Looking a bit like Nature’s finest frozen water efforts – or the alloy wheel from a second generation Ford Focus ST (What? We are car nerds…) is Chris Perron’s ‘Asterisk’ classic spaceship. Chris’ work is a masterclass in great image editing and you can see more here.
We love Classic Space here at TLCB, but this classic spaceman’s pointy ship by Flickr’s Jerac looks like it’s compensating for something…
Classic Space seems to be taking over the online Lego Community of late. We’ve had classic space hot rods, even classic space muscle cars, and today we can add another three tenuous links back to the smiling spacemen of the 1980s to this list.
First up, and the least odd of today’s trio, is this mega Mobile Lunar Base by Flickr’s Benjamin Corey. It’s got Technic Power Functions motors inside so it can trundle about in a very classic spacey way, although luckily for our Elves it’s one RC creation that’s too slow to mow them down. You can see more of Benjamin’s tracked-command centre on Flickr at the link above.
The second of today’s classic space creations comes from recent bloggee Tim Henderson, who has decided that what classic spacemen really need in the vacuum of space is an air-breathing V8-engined ‘gasser’ hot rod. It might not be logical, but it’s damn cool! There’s more to see on Flickr via the link above.
The final model in our classic space trio comes from Gerald F of MOCpages. Gerald’s smiling classic spaceman seems to have taken a wormhole into a parallel universe, emerging at the helm of his very own classic space Star Wars podracer.
You can see more of Gerald’s spacey mash-up over on MOCpages via the link above, whilst we ponder if the arrival of all of these smiling classic spacemen is the signal of something sinister…
Here at The Lego Car Blog, we pride ourselves on being a serious journal. We’ve chronicled and curated a high quality collection of Technic vehicles, Town & City minifig-scale machines and micro-scale builds. We would never demean ourselves with a photo feature on such a silly group as this year’s Febrovery. Oh, go on then: here’s a spaceman driving a giant caterpillar…
Two of this year’s most prolific contributors to the group were Crimso Giger and TF Designs, both of whom produced a rover for each of the 28 days of the month. Featured above is Crimso’s “Caterpillar Rover” from day 23 and below is TF Designs’ “A.D.U. Rundown”. Each of TF designs’ vehicles was built from parts from Lego’s space themes from Classic Space to the present day.
TLCB regular Billyburg’s style is ideally suited to the Febrovery theme and we featured one of his builds in our Valentine’s Day Special. Using many smaller pieces and slices of Lego tubing Billyburg produced a selection of rovers, featuring his trademark blue spaceman. The Elves particularly liked the playability of his Lunar R.O.V.E.R.
The month also featured many impractical and dangerous designs from another TLCB bloggee, David Roberts. Fortunately these were all built in LDD and with nothing for the Elves to sink their teeth into, they didn’t meet our Submission Guidelines. Also in the useful but probably impractical category was Halfbeak’s CS Ravine Rover, apparently enabling spacemen to, “Cross that ditch without a hitch!”.
We featured Tyler Sky’s very practical contribution to the Febrovery group almost a month ago. He went back in time, both to Classic Space and possibly to the Stone Age to create his Primitive Rover. A practical manual power back-up or a throw back to the Flintstones: you decide!
A newcomer to both Febrovery and The Lego Car Blog was French builder, Pirate Cox. We featured his charming, Morgan-like Rover #7 earlier in the month. The Elves also liked his Rover #5 monowheel, with its clever arrangement of cogs and control pedals for the driver.
Lastly, it’s worth mentioning another prolific builder of slightly silly space rovers, David Alexander Smith. He raised the intellectual tone of the month with a thoughtful and thought provoking article on his philosophical Lego blog, “Building Debates“. Visit the Febrovery Flickr group by clicking this link and see David Smith’s thesis in action that, “Lego builders do it best, when we do it together.”
On that high-brow, cultural note, it just remains for us to finish with another build from the man who started it all: Crimso Giger. Here’s a spaceman driving a giant snail.
The smiling spacemen of Classic Space seem to be taking over the world! No sooner had we posted this classic space mash-up than another Elf returned to TLCB Towers clutching this imagining of what a hot rod would look like in classic space. It’s the work of Horcik Designs and there’s more to see here.
This wonderful classic space Dodge Charger* is the collaborative work of Kristi and Cody at Custom Bricks and C3Brix respectively. Kristi has been hard at work knocking up some most excellent decals to decorate Cody’s Charger design. As well as the classic space iteration above, Kristi has liveried the most iconic Charger of them all, the Dukes of Hazard ‘General Lee’. Both cars can be found on Flickr – click the links above to see more.
*You won’t find us making a very poor taste space-related joke about Dodge’s other ’60s muscle car. Nope. We’re rising above it today.
