather weird DTM race via the link.
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!
We’re back to cars, and what a car to return to our site title for. This is a ’68 Chevrolet Camaro ‘Time Attack’ racer, modified with a twin-turbo V6, side-exit exhausts, aero, and a full roll-cage, all built in miniature in Speed Champions scale.
Flickr’s Stephan Jonsson is the creator behind it, and there’s lots more of the Camaro to see – including excellent imagery showing the highly detailed engine and a radically extreme aero-package – at his ‘1986 Pro Street/Time Attack Camaro’ album. Click the link above to set your time.
This week marks the start of a brand a new year, and thus, as is customary, our sneaky Elves have unearthed all the brand new for 2023 LEGO Technic sets! So, following our reveal of the awesome looking 42154 Ford GT earlier in the week, here is every new addition to the LEGO Technic line-up due to reach stores in the first half of 2023…
Kicking off the new 2023 Technic range is this, the 42147 Dump Truck. Consisting of 177 pieces and aimed at ages 7+, 42147 looks like a great way to introduce Technic to younger builders, with working ‘HOG’ steering, a tipping bucket, and a good level of visual detail that reasonably approximates any number of generic compact trucks common across Asia in particular. 42147 costs around £9, can also be built as a rather decent looking excavator, and is available to buy now.
Alternatively, with the same target age and just one difference in the piece count, your £9 for a Technic starter set could be spent on this; the 42148 Snow Groomer. 42148 also looks pretty good to us, and includes mechanical levers to operate the front blade and the rear smoothing, um… thingy. Like 42147 above, an alternative model can also be constructed (in this case the worst-looking snowmobile we’ve ever seen) and is available to buy now.
It wouldn’t be a New Year Set Preview without a pair of pull-backs. Fortunately after some dismal efforts a few years ago, LEGO seem to have struck gold with the officially-licensed ‘Monster Jam’ series, which are perfect for pull-back tomfoolery. 2023 sees another two real-world monster trucks from the American arena spectacular immortalised in brick-form, one of which is giant dog. There’s a green dragon or something too, but if you don’t want the giant dog there’s something wrong with you. Each set costs around £18, and both are available to buy now. Buy the dog.
Continuing LEGO’s partnership with Bugatti, which has produced such sets as the huge Technic 42083 Bugatti Chiron, comes the 905-piece 42151 Bugatti Bolide. Nope, we hadn’t heard of it either. Apparently the Bolide is a $4million track-only hypercar limited to just 40 units, due for delivery some time in 2024. Unless you buy this one of course, which is available now for £45. That price still seems rather a lot for a set that has only working steering and a miniature V16 piston engine for its technical features, but hey – it’s got lots of stickers, some new panels, and lightsabers for rear lights.
This is more like it. Looking a bit like a Canadair CL-215 water bomber (but distinct enough not to require licensing…), 42152 brings some decent technical functions to the Technic line-up in aircraft form. And it can dump blue bricks from its hold.
Retractible landing gear, a working tail rudder, propellors that spin when the model is pushed along the floor (with its landing gear retracted), and a lever to dump the ‘water’ all feature, as do a few new pieces not seen before – including some curved corner sloped panels that’ll you’ll soon be able to find listed on Bricklink at an enormous cost. Aimed at ages 10+, 42152 is a welcome addition to the Technic hangar and will reach stores later this quarter.
It’s time for some double branding with this; the 42153 NASCAR Next-Gen Chevrolet Camaro. Looking rather good (albeit in a very be-stickered way), the new 42153 set brings next-generation NASCAR to the LEGO Technic line-up. And by ‘next-generation’ we mean, ‘exactly the same as NASCAR has always been’. Cue angry comments from NASCAR fans.
Costing the same £45 as the 42151 Bugatti-we’d-never-heard-of above, but with some 230 fewer pieces, 42153 looks to be even poorer value, featuring only a working miniature V8 engine and ‘HOG’ steering. It does look nice though, and will reach stores in March 2023.
2023’s final new addition is this, the 42155 The Batman – Batcycle, which we should write in all-caps but can’t bring ourselves to. We haven’t seen 2022’s ‘The Batman’ movie, having decided that ‘The Dark Knight’ trilogy cannot be bettered, but apparently this features in it. It’s no Tumbler…
But it is quite a nice looking motorcycle we have to admit, and includes an H4 engine, working suspension (via new shock absorbers in black), steering, and a phat set of tyres on new black rims. Expect 641 pieces, a 9+ target age, and £50 price-tag when 42155 lands on shelves in March 2023.
And there you have it, the complete line-up of new LEGO Technic sets for the first half of 2023. Which new Technic sets do you think are worth having? Us… we’ll take the Ford GT.
Whilst both part of the General Motors empire, America’s Chevy ‘Nova’ was rather different to the Vauxhall one we got… Still, we have the cool one today, courtesy of IBrickedItUp and this neat recreation of the third generation Chevrolet Nova SS in Speed Champions scale. Racing stripes and an unnecessary hood bulge add to the image (again, somewhat different to what we got…), and there’s more to see via the link!
