When is a DAF not a DAF? When it’s a GINAF. No, us neither, but this is indeed a GINAF, specifically a M3132-S 360 ATI, which admittedly sounds like a washing machine.
It comes from DAF-building specialist Arian Janssens, who has captured the enormous three axle hook-lift / tipper / crane / trailer arrangement superbly.
Multi-axle steering, a working crane, removable tipping container and hook-lift all feature, and you can see more of this giant GINAF on Flickr via the link.
One of LEGO’s finest themes and eras was the early-’90s ‘Town’ range. Railways, airports, emergency services, and harbours all featured, with perhaps the best of them all being the huge 6542 Launch & Load Seaport.
Cue regular bloggee Thirdwigg, who has set out to recreate all of the elements of the wonderful 1991 set in Technic form, including the crane, containers, ships, truck, and forklift.
It’s the latter of these that he has recently completed, supersizing the original forklift from the set to Technic scale with working rear-steer, and tilting / raising forks, all operated mechanically.
There’s much more of Thirdwigg’s Technic 6542 forklift, and the other components completed so far, at his ‘6542 Bigger’ album, and you can take a look on Flickr via the link above.
The early-’90s were a golden era for LEGO’s ‘Town’ theme. Shops, restaurants, race tracks, 9V trains, and – our favourite – sea ports. The pinnacle was 6542 Launch & Load Seaport, which included two ships, a marvellous crane, and a truck, from which containers of various loads could be transferred to sea or rail, with LEGO ingeniously standardising the container mounts across a wide variety of sets.
Friend of TLCB Thirdwigg (aka wigboldy) is on a mission to recreate this glorious Town set in Technic form, including an upscaled version of 6542’s truck and the containers it carried. With working steering, deployable trailer support legs, and a piston engine under the tilting cab, the increased scale affords a few more working features than the four-wide original, and you can check out further images of Thirdwigg’s fantastic truck and the other components within his 6542 project created so far via the link above.
Yes we’re a car blog. When we’re not making Your Mom jokes or referencing Putin’s tiny todger. But we’re a train blog today, courtesy of this fantastic K-Class steam locomotive crossing a truss bridge at the Brickvention 2025 show. Photographed (and built as part of a collaboration) by Flickr’s narrow_gauge, there’s more to see via the link above.
And what’s better than one enormous train-based diorama? That’s right – two! Which is the nerdiest sentence we’ve ever written. But no matter, because TLCB Master MOCer mahjqa joins the railway shenanigans here at TLCB with one of the most brilliantly engineered creations we’ve seen yet.
Also constructed for a Lego event, mahjqa’s Friends railway (the LEGO theme, not the TV show) includes a remote control crane so gloriously playable we could watch it all day. And fortunately mahjqa filmed a whole day’s worth of it in operation, so we can do just that.
Join us watching it load and unload in delightful smoothness on loop via the video below, plus you can check out the discussion thread on Eurobricks here.
The good thing about trucking across a newly-populated planetary expanse, is there are no low bridges.
Which means no pesky height restrictions for your space shipping, something Flickr’s Walter Whiteside Jr. has taken maximum advantage of with this Febrovery entry.
Ship yourself into into space via the link above.
The Lego Car Blog Elves love a big red truck, and they don’t come much bigger, redder, and truckier than this one. It’s a DAF FAW XF 450 hook-lift container truck, as built (and presented) beautifully by TLCB regular Arian Janessens. Working steered axles and a functional hook-lift feature, and there’s more to see on Flickr via the link above.
This is a DAF FTG XF 530 Sleeper Cab, and it’s been built – rather beautifully – by previous bloggee Arian Janssens of Flickr. It’s also not alone, being hitched to an enormous three-axle container trailer complete with a giant tank of… we have no idea. Beer perhaps? We can but hope.
What ever is in it, there’s more to see of Arian’s impressive build at his ‘DAF FTG XF 530 SLEEPER CAB’ album, where an alternative more jazzily-hued container load can also be seen. Click the link above to take a look and cross your fingers it’s beer…
Most Lego sci-fi builds are ginormous interplanetary spaceships designed for various important space-based assignments.
Which is all very well, but we suspect that – even when we’ve colonised other planets – 99% of both persons and vehicles will still be driving about on a paved surface. After all, mankind has been flying for a hundred years, but only a tiny fraction of us are in the air.
Thus it’s rather refreshing to see a sci-fi builder turn their hand to what will inevitably be the vast majority of future transport; the stuff that looks pretty much the same as it does now.
Cue Flickr’s Shuppiluliumas, here making their TLCB debut, and these two ace sci-fi trucks. Both are packed with details such as tilting cabs, posable steering, and brick-built drivetrains, and each design features just enough futurism to transport the viewer to a time ahead of our own. Plus one of them’s transporting a giant positron cannon, which helps.
There’s more of each truck to see at Shuppiluliumas’ photostream, and you can jump to future normality via the link above.
The 4,100-piece LEGO Technic 42100 Liebherr R 9800 Excavator is the largest and most expensive Technic set ever released. With seven motors, two ‘Smart Hub’s, and programmable control via the PoweredUp app, it’s LEGO robotics for the post-PC era.
It is also the ideal set to create an alternative model from, because if you’re going to pick a set for parts, it might as well be the one with the most!
