If you’re a 1960s drag racing fan, seven, or a TLCB Elf, this post is for you. 1960’s ‘Competition Coupe’ drag racers were little more than the back two-thirds of a 1920s-30s coupe attached to two girders, with a ginormous V8 mounted mostly where the windshield should be. They were gloriously stupid, which of course means TLCB staff love them too. This one comes from previous bloggee Tim Inman, and you can tear up the strip c1966 via the link above!
Well, Thomas Gion aka HotDogSandwiches does, in the form of this marvellous 1960s Chevrolet Nova ‘Gasser’ style drag racer.
Thomas’s Speed Champions scale build features removable front bodywork, a brilliant brick-built engine, flame-shooting exhausts, wheelie bars, plus a range of wonderfully life-like tools and equipment.
There’s more of the build to see at Thomas’s ‘1963 Chevrolet Nova Gasser’ album – click the link above to take a look!
This Elves are very excited today. Not only does this excellent 1970 Dodge Challenger feature a hood scoop (Elf points), many drag racing modifications (more Elf points), and a brick built nitrous kit (even more Elf points), it’s fully remote controlled too, with LEGO’s monstrous Buggy Motor driving the rear wheels.
A Servo powers the steering, not that you’ll really need that at the drag strip (in this case TLCB office corridor), there’s working suspension (independent front and live-axle rear), plus opening doors, hood, and trunk.
It’s a mega bit of kit and one we fully intend to drive up and down the corridor to much Elven whooping until the battery is flat. Whilst we get on with that arduous testing you can check out more of Michael217’s awesome creation at both Eurobricks and Bricksafe – click the links to take a look!
It’s 1965, and drag-racers Jim Schaeffer and John Collier have got their hands on a Dodge A100 ‘forward-control’ truck. The pair decided to install a 426 Hemi in the bed, and any non-essential items were removed. The resulting ‘Little Red Wagon’ was the world’s fastest 1/4 mile truck, setting an eleven second time at the first attempt. However, the modifications also tilted the weight bias rearward a bit…
The unintended consequences of this rear-biased weight distribution were a vehicle that proffered to drive only on its back wheels, and in fact the ‘Little Red Wagon’ could complete an entire 1/4 mile race without the front wheels ever touching the ground.
Such crowd-pleasing shenanigans caught the attention of Dodge, who not only used the ‘Little Red Wagon’ in commercials, they all arranged for its purchase by Super Stock Champion Bill Golden to use as the first ‘competition wheelstander’, a class it created single handedly.
Of course having your front wheels in the air limited steering somewhat, and the ‘Little Red Wagon’ crashed in 1969. And 1971. And 1975. That last wreck took the truck out of service, and Golden converted a new truck to continue his wheel standing antics, setting the Guinness World Record for the longest (at nearly 3/4 of a mile!) in 1977 and racing it until his retirement in 2003.
Today a recreation of the ‘Little Red Wagon’ tours alongside the wrecked original, whilst Golden’s own replacement wheel standing truck sold for over $500,000 in 2009.
Flickr’s Brick Flag, who is fast becoming one of our favourite builders here at TLCB, has converted his own Dodge A100 model into a ‘Little Red Wagon’ wheelstander, with his spectacular Model Team version amalgamating the different versions of the real truck that were built over the years.
Superb design, detailing, and decals are evident in abundance and there’s heaps more to see at Brick’s ’60s Dodge Little Red Wagon’ album on Flickr. Click the link above to head down the drag strip on just your back wheels, and here to see the real ‘Little Red Wagon’ in action courtesy of a glorious period video!
Inspired by a drag racing shop local to him, Tim Henderson has recreated this vintage dragster that competed in the ‘Competition Coupe’ class. It’s inspired by the real dragster Lil’ Honker and there’s more to see on Flickr via the link.
Black Cabs are absolutely not fast. They are filthy smog spreading abominations though, and fortunately London has had enough and decreed only EVs and PHEVs now qualify to become Black Cabs. Fortunately the newly-renamed London Electric Vehicle Company, now owned by Geely (Volvo’s deep-pocketed owners), have built a new black cab fit for the 21st century, and it’s a delight. Plus it’s not poisoning us all like the last Black Cabs were, with a 1.5 litre Volvo petrol engine never driving the wheels, instead providing a range extension to the EV batteries.
Whilst we won’t mourn the loss of the soot-spewing old taxis, TLCB favourite and Master MOCer Redfern 1950s seems to, having created this ‘V8 Drag Car’ that to us looks a lot like an old Hackney Carriage (the technical term for London’s cabs) with an enormous V8 shoved in it.
It sure wouldn’t meet London’s new licensed-hire emissions rules, but we bet it’d get us across London a heck of lot faster. Actually that’s not true, crossing London is about as quick on a push-bike as it is in a Porsche, but it would be more fun! There’s more to see of of Red’s ‘V8 Drag Car’ (aka ‘Hackney Rod’, as named by us just now) at his photostream, plus you can learn how he creates brilliant models like this one at his Master MOCers interview via the link in the text above.