Two words (‘Sting Ray’) and two windows mark out the 1963 Chevrolet Corvette C2 amongst half a century of Corvettes. The iconic split rear window lasted just one year, although the fantastic shape lasted until 1968, and this lovely Speed Champions recreation of (probably) the most beautiful American car ever made captures it wonderfully. Jonathan Elliott is the builder and there’s more to see here.
The brand new 10304 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 set is a fantastic addition to LEGO’s real-world vehicle line-up. But what if you prefer your Chevy’s a little more… trucky? Previous bloggee Tomáš Novák (aka PsychoWard666) has the answer, having converted his 10304 Camaro into this excellent mid-80s Chevrolet C10 pick-up, using only the parts from the official LEGO set.
Building instructions are available if you fancy having a go yourself, and there’s more to see of Tomáš’ classic Chevrolet B-Model at both his Flickr photostream and the Eurobricks forum. Click the links above to swap one Chevy for another.
There’s a new name for the Creator Expert line, and it’s shifted gear a bit!
This is the brand new LEGO ‘Icons’ 10304 Chevrolet Camaro Z28, following the 10298 Vespa 125 revealed earlier this year. And if that set represented the default vehicular choice of pretty Italian girls, this one is more ‘shady-looking character with a handlebar moustache, chewing a toothpick and throwing dice in an alley’. The Icons range is nothing if not diverse!
Aimed at ages 18+ (or rather, the marketing is…), 10304 is constructed from nearly 1,500 pieces and brings the famous 1969 American muscle car into the LEGO’s burgeoning real-world vehicle line-up.
Like the recent 10295 Porsche 911 Turbo set, 10304 adopts a multiple-options approach, with no less than three stripe colour options, coupe or convertible body-styles, and hidden or exposed headlights, neatly matching the variants available on the real Camaro Z28 when it was new over fifty years ago.
Further features include working steering, opening doors, hood and trunk, a detailed V8 engine, and authentic decals for a dose of added realism.
The new Icons 10304 Chevrolet Camaro set is expected to cost around $170 / £150 when it reaches stores in August of this year, giving you plenty of time to grow a suitable handlebar moustache and practice your toothpick chewing in readiness.
Aaaand at the other end of the Chevrolet cool scale we have this; a dilapidated El Camino camper, cobbled together from assorted junk, inhabited by someone you’d expect to see throwing dice in an alley, and parked in a swamp. It’s TLCB of cars.
Which means we feel right at home posting ‘Florida Man’s El Camino & Cab-Over Camper’ by previous bloggee IBrickedItUp, and you can join us huntin’ ‘gators in the swamp via the link above.
TLCB Staff are absolutely, tragically, deeply uncool. We work for free in a building with less structural integrity than the Lego creations we feature, our workforce is formed of mythical creatures that could well be figments of our imagination, and for all he knows this Writer is typing these words from a secure psychiatric facility onto a Casio PT-80.
But if we were cool, and we really aren’t, this is what we’d drive.
Tony Bovkoon‘s magnificent ’64 Chevrolet Impala Lowrider might just be the coolest vehicle we’ve ever seen, and not only does it look spectacular, it really, er… lowrides, with four L Motors driving linear actuators that control the suspension movements, allowing the Impala to twist and bounce just like the real thing.
A further two L Motors and a Servo deliver remote control drive and steering when for when the Impala isn’t lowriding, but that’s like wearing a baseball cap the right way round. Or some other cool-based reference. Like we said, we really aren’t cool.
But Tony’s ’64 Chevrolet Impala is, and you can check it out on Flickr, plus you can watch it in action here. Take a look via the link above if you’re cooler than we are.
TLCB’s home nation didn’t get to the enjoy the delights of ’90s full-size American sedans. And by ‘delights’, we mean oversize bodywork, fantastically lazy engines, and the plastics quality of a Kinder Egg toy. This is one such car, the Chevrolet Caprice Classic.
Launched in ’91, the fourth generation of Chevy’s full-size sedan wore new aerodynamic but unpopular bodywork, carried over V8 engines from the previous generation, and rode on a chassis from 1977. Which unbelievably was enough to earn it Motor Trend’s ‘Domestic Car of the Year’, showing just how rubbish American cars were in 1991.
This excellent 6-wide homage to the early-’90s American barge comes from aaref1ev of Flickr, who has captured the Caprice Classic brilliantly, also rendering the design in NYPD and Taxi Cab flavours. Head to aaref1ev’s photostream to jump back to the early-’90s, and be thankful that automotive era is long over…
America likes naming cars after animals. Usually scary ones. Viper, Raptor, Cougar, Stingray, Cobra, Barracuda, Falcon… there’s a long list of predators in car form. And then there’s this; the Impala, named after a medium-sized African antelope.
We’re not sure what a medium-sized African antelope has in common with a large American sedan, and the name is all the more surprising considering the antelope is the prey of top predators and America really doesn’t like naming anything with a hint of weakness. Nevertheless, the Impala was a smash hit.