Cue TLCB Master MOCer Nico71, and this amazing… er, honestly we’re not sure. Nico describes it as a ‘Container Handling Vehicle’, which probably doesn’t do it justice, what with it looking like a cross between something from ‘Thunderbirds’ and that ‘Hibernia‘ place that seems to feature here from time to time.
Four suspended tracks, each of which is driven with the front two also steering, are controlled remotely, as is a huge two-stage hook-lift arm and a motorised container locking mechanism.
Building instructions are available and there’s more to see of Nico’s fantastic 42100 B-Model at both Brickshelf and his excellent website. Click the links to take a look, plus you can watch the ‘Container Handling Vehicle’ in action below.
YouTube Video
Following a vehicle that appeared here earlier in the week (which the builder has now updated with an indolent, tracksuit-wearing, oxygen-wasting, fly-tipping scumbag after reading the post, earning themselves 100 TLCB points), this is how you should actually dispose of waste, via a properly licensed skip company.
Cue previous bloggee damjan97PL (aka damianPLE), and this rather excellent Technic Scania P-Series skip lorry. (Damian also earns 100 TLCB Points for calling his build a ‘skip lorry’, rather than a ‘container truck’ as LEGO would.)
Wonderfully realistic, Damian’s Scania not only looks the part, it also features some fantastic manually-operated and pneumatic functions, including rear outriggers, ‘HOG’ steering, a working inline 6-cylinder engine underneath a tilting cab, and a pneumatically-powered boom, able to perfectly lower and hoist a neat brick-built skip.
Damian has made building instructions available and there’s more of his top-quality Technic Scania skip lorry to see at the Eurobricks discussion forum, his ‘Scania Skip Loader’ Bricksafe gallery, and via the video below.
Click the links above to dispose of your waste without vandalising the local environment, and keep indolent, tracksuit-wearing, oxygen-wasting, fly-tipping scumbags out of business.
TLCB’s thought for the day; 1970s trucks all looked like toys. This primary-coloured block of magnificence is a classic DAF NAT 2800 hook-lift truck, as created by previous bloggee Arian Janssens, and it proves said thought wonderfully. Check it out on Flickr via the link, and then come back here later to learn other gems such as ‘Why Pandas are Pointless’ and ‘How the Pontiac Aztek is be the Most Underrated Car of all Time’.
Scandinavian design is very ‘in’ right now. Grey, white, with a dash of a calming colour like blue, it’s the default for every upper-middle class redecoration. Here at The Lego Car Blog we don’t follow such fads though, which is why TLCB Towers hasn’t been redecorated since the late ’80s. That, and our redecoration budget stretches to a roll of duct tape and some blu-tack.
Representing Scandinavian design minimalism beautifully however, is MCD‘s 2022 Volvo FH500 truck, which utilises the aforementioned nordic colour palette to great effect. MCD’s monochrome tractor unit successfully blends Technic and System bricks to capture the real truck, whilst a Maersk Sealand container sits atop an excellent three-axle trailer behind.
There’s more of the MCD’s build to see at the Eurobricks forum, and you can sit in a monochrome chair drinking a coffee from an exquisitely designed cup, enjoying 18 hours of daylight via the link in the text above.
This is a Tatra PR3333 6×6 truck, outfitted with a hook-lift system and depicted in Dutch Army specification by Flickr’s Arian Janssens.
We’re not sure what’s in the big green box it’s carrying, nor the second one towed behind via the neat drawbar trailer, but as we assume it’s army stuff we probably wouldn’t understand anyway.
The truck, trailer, and boxes are all superbly built, and there’s more to see of all components at Arian’s photostream. Click the link to take a look.
*Points for us for not going down the ‘Dutch Hooker’ route with this post! Until now. Damn.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought a surprisingly unified response for the world. Freezing of assets, exclusion from banking systems, and sanctions on everything from luxury cars to hamburgers (and, we assume, LEGO products), there’s not much unaffected by Putin’s aggression.
Of course Russia is a large country that produces much itself, but in a time where everything is globalised, it’s difficult to see how even domestic Russian manufacturers can continue production indefinitely.
One such domestic manufacturer is Kamaz, today a world-leading maker of off-road trucks, with the 5410 pictured here produced by the company from the mid-’70s until 2006.
This wonderful recreation of the Kamaz-5410 comes from previous bloggee Vladimir Drozd, and features Power Functions remote control drive and steering, a functioning fifth wheel hitch, working suspension, and some simply lovely detailing.
An excellent container trailer is pictured in tow, complete with a Maersk shipping container (one of the many businesses no longer operating in Russia), and there are more superb images of all three components to see at Vladimir’s ‘KamAZ-5410’ album on Flickr or at the Eurobricks forum here.
Click the link above to take a closer look at Vladimir’s brilliant Russian a truck, back when there would actually be produce in a container for it to haul.
The war in Ukraine (or ‘Special Military Operation’ to our Russian and Belarusian readers) continues, with more devastation, civilian killings, and Kremlin lies. So far though, the Ukrainian flag continues to fly, being raised over areas retaken from the invading Russian forces in recent days.
Showing his support is Jonathan Elliott, whose neat hook-lift truck is pictured raising the Ukrainian flag in container form. If you’d like to show your solidarity with Ukraine too, please do build in blue and yellow, and you can donate to the enormous refugee crisis Putin has created via organisations such as the Disasters Emergency Committee.