Tag Archives: Classic Race Teams

Winning Horse

Leave a reply

Modern Formula 1 cars last just one season. But back in the 1970s Scuderia Ferrari created a car that lasted for six. And it won four of them, making it the most successful design in Formula 1 history.

First competing in 1975, the Ferrari 312T featured a tubular steel spaceframe, a transverse 3 litre flat-12 making around 500bhp, and excellent reliability. The version we have here today is the T4 variant, featuring aerodynamic modifications to take the Constructor’s World Championship back from Lotus, whose ‘ground effect’ design ended the 312T’s winning streak in 1978.

It worked too, returning the Constructor’s title to Ferrari and giving Jody Scheckter the Driver’s Championship. This fabulous recreation of the 312 T4 comes from Andre Pinto of Flickr, and captures Scheckter‘s title-winning car in spectacular detail.

Custom chromed pieces, authentic replica decals, and stunning internals make Andre’s Ferrari 312T one of the finest vintage Formula 1 cars we’ve published yet, and you can find all the images at his ‘Ferrari 312 T4’ album via the link above.

Marlboro Men

Leave a reply

We’re heading back to the turn of the decade today. No the one before that. And the one before that. Yes it’s the late ‘80s, when greed was good and cigarettes were cool.

Cue this glorious pair of classic Formula 1 cars, each made by TLCB Master MOCer Carl Greatrix and each sponsored by the world’s favourite cancer sticks.

Featuring superb custom decals and 3D-printed wheels, Carl has perfectly replicated the McLaren Honda MP4/4 that dominated the 1988 season (winning fifteen of the sixteen races), and the V12-powered Ferrari 641 that came second in the 1990 F1 Championship.

Wonderful detailing abounds and there’s much more to see of both the McLaren and Ferrari on Flickr. Buy a forty-pack of Marlboros via the links above.

Rolling a Six

Leave a reply

The Lego Car Blog Elves are very excited today…

This is the 1976 Tyrrell P34, Formula 1’s only racing-winning 6-wheeler, and – as things currently stand – the only 6-wheeler that will ever win a race as the fun-sponges at Formula 1 banned cars with more than four wheels a few years later. Because… honestly we have no idea.

This fabulous recreation of the Elf-liveried P34 comes from TLCB debutant bentobrick, who has constructed motorsport’s most recognisable design brilliantly in brick, including a working replica Cosworth DFV engine and four-wheel steering (as shown in the excellent render below).

There’s more of bentobrick’s superb 1976 Tyrrell P34 to see at the Eurobricks forum, where a link to building instructions is also available, and you can head to a Grand Prix in 1976 via the link above.

Night Out Of The Museum

Leave a reply

It’s Star Wars Day! So to celebrate here’s a classic Porsche 936.81 Le Mans racer. Yeh, we’re not great at sci-fi. But no matter, because the story of the Porsche 936.81 is much more interesting than George Lucas’s space saga.

First racing in the mid-70s, the 936 was rather outdated by the early ’80s, and thus surviving units were residing in a museum. Needing a car for Le Mans, Porsche brought the cars out of retirement, brought their drivers out of retirement too, and fitted a detuned engine from an Indy Car.

The resultant hodge-podge unbelievably won the 1981 Le Mans 24 Hours, with a museum-piece car, a retired driver, and a left-over engine. And that’s a better story than anything in Star Wars.

Built by previous bloggee SFH_Bricks, this fantastic Speed Champions recreation of the 936.81 captures the unlikely race winner brilliantly, and there’s more to see of his superbly presented model at his ‘1981 Porsche 9361.81’ album here.

Alpine Past

1 Reply

Alpine are back from the dead, with new production cars, a re-badged Renault Formula 1 Team, and re-badged Oreca Le Mans Hypercars. Which is nice and all, but they were cooler the first time round. Particularly when they built this; the 1978 Le Mans-winning Renault Alpine A442B.

Only two manufacturers competed for outright victory in ’78, but with the other being Porsche and Alpine’s Didier Pironi and Jean-Pierre Jaussaud completing a record distance over the twenty-four hours, the victory was still an immense achievement.