Part of that success was no doubt down to the Impala’s engines, which themselves had very exciting names such as ‘Blue Flame’, ‘Turbo Fire’ and ‘Turbo Thrust’, although none of which were actually turbo-charged.
Top of the tree was the ‘SS’, which used a 409cu (6.7 litre) ‘Turbo Thrust’ V8 in third-generation form as pictured here, and could produce over 400bhp. This is one medium-sized antelope that was more than a match for the predators.
This beautiful brick-built example of the ’64 ‘SS’ comes from Jakub Marcisz of Flickr, who has recreated the aforementioned ‘Turbo Thrust’ V8, and the third-generation Chevrolet Impala that it powered, in spellbinding detail.
The fantastic exterior is matched by an equally well-detailed interior accessible by opening doors, plus there’s an opening hood and trunk lid, and working steering too, with much more of Jakub’s stunning creation to see at his ‘Chevrolet Impala SS 1964’ album, where twenty top-quality images are available.
The Impala’s success would continue across six decades, but – as with all animals – it eventually succumbed to age. The Impala was finally taken out in 2020, not by one of the various predatorily-named cars it competed against, but by the SUV, with Chevrolet ceasing production in order to focus on crossovers.
And if there’s a car name less cool than a medium-sized African antelope, it’s surely the Traverse.
Racing stripes and V8s are staple favourites here at The Lego Car Blog. Except within the current Festival of Mundanity competition of course. But this car isn’t mundane at all.
The Chevelle was Chevrolet’s mid-sized car in the ’60s and ’70s, built on GM’s ‘A-Body’ platform, and available with no less than eight V8 engines. And a pair of 6-cylinders, but we’re not interested in those.
Top of the tree was the SS, which had over 350bhp. And no steering, suspension or brakes, as was the fashion of American muscle cars of the time. Still, the racing stripes more than made up for that.
This excellent brick-built homage to the 1970s all-power-no-steering approach comes from previous bloggee Rolands Kirpis, and features opening doors, hood and trunk, a realistic V8 engine, and beautiful be-striped dark green bodywork. Which – considering how exceptionally rare dark green LEGO pieces are – must’ve been a proper faff. Apparently one part was $20 alone!
Further images are available and you can take a look via Rolands’ ‘Chevrolet Chevelle SS 1970’ album here, where a link to instructions will also appear soon. Maybe don’t try build it in green though…
These days a cream station wagon would be a rather interesting vehicular sight, surrounded by a sea of grey SUVs. Back in ’60s America however, and they were the byword for boring.
Even the name of this one was uninspired. American car companies are usually quite good at exciting names, but – whilst this would eventually be called the ‘Nova’ – to begin with it was simply known as the ‘Chevy II’, which is almost Sovietly insipid.
Flickr’s Tim Inman is the builder behind this marvellous Model Team recreation of the Chevrolet Chevy II station wagon – which he’s created for the ongoing Festival of Mundanity competition – complete with a beautifully built interior and exterior, opening doors, raising hood, and a life-like engine. Which appropriately is not the optional V8. That would be too interesting.
It’s a fabulous build – although we’re not sure how many mundane points it will earn seeing as today a Chevrolet Chevy II station wagon would be a rather cool sight – and there are lots more images available to see at Tim’s photostream via the link above.
If you’d like to enter your own boring build there are still several weeks of the contest left to go, and some awesome prizes on offer for the winners, with Tim entering into both the Vehicle and Object categories. His object entry might just be the most default and uninspired item in the history of mankind too. Excellent!
Car-based pick-ups have been a strangely transient body style over the years. Currently popular in South America, previously popular but now dead in Australia, and returning once more after a long hiatus to the U.S.
This new crop of car-based pick-ups being marketed in the U.S includes the new Ford Maverick and the decidedly strange-looking Hyundai Santa Cruz, and it could mean there’s room for the famous of them all to make a comeback; the mighty Chevrolet El Camino SS.
Based on the Chevrolet Chevelle, the El Camino swapped the traditional sedan/station-wagon bodywork for a two-door cab with a pick-up bed, and it could be bought with Chevrolet’s most powerful engine of the time, a 13-second 1/4 mile 450bhp V8.
Despite this prodigious power, suspension and steering were still, well… it had them we suppose, and disc brakes were an optional extra. Handling was clearly not an El Camino strong-suite then, but if it could stop and go round corners quickly all your stuff would fly out of the bed, so perhaps Chevrolet were cleverer than we’re giving them credit for. Or it could be that American consumers only cared about big power and racing stripes…
This wonderful recreation of the definitive muscle-car-pick-up comes from Jakub Marcisz, who has replicated the 1970 El Camino SS brilliantly in brick-form. Jakub’s model includes (somewhat superfluous) working steering, the requisite big piston engine connected to the rear wheels, opening doors, hood and tailgate, and – most importantly of all – racing stripes.
There’s lots more to see at Jakub’s ‘Chevrolet El Camino SS’ album, and you can make the jump to ’70s racing-striped muscle-car-based-pick-up wonderfulness via the link above.