Talking of big boring boxes, here’s a Chevrolet Express Conversion Van. No amount of tinted windows and stickers down the sides could make us want to ride in this hateful pile of American misery, but Ralph has made his (excellent) Miniland recreation of the Chevy Express rather more exciting by the addition of a tow hitch, meaning his beige box of bricks can tow an altogether more interesting Chevy…
Hooked up to the Express is a trailer carrying this magnificent ’57 Bel Air ‘gasser’, complete with a supercharger poking through the hood and a flame paint job, both of which have got the Elves very animated. A cast of unique-looking characters is on hand to make sure she’s runnin’ right and there’s more to see of the Bel Air gasser (and the Express van we suppose) at Ralph’s photostream – click here to make the jump!
Diesel has become a bit of a dirty word of late. We have Volkswagen to thank for that, but the fuel from the black pump was dirty anyway, they just got caught being particularly loathsome. However diesel is still useful, being much more suited to high-torque applications than petrol whilst producing less CO2 (the key driver behind climate change), and being more energy dense too, thereby making it more efficient.
We expect none of that thinking went into the D-Rod, a rat rod built for the ‘Welderup’ TV show from a 1920s Dodge that uses an enormous Cummins diesel truck engine because, well… why not? The result is, er… just watch this.
Fun as that looks we wouldn’t fancy breathing what comes out of the D-Rod, so this superb brick-built replica by Redfern 1950s will do us nicely instead. Red’s Model Team replica of the ‘Welderup’ D-Rod captures the look of the real car beautifully, yet it won’t give everyone standing near it lung cancer. Head to Red’s photostream via the link above for a closer look, and you can read his interview in TLCB’s Master MOCers series by clicking here.
We don’t know who Poe Dameron is, what a Head Starter is, or even where the head in this model by Flickr’s ianying616 has come from (is it LEGO?). However we do know it’s shiny, has a racing stripe, and an implausibly enormous engine, which means had we not have featured it the Elves would’ve started a riot. There’s more to see at ianying’s photostream via the link above where you can try to work it out.
The Elves, driven by hunger and a strict ‘find us a bloody car’ policy have started to return to TLCB Towers. They’ve come up trumps too as this most excellent Volkswagen Käfer (or Kaefer) Racer comes from Lino Martins and is his first car for almost two years. Pictured alongside the Hot Wheels toy it’s based on, Lino’s heavily modified Beetle features a removable body, a mid-mounted V8 engine, and official LEGO decals. See more on Flickr at the link.
Nope, not that group your Dad performs in once a month down at The Pink Oboe, but this wonderful triplet of ’50s Chevrolet Gassers.
Built by TLCB favourite _Tiler each is based on a real gasser drag racer, with (from top to bottom) Dave VerSchave’s ‘Orange Krate’, Mike Finnegan’s ‘Roadkill Blasphemi’, and ‘Two Lane Blacktop’ from the 1971 movie of the same name.
Each contains the wonderfully inventive building techniques we’ve come to expect from _Tiler and you can scroll through all three Chevys at his photostream via the link above.
Sorry about this post title, it sounds like something your Dad caught from the ’80s liaison mentioned earlier today. Anyway, this wonderfully nuts Model Team style hot rod comes from Flickr’s Nuno Taborda, and it’s as if he had the Elves in mind when he designed it. Enormous shiny engine? Check. Enormous shiny exhausts? Check. Enormous shiny rear wing? Check.
We must confess though that we like the resultant drag rod almost as much as the Elves do, especially as the bodywork can pivot at the rear to allow access to the faithfully detailed drag racing cockpit. There are more images to see at Nuno’s photostream – click here to make the jump and take a look.
We have a sneaking suspicion that a few of TLCB Elves may have worked for Oldsmobile in a previous life, as this is so their kind of car.
Built to showcase the durability of the company’s new FWD transaxle, two Hurst ‘Hairy’ Oldsmobile Cutlasses were created in 1967, each fitted with two 1,200bhp supercharged V8s, with one engine powering the front wheels and the second powering the rears.
The result was a car capable of all-wheel-drive burnouts and eleven second quarter miles, but also one with prodigious torque-steer and minimal visibility, which led to one of the two Hairy Hursts being destroyed in a demonstration run.
This glorious recreation of the monstrous drag-racer comes from Flickr’s Tim Inman, who – due to LEGO’s limited range of golden pieces – has had to use hundreds of studded tiles to create the Oldsmobile’s bodywork.
There’s more to see at Tim’s photostream – click the link in the text above to make the jump.
I was born in a cross-fire hurricane
And I howled at the morning driving rain
But it’s all right now, in fact, it’s a gas!
But it’s all right. I’m Jumpin’ Jack Flash
It’s a gas, gas, gas!
These three matching mini-figure scale Octan-sponsored ‘gasser’ drag racers come from Flickr’s Tim Henderson, and LEGO’s fictional oil company has never looked so cool! See more at the link above.
The LUGNuts group on Flickr is currently holding a dragster contest and Lino Martins has produced a souped-up ute in response. The “ute” is a classic vehicle of the Australian outback, like the pick-up in North America or the camionetta in South America. Holden still produce utes, despite having been subsumed into the General Motors empire. With an engine of 6.2l available as standard, we don’t think that you’d need to do much to make a great drag-racer of this car. It’s also the only car manufacturer’s website that we’ve visited with a button to press just listen to the engine noise. Click here to see Lino’s ute at full size and click here to hear the roar of its modern counterpart.