This fantastic Speed Champions recreation of the ’78 race winner comes from Flickr’s SFH_Bricks, whose catalogue of classic Le Mans racers is both extensive and beautifully constructed.

A wonderfully accurate livery adds to the realism (which TLCB Elves like too for some reason…) and you can see more of SFH’s glorious Renault Alpine A442B at his album of the same name via the link above.

Le Mans Matra

Leave a reply

Matra. The greatest car manufacturer most have never heard of. Formula 1 World Champions, three-time Le Mans Winners, and creators of hugely influential production-car successes like this, segment-pioneering inventions like this, and colossal failures like this.

That last one bankrupted the company, which disappeared forever in 2003, so we’ll jump back to 1972 when Matra where on top of not just their game, but everyone else’s, taking the first of three Le Mans wins in a row.

They did so with this, the wild Matra Simca MS670, which won the race by eleven laps in the hands Henri Pescarolo and Graham Hill, with another MS670 in second. This superb Speed Champions recreation of Matra’s ’72 endurance racer is the work of SFH_Bricks of Flickr, who has added it to his ever-growing roster of Le Mans cars.

Authentic decals and fantastic presentation make SFH’s MS670 a worthy homage to the oft-forgotten champions, and you can take a closer look at his brilliant build via the link above.

Smoking Silhouette

1 Reply

Lancia’s magnificent mid-engined Stratos is one of World Rallying’s most famous cars, winning the Championship three years in a row from 1974 to ’76.

But less well known is that the Stratos lived beyond its World Rally Championship success, becoming a turbocharged silhouette circuit racer in the wild late-’70s Group 5 ‘Special Production Car’ era.

Only the hood, roof, and doors had to remain production spec, leading to some pretty loose interpretations of ‘Production Car’, with Lancia’s Group 5 entry no different.

Created by Alan Guerzoni, this homage to the Group 5 Stratos Turbo captures its bizarre aesthetic brilliantly, with custom decals (including obligatory ’70s cigarette marketing) and 3D-printed wheels adding to the accuracy. Head to a circuit c1976 and hold on tight.

Le Mans ’71

Leave a reply

It might be Ferrari and Toyota at the top of endurance racing right now, but there’s one manufacturer that has dominated Le Mans more than any other; Porsche.

Winning the Le Mans 24 Hours on nineteen occasions, the first of Porsche’s victories came in 1970 thanks to this; the magnificent 917K.

Powered by a wild flat-12, the 917 debuted in 1969, where it was… rubbish. Dodgy aerodynamics (which were still largely experimental at the time) made the car terrifying to drive at high speed, but Porsche refined the car, chopping the tail off and later fitting it with two stabilising fins and a magnesium chassis.

The result was the most dominant one-two in Le Mans history, when in 1971 both 917Ks finished some thirty laps ahead of the third place Ferrari.

This spectacular Speed Champions recreation of the ’71 race winning car, complete with its iconic Martini Racing livery, comes from previous bloggee SFH_Bricks of Flickr, who has captured the 917K absolutely beautifully in brick form.

Building instructions are available and there are more stunning images to view at SFH’s photostream. Click the link above to take a look, and wait thirty laps for the Ferrari to catch up.

Orange Squash

2 Replies

This incredibly low – and incredible orange – car is a 1972 McLaren M20, one of the stars of the Canadian-American Challenge Cup (or Can-Am) racing series that ran from 1966 to 1974. With no limit on engine size (in fact, with few regulations at all of any kind), Can-Am became an almost unrestricted racing series, with the cars even out-performing Formula 1.

The results were wild, often using the largest engines available (usually Chevrolet), and with many drivers coming from Formula 1 and Le Mans, including a few that would become champions of each.

McLaren won the series five times, with Bruce McLaren himself taking the driver’s crown twice. The M20 didn’t make it a sixth Can-Am championship for the British team however, as its 1972 debut coincided with the arrival of Porsche’s monstrous 917, powered by a 900bhp flat-12 that was rumoured to make up to 1,500bhp in qualifying trim.

