Neither of today’s posts are cars, because… shut up, that’s why. We like trains. This is one is a Spanish Renfe S-251, designed and built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and it comes from Flickr’s Ferro-Friki who has captured the 1980s electric locomotive superbly in brick form. There’s more of the model to see at Ferro’s ‘LEGO Renfe S-251’ album and you can buy your ticket at the link above.
*Today’s title song. We’re nothing if not diverse.
If you’re in the market for a Maserati you’re likely to be the sort of customer who’s willing to overlook wildly variable panel gaps, wobbly interior stitching, haphazard ergonomics, and intermittent electric faults because of one thing; the engine.
Usually a shared with Ferrari, the soul of a Maserati is what’s under the hood, so you’d have to be a unique customer to decide you’d like a car with Maserati build quality, but without a Maserati engine to off-set it. Cue the GranTurismo Folgore, which swaps Maserati’s ‘Nettuno’ twin-turbocharged V6 for three permanent magnet radial motors and a 92kWh battery.
With an additional 200bhp over its petrol twin, 0-60mph in under three seconds, and capable of over 200mph, the GranTurismo Folgore has been a sales… disaster. So much so that Maserati have cancelled the ‘Folgore’ version of their MC20 supercar. Because if you want a Maserati you want one with an engine.
Which means the only Maserati GranTurismo Folgore we’re ever likely to see is this one, built by Flickr’s 3D supercarBricks, and replicating both the gorgeous looks and non-existent sound of the real car perfectly. The doors, trunk, and hood open, there are more superb images available to view, and you can take a look at 3D’s photostream via the link above.
Ripping the piston-engined heart out of a classic Alfa Romeo to replace it with batteries and an electric motor is either a brilliant modernisation or an abominable travesty, depending on your school of thought. Now we’ve started that fight, here’s an example of a car that’s done just that (at least, a stunning Lego Technic replica of one); this is Zeta Racing‘s fantastic Totem Automobili Alfa Romeo Giulia GT Electric.
Replicating their jaw-dropping resto-mod of Alfa Romeo’s classic sports saloon, Zeta has recreated every curve of Totem’s wonderfully restyled Giulia GT brilliantly in Technic form, with working steering, suspension, and a superbly detailed interior too.
The hood raises (although of course there’s no engine underneath it), and the doors and trunk open too. In fact Zeta has photographed his incredible creation in the front trunk of the real Totem Giulia GT Electric (where its engine once lived), making us wonder if he could build a smaller version of his own model to place under its hood…
Travesty or brilliance, Totem’s electric Alfa Romeo is certainly exquisitely engineered, and you can see more of the real car plus this equally spectacular Technic replica at Zeta Racing’s photostream. Click the link above to go electric.
The future is electric. And crossover shaped. Sigh.
Here’s one such vehicle, Audi’s Q6 e-tron electric crossover, and it’s about as interesting as a Brothers Brick Annual General Meeting.
Well, in car form anyway. But in Lego form it’s a very interesting indeed, courtesy of this utterly brilliant Model Team replica by Flickr’s LEGO 7.
7’s Audi Q6 e-tron captures the electric crossover in spellbinding detail, with opening doors, LED lights, replicated badging, and one of the most lifelike interiors we’ve ever seen.
There’s much more to see at 7’s ‘Audi Q6 e-tron’ album, where twenty fantastic images are available to view. Dream electric via the link above.
The days are getting longer, skirts are getting shorter, and The Lego Car Blog Elves have returned from their ‘volunteering’ trip over the perimeter wall of LEGO’s HQ. Yes it’s time for us to reveal the brand new LEGO Technic sets for summer 2025, and there are twice as many as last year!
The first of the eight new sets for summer 2025 is this, the 42208 Aston Martin Valykrie. Constructed from 707 pieces, many of which are debuting in dark turquoise, 42208 features a working miniaturised V12 engine, opening doors, working steering, and a tie-up with the ‘Asphalt Legends Unite’ video game. For, um… reasons.
The usual stickerage is deployed for the headlights, lime green pin-striping, and badging, whilst a brand new three-hole-with-cross-axle lift-arm appears for the first time. Aimed at ages 9+ 42208 will cost around £55 / €60 / $65 when it reaches stores this summer.
Also aimed at ages 9+, but with around 250 more pieces, is the brand new 42209 Volvo L120 Electric Loader. And it looks brilliant.
An all-mechanical set (hurrah!), 42209 features three linear actuators – turned by hand via cogs mounted at the rear – to raise and tip the new bucket piece. Articulated steering is also controlled via a cog, whilst the ‘engine’ cover lifts to reveal, um… some spinning cylinder thingies. It’s an electric loader after all.
Well-placed decals enhance the visual realism, whilst we expect 42209 might be the pick of the range when it comes to mechanical engineering. Expect it to cost around £90 / €100 / $120 when it arrives later this year.