This year’s Febrovery is producing some wild flights of fancy, some strangely silly machines and even one or two practical bits of space surface transportation. Falling somewhere in between the very silly and very practical is Tyler Sky’s “Lunar Worksite Maintenance Bio-Break Rover”.
Naturally this appealed to the Elves’ sense of humour and has left them rolling around the floor in fits of smirking giggles for most of the day. We, of course, are mature, sophisticated bloggers and appreciate the build for its features. The double banked, rubber CS wheels; the greebly plumbing on the rear of the machine and the compactness of the cubicle. Click this link to see Tyler’s full width presentation, plus his other marvellous Febrovery machines.
This Pro Street Racer is the work of piratecox on Flickr. It features all of the chrome and giant fins that you’d hope to find find on a 50s or 60s automobile. It also sports the obligatory hot-rod custom exhausts and an engine so large that the driver can’t actually see where he’s going. The car also has an instrument panel made from coffee cups and a mean looking driver.
Whilst the Elves were passing through piratecox’s Photostream, they collected the first of this year’s Febrovery builds to be blogged here. Many Rebrovery builds feature multiple wheels but this rather nice Classic Space motorbike has just the usual two. Click the links in text to see more.
Here at The Lego Car Blog our attitude to sci-fi is like our attitude to art: we don’t much about it but we know what we like. We’ve done quite well recently, having blogged both the first and second place winners in the third ever Classic Space Pocket Money Contest, well before the results were announced. The third place build was a spacey golf course in LDD, which didn’t really meet our submission guidelines, so we’ve an excuse for missing that one.
The Elves’ favourite was Locutus 666’s Rapid Reconnaissance Rover, an impressively large machine built from less than 100 pieces. Equipped with two cockpits and big wheels for high-speed rolling across the office floor, this vehicle kept our diminutive workforce entertained for a long time. Then they discovered that it’s a modular build, which can be quickly swapped into various configurations. That’s when the fighting started…
Regardless of this, we’re feeling a bit more confident about our sci-fi expertise, especially when things have wheels on. We’ll be watching this year’s Febrovery Flickr festival with interest.
This lone spaceman has shunned the permanent sunny disposition of his Classic Space counterparts for a look of grim determination. It looks like he’s got a very long way to go…
You can see more of Peter Reid‘s Satellite Patroller on Flickr.
The cheap and simple to maintain “tuk, tuk” is spreading everywhere today. Especially in Asia, Africa and South America they are thronging the roads of cities transporting both goods and people. Recently, a team of Elves have been using a tuk tuk to haul their Lego finds back to TLCB towers. Fortunately this noisily annoying vehicle was smushed into the carpet by another group, equipped with Sariel’s Liebherr Loader.
Tuk tuks have now made it into space, thanks to Pico van Grootveld’s entry into this year’s Classic Space Pocket Money Contest. His Tequilatron theme might explain why 1980s spacemen were always happy and smiling. Pico has also just published photos of his awesome ORCA MK II gunship. Click this link to his Flickr Photostream to see more of both builds, including the alternative models made from the Tuk tuk’s parts.
Everyone likes a big rocket,* and Flickr’s Billyburg has got two! They’re mounted on the back of his Mobile Intergalactic Rocket Command vehicle, a reimagining of LEGO’s own 6950 Classic Space set. See more at the link above.
*Especially your Mom.
Because classic spacemen still need calcium…
The very wonderful Classic Space Pocket Money Contest is running for a third year on MOCPages. We’re very excited by this, and not just because it gives us an excuse to build something elf-sized and fire it into space…
All you have to do is come up with a 100-piece (or less) set in any of the classic space colour schemes and build alternates using the same pieces. It’s a fun challenge and there’s even prizes! Although you’ll be going some to beat Stephan N‘s entry above, which is designed to supply to our smiling vintage friends plenty of the white stuff (no, not THAT white stuff.) Time to dust off the (old) grey and blue…
The Classic Space Pocket Money Contest is open for entries until January 13th.
The Elves are particularly excited by today’s find. Not only does it have racing stripes and an ability to smush other Elves into the carpet via remote control, builder David Roberts’ has included a shout out to them in his creation description.
Don’t think that doing this earned his ‘4×4 Greeble Transporter’ a place here though, as TLCB team don’t like excited Elves one bit, so such shout outs probably balance out somewhere around neutral (before you guys get any ideas!). The creation has earned itself a place here though, by being thoroughly brilliant.
Driven by a Power Functions XL motor and steered by two linear actuators the Greeble Transporter contains a proper dose of Technic goodness underneath the fantastic classic space exterior. You can see more pictures, and a video of the vehicle in action, via both MOCpages and Flickr.