The M20 still took two wins during the 1972 season however, finishing a distant second in the championship behind the Penske-Porsche, before McLaren left the series as a works-team to focus on Formula 1.

This spectacular Model Team recreation of the final McLaren Can-Am racer comes from Luciano Delorenzo, who has captured the M20 brilliantly in brick-form. The accurate bodywork includes authentic decals, there’s working steering, and a highly detailed replica of the 8.3 litre Chevrolet V8 is fitted underneath the removable rear section.

There’s more of the model to see at Luciano’s ‘1972 McLaren M20’ album on Flickr, and you can jump back to the mightiest racing series there’ll probably ever be via the link in the text above.

Having a Lark

Leave a reply

Once the world’s fastest production car, and winner of the 1995 Le Mans 24 Hours, this is the McLaren F1 GTR.

Following its victory at Le Mans (the first time either a manufacturer or team had won the race on their Le Mans debut), McLaren’s Ron Dennis and businessman Kazumichi Goh decided to take the car to Japan, forming McLaren Team Lark, and taking on the country’s domestic teams in the newly formed GT500 championship.

The Lark McLaren F1 GTRs were dominant, comfortably beating domestic rivals from Nissan, Toyota and Honda to win every GT500 race in 1996 bar one.

So dominant was the F1 GTR in fact, that the organisers effectively legislated it out of the championship, imposing so many restrictions on the team that they withdrew before the start of the ’97 season.

The result, after that single all-conquering year, was that the rest of the GT500 teams considerably upped their game. GT500 cars became much faster, more exciting, and more technologically-advanced, and thus the ongoing success of the GT500 Championship has more than a little to do with a little British car that entered for just one season some three decades ago.

This wonderful homage to the short-lived but spectacular Team Lark McLaren F1 GTRs comes from TLCB debutant brickengineeringdude, who has recreated the ’96 championship-winning racer brilliantly in brick form. 3D-Printed wheels, tyres decals, and a superb approximation of the Team Lark livery make brick’s F1 GTR instantly recognisable, and there’s much more to see at their photostream via the link.

But what of Team Lark and GT500? Well owner Kazumichi Goh went on to buy an Audi R8, and with it won the 2004 Le Mans 24 Hours, becoming only the second Japanese team to win the race outright. Meanwhile Japan’s GT500 championship has gone from strength to strength, but has never again been won by a non-Japanese car since the Team Lark McLarens of 1996…

Rally-Bred

Leave a reply

This is the unmistakable shape of the Lancia Stratos, designed by Bertone and powered by a Ferrari Dino V6, it was the first car purpose-built for rallying, winning the World Rally Championship three times consecutively between 1974 and 1976.

This lovely diorama by Flickr’s alex_bricks, who appeared here recently with his stunning 1988 Monaco Grand Prix scene, depicts a works Alitalia-liveried Stratos scything through a muddy forest.

Forced-perspective foliage and an array of mini-figures – including a driver and co-driver and some hardy spectators – add to the ambiance, and you can join them trackside c1975 via the link in the text above.

Monaco ’88

5 Replies

‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, the Toyota Corolla, and the Monaco Grand Prix. All simultaneously the greatest examples of their respective genres, and also the most boring.

But Formula 1 in Monaco wasn’t always a procession. Before the cars were the size of school buses, which these days makes overtaking impossible, Monaco could put on quite a show.

Back in 1988, even with the complete dominance of the McLaren-Honda MP4/4, the ’88 Monaco Grand Prix delivered. Twenty-six cars started – two of which were even called ‘Megatron’ (seriously, look it up!) – just ten finished, and Ayrton Senna was the class of the field.

Out-qualifying his team-mate Alain Prost by a staggering 1.4 seconds, Senna led the race by almost a minute… until he didn’t. A momentary lapse of concentration eleven laps from the finish and he hit the wall, whereupon he exited his broken McLaren and walked home.