Ten-year-olds rejoice! Because the Nissan Skyline GT-R (R34) from ‘2 Fast 2 Furious’ is sliding into the LEGO Technic range! Yes, this is the brand new 42210 2 Fast 2 Furious Nissan Skyline GT-R R34 Car.
We’re not sure why LEGO felt the need to add ‘car’ to the title, but no matter; Nissan’s iconic R34-generation Skyline GT-R is finally available in bricks. Over 1,400 of them in fact, which means that the aforementioned ten-year-olds are eight years below the advised age on the box.
We wouldn’t worry about that though; LEGO’s black box and ’18+’ age stamp are purely to make it more acceptable for dads to buy one, and they’ll get a suite of functionality when they do.
A working inline-6 engine lives under the opening hood (which might be driven by all four newly-hub-capped wheels), there’s steering and all-wheel-suspension, opening doors, an adjustable wing, and, um… some balls drop from underneath.
We’d better explain that. Like the 42111 Dom’s Dodge Charger set, 42210 includes a play feature that allows the model to replicate scenes from the movie in which it was featured. In this case a pair of balls can be lowed to raise the rear wheels off the ground, allowing the model to drift. Which whether you’re ten or a dad, is sure to make it more fun to drive on the kitchen floor.
Large stickers recreate the movie car’s livery (which is rather necessary here), but most of the other details are brick-built, and you’ll be able to get your hands on 42210 for around £130 / $140 when it drifts into stores this summer.
We think this set might be based in space. The new 42211 Lunar Outpost Moon Rover Space Vehicle is so spacey LEGO gave it three different space references in the name alone.
Following on from the Technic Space range that surprised all of us last year, 42211 looks… incoherent. A strange robotic crane of sorts, 42211 nevertheless includes some interesting Technic engineering, including oscillating suspension, all-wheel-steering, a rotating and extending crane, and two smaller lunar rovers, one of which appears to munch up rocks and – joy of joys – crystals. LEGO just can’t let them go.
The crane and two smaller rovers all fold neatly into the main rover, and 42211 does feature some unconventional parts, including rubberised tracks not seen for a few years and new wheel covers.
Aimed at ages 10+, the new 1,082-piece set will cost around £90 / €100 / $100 when it lands in stores this summer. Let’s get back to cars…
…and one that looks really rather good. This is the new 42212 Ferrari FXX K, a 900-piece recreation of Ferrari’s track-only V12 hypercar. Featuring working steering, an opening engine cover and butterfly doors, a V12 piston engine with differential, and another tie-up with the ‘Asphalt Legends Unite’ video game, 42212 is rather formulaic, but it’s a good formula.
Several pieces make their debut in red, and we’re getting used the heavy reliance on stickers. Aimed at ages 10+, expect 42112 to cost £55 / $65 when it reaches stores later this year.
With a few more pieces, but a slightly lower target age, the new 42213 Ford Bronco SUV brings Ford’s iconic off-roader to the Technic range for the first time.
We think it looks great too, with opening doors, working steering (via the spare wheel), front and live-axle rear suspension, a V6 engine under the raising hood, plus new fender parts and tyres.
Expected to cost £55 / $65, 42213 looks to be quite good value (these things are relative), and is perhaps our pick of the cars for H2 2025.
The seventh new set for H2 2025 continues another longstanding brand partnership, as Lamborghini’s new supercar joins the Technic line-up in the form of the 42214 Lamborghini Revuelto.
Lamborghini claim the Revuelto is “The first HPEV (High Performance Electrified Vehicle) hybrid super sports car”, which conveniently ignores all the other high performance hybrid supercars that have proceeded it.
Still, let’s not get bogged down in marketing, because LEGO’s Lamborghini Revuelto is electrified too, with motorised steering, drive, head and tail lights, all controlled remotely via the Control+ app.
Aimed at ages 10+, 42214 will charge into stores later this year, with 1,135 pieces, ‘Asphalt Legend Unite’ness, and an £160/ $180 price-tag.
And finally, the eighth model to join the H2 2025 Technic line-up is the new flagship; this is the 42215 Volvo EC500 Hybrid Excavator.
Weighing in at over 2,300 pieces, 42215 is a fully motorised – but not remote control – recreation of Volvo’s fifty ton excavator, deploying a mechanically operated gearbox to switch between various functions.
These include the boom, arm and bucket/drill attachments, whilst the superstructure and tracks can rotate manually. That enormous boom is raised and lowered by LEGO’s XL linear actuators, which appear in black for the first time, with a single motor providing the power.
Motorised functions via a mechanical gearbox is a combination we like, as evidenced here, here, and here, so we’re rather excited about the big Volvo. We’re less excited about the price however, as despite that single motor 42115 is expected to cost £350 / $430, meaning it’ll excavate your wallet before it excavates anything else.
Aimed at 18+ (perhaps legitimately this time), 42215 will be available to buy later this year, if you’re diggin’ it.
There you have it, eight new Technic sets, seven officially-licensed real world vehicles across six different manufacturers, one vehicle from space, and one that’s got balls