Some cars are just cool. And this is one of them, the tremendous 1969 Chevrolet Nova SS, equipped with a near 400bhp V8 and – in the case of PleaseYesPlease’s brick-built example – dropped to the floor under bulging arches. Never has the office Rover 200 looked more upright. Or slower. Join us imagining we’re cool at Please’s ‘Nova SS 1969’ album via the link.
It’s funny how words change over time. What once meant herding livestock across the Mongolian steppe, living in a tent and drinking yaks milk, now means sitting on a beach in Bali selling crap digital marketing / lifestyle coaching / crypto courses to the terminally gullible.
There must be a middle-ground…
Fortunately there is, and today we’re showing you how to have a nomadic lifestyle whilst neither freezing in a tent in Mongolia nor becoming an insufferable digital douchebag. This is the Chevrolet Nomad.
Based on the Chevrolet Bel-Air and featuring a gorgeous two-door two-tone station-wagon body, the V8-powered Nomad was the height of ’50s ‘Motorama’ design. Growing to become an equally dramatic four-door station-wagon from ’58, it’s the ’57 model-year we have here, courtesy of previous bloggee Tony Bovkoon and his fabulous Model Team recreation.
Opening doors, hood and tailgate all feature, as does a superbly replicated V8 engine and interior, with lots more to see at Tony’s ‘Chevrolet Nomad’ album. Building instructions are available too so you can go nomadic for yourself; click the link above to find out more, no yaks milk or dodgy digital marketing course required.
Here in TLCB’s home nation we know the ‘Nova’ as an early-‘80s to early-‘90s supermini that was everywhere, and then nowhere, as rust and neglect killed – like all ‘80s economy cars – almost every last one.
In 1960s America however, an ‘economy car’ meant something rather different, and General Motors used the same nameplate for the Chevrolet Nova, the base engine for which was more than twice as big as the largest engine ever fitted to its later Vauxhall namesake.
But we’re not interested in the base Nova, not when there was a V8 engine of over five litres available in the Super Sport variant. Imagine that in a Vauxhall shopping car…
This beautiful ‘67 Chevrolet Nova SS is the work of Flickr’s PleaseYesPlease, and it’s about a billion times cooler than the Novas we got. Superbly built and presented, there’s more to see at Please’s photostream and you can take a look via the link.
From one end General Motors’ cool spectrum (well, almost. There was the Chevrolet Matiz) to the other. This is the glorious 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS, with racing stripes and a 7.4 litre V8 that could be optioned up to 450bhp.
This spectacular brick-built version of the top dog Chevelle comes from Jakub Marcisz who has updated his previous iteration of his model, and features working steering, a two-speed gearbox, and V8 engine, plus opening doors, hood and trunk.
Building instructions are available and you can see all of the images and find full details of Jakub’s incredible creation at both Flickr and Eurobricks. Click the links to take a look.
This TLCB Writer likes to think he’s impervious to product placement, advertisements, and online marketing.
But ALL he wants right now is tacos. Dwelve’s Chevy Step-Van food truck is the cause, and you can join this writer in the queue via the link.
When America’s government need highly trained police officers to go into the most dangerous situations, they call for S.W.A.T, or ‘Special Weapons And Tactics’.
And when they need ill-trained thugs to shoot an unarmed nurse outnumbered 8:1 ten times, they call for ICE.
We’ll stick with the former today, firstly because we have this awesome Chevy P30 S.W.A.T van straight outta Gotham City, and secondly because if S.W.A.T are here we’re less likely to get shot by Immigration & Customs Enforcement.
This splendid brick-built version of the police units trained to do things properly comes from previous bloggee Sam Andreas, and you can join them on the streets of Gotham via the link above. Which has got to be safer than being on the actual streets of America when ICE are around…
‘What’s that crunchy sound?’ muttered this TLCB Writer to himself as he sat in TLCB Office. A weary trudge out to the corridor revealed the source, as a remote control 4×4 drove forwards and backwards over a small pile of flattened TLCB Elves.
On seeing a human the Elf at the controls abandoned its activity and fled the scene cackling maniacally, leaving its vehicle of choice (and the pile of Elves underneath it) behind. We’ll administer first-aid to the victims later, but first let’s take a look at the model!
It’s a K5-series Chevrolet Blazer, as recreated superbly in Technic form by Madoca 1977. A suite of Powered-Up electronics are packed inside, providing remote control four-wheel-drive, steering and a high/low gearbox.
Madoca has also engineered a properly clever drivetrain, with linked pendular suspension that automatically locks the differentials at high rates of axle articulation. No wonder it made such light work of squashing our mythical workers.
There’s lots more of Madoca’s model to see – including images of the ingenious engineering within – at the Eurobricks forum, plus you watch the Blazer in action via the video below. Click the links to take a closer look.
YouTube Video
The 1940s to 1960s were not just the peak of American automotive design, but perhaps the peak of all automotive design. Even cheap American cars were penned with absolute joy, with fabulous curves, chrome highlights, and brilliant two-tone paint, as evidenced by this gorgeous 1940s Chevrolet Fleetline Fastback.
Powered by an inline-6 and built in half-a-dozen factories across the US, the Fleetline accounted for almost a third of all Chevrolets sold at the time, with this lovely Model Team recreation coming from Vibor Cavor of Flickr.