Prost took the win (his forth and final Monaco GP victory), followed by Gerhard Berger’s Ferrari some twenty seconds back. Which means there’s perhaps some artistic license with the cars’ proximity in alex_bricks‘ stunning 1988 Monaco Grand Prix vignette, but in every other respect this is a spectacularly realistic homage to the Monte Carlo street race.

Recreating the circuit as it was in the late-’80s required Alex to watch old race footage (which is surely some of the most fun research required to build a Lego model), matching his brick-built version of the Mediterranean Principality to the televised imagery from the time.

The result is a replica of the streets of Monaco as they were in 1988 so perfect we can practically hear the noise from the Formula 1 cars bouncing off the walls of the buildings, with Alex displaying his incredible build at the Brickfair show earlier in the year.

Fortunately he’s uploaded a few images to Flickr too, so you can join TLCB Team immersing themselves in Monaco in 1988 via his photostream. Click the link above to head the greatest race on the Formula 1 calendar, long before it was boring.

Lamenting Lancia

Leave a reply

As occasionally we do here at The Lego Car Blog, today’s post is a lament of Lancia.

One of the most innovative, technically advanced, and motorsport-winning car companies in history, Lancia have created some of the all-time great automobiles. Yet today they make only this. Which is probably worse than if they made nothing at all.

We’re heading back to the 1970s then, when Lancia made a whole range of wonderful (if poorly rust protected) cars, and this; the incredible Stratos HF.

Designed by Bertone (who pitched it to Lancia by just turning up and driving it underneath the security barrier), the Stratos was a mid-engined sports car designed for rallying. And rally it did, winning the World Championship three years in a row from ’74 to ’76. And unlike every other Lancia it couldn’t rust, being made from fibreglass.

Equally glorious (and rust-proof) is this spectacular replica of the Alitalia-liveried Stratos rally car, recreated brilliantly by Biczzz of Flickr. Beautifully-built bodywork, superbly accurate decals, and a replica Ferrari V6 ‘Dino’ engine underneath a removable rear clamshell make this a fine homage to Lancia’s glory years, and there more to see – including a lime green road-car version – at Biczzz’s ‘Lancia Stratos’ album.

Click the link above to go rallying in the mid-’70s, when Lancia were on top of the world.

There’ll be Elf to Pay

Leave a reply

It’s not often that The Lego Car Blog Elves are enthusiastic about a Lego model, beyond it resulting in a meal token. Today however, they’re beyond excited, as – in their minds – their ancestors sponsored the 1985 Lotus 97/T that gave Ayrton Senna his debut win.

What with it being the ’80s, John Player Special cigarettes did too – and it’s debatable which is worse for your health – but nevertheless that JPS gold-on-black livery sure does look cool.

This spectacular replica of the race-winning Lotus is the work of recent bloggee Robson M, whose other cigarette-sponsored Formula 1 car, also driven by Ayron Senna, appeared here earlier in the month.

A stunning recreation of the Elf/JPS livery, perfect presentation, and some rather clever building techniques make Robson’s Lotus 97/T well worth a closer look, and you can jump to 1985 via the link above, along with a bunch of excited TLCB Elves.

High Five

Leave a reply

Renualt’s humble 5 was a shopping-car favourite in the 1980s. And a joke by the 1990s. Now that most have been thrown away though, they are properly cool. Particularly in ‘Turbo’ flavour, from back when a whole model could simply be called ‘Turbo’ and nothing else, as it was clearly the most important bit.

Cue Darren Thew’s wonderful Renault 5 Turbo rally car, in tarmac ‘Tour de Corse’ specification, and sporting some fantastically accurate decals (which the Elves seem to really like too for some reason).

Blending Technic and System parts beautifully, Darren’s Renault 5 includes a detailed interior, complete with roll cage and harnesses, plus a highly accurate dashboard and controls, whilst under the opening hood is superb replica of the 5’s four-cylinder engine, including the famed forced-induction component that the whole car was named after.

It’s a brilliant build and one that’s definitely worth a closer look. Spool up your turbo and head to Corsica in the 1980s by clicking these words, plus here’s a bonus link of the real Renault 5 Turbo Tour de Corse winner in action.