Working steering, opening doors, hood and trunk, and a wonderfully lifelike interior and engine all feature, and you can head back to when even base American cars were things of beauty via the link to Vibor’s ‘Chevrolet Fleetline Fastback’ album above.
Here in the crumbling edifice that is TLCB Towers, surrounded by mythical Elves and perpetual piles of spam comments, sometimes we just want to escape into the wilderness…
Cue this splendid mid-’70s Chevrolet ‘K5’ Blazer constructed by damjan97PL / damianPLE. On lifted suspension and running oversize tyres, Damian’s Chevy looks the perfect tool to make a break from the office.
Which is what Damian has done himself, photographing his creation on location at a lovely looking riverbank. Working steering and opening doors accompany the functioning suspension, building instructions are available, and three’s more to see at both Eurobricks and Bricksafe.
Take a look via the links above whilst this writer tries to sneak out of the office before any of his colleagues have read this post…
LEGO do not make enough types of windscreen. A million types of curved bows, lift-arms, and foliage yes. Windscreens, no.
So regular bloggee _Tiler has flipped a standard 6-wide clear screen 270° to make it fit his wonderful ’64 Chevrolet Impala Convertible.
Ingenious building techniques and/or magic hold it in place, and you can see more of _Tiler’s brilliant solution to LEGO’s chronic windscreen shortage on Flickr via the link above.
Whilst naming something after a group of Native American tribes is rather frowned upon today, the 1950s were a simpler time, and thus Chevrolet had no such qualms about calling their light/medium-duty pick-up the ‘Apache’ in 1958.
Powered by a range of inline-6 and V8 engines, the Apache was GM’s first truck to be offered with power steering, power brakes, and the segment’s first wrap-around windshield.
This splendid Model Team replica of the ’58 Chevrolet Apache comes from previous bloggee Jakub Marcisz, and features working steering, a beautifully detailed interior, a realistic engine bay, opening doors, and a dropping tailgate.
It also looks fantastic, and there’s much more of the model to see at both Jakub’s ‘Chevrolet Apache 1958’ Flickr album and the Eurobricks forum, where a link to building instructions can also be found. Click on the links above to jump to the reservation.
*Today’s title song. Which also definitely wouldn’t get made today. But does show that all you needed for a music video in 1979 was a green rug, a tent, and a trip to a fancy dress shop. We strive to be unbiased and impartial here at TLCB of course, so here’s an equally offensive counter song.
It’s the scariest time of the year, when the night is filled with ghosts and ghouls, it’s OK for children to take sweets from strangers, and girls wear nothing at all for some reason.
Cue László Torma, who has updated his previously-blogged ’57 Chevy for Halloween with some scarily-good brick-built flames.
A skeletal mini-figure driver and flame-spitting side-pipes complete the spooky ambiance, and there’s more to see of his Halloween hot rod here.
‘Breaking Bad’ featured some perfectly cast vehicles over its five season run. Walter White’s Pontiac Aztek, the Fleetwood Bounder meth-lab, Gus Fring’s Volvo wagon, and this; Jesse Pinkman’s ’82 Chevrolet Monte Carlo lowrider.
Shot up during Tuco Salamanca’s well-deserved season two demise, Jesse’s ‘THE CAPN’ license-plated Chevy was a fixture from the opening episode, and has been recreated brilliantly in brick form by previous bloggee Jakub Marcisz.
Complete with ‘furry’ dice, hydraulics control switches, fist and Mary figurine ornaments, and a ‘THE CAPN’ license plate, Jakub’s build wonderfully captures details of the TV car, and also includes opening doors, hood and trunk, a realistic engine, and a superbly replicated interior.
There’s more of the model to see at both Flickr and the Eurobricks forum, including links to building instructions, and you find full details and all the imagery via the links above.
As uninspired, dreary and monotonous as American cars have been since the late-’90s, they were spectacular, inventive, and pioneering in the late-’50s. Tail-fins, chrome, and delightful shapes abounded during America’s automotive golden years, with two high watermarks being Chevrolet’s gorgeous C1 Corvette and iconic Impala.
Recreating these icons of Americana is SFH_Bricks, who has begun a new series building the most famous ’50s cars in Speed Champions scale. Joining his previously blogged Cadillac El Dorado, the Corvette and Impala pictured here capture each classic Chevrolet beautifully in miniature (with the pieces used for the Impala’s tail-lights in particular perfectly formed for the task).
There’s more to see of SFH’s wonderfully presented classic Chevrolet Corvette and Impala models (including details on building instructions) on Flickr via the links, where we’re sure a fleet of ’50s American classic will be sure to join them.
Whilst the Trans-Am is driven by shady gamblers, the Mustang by jocks who crash almost immediately, and the Challenger by morons, the Corvette has a rather different consumer base.
Despite on the face of it being a rather similar vehicle to the aforementioned threats to public safety, the Chevrolet Corvette is owned exclusively by balding recently-divorced golf enthusiasts, who spend more time polishing them than they do behind the wheel.
Which perhaps makes the Corvette, along with the Lexus ES, the safest car in America.
This splendid example is a 1970s ‘C3’ generation, as constructed beautifully by previous bloggee Szunyogh Balázs. There’s an opening hood, opening doors, and a detailed drivetrain, with much more to see on Flickr. Click here to get polishing before you head to the golf club.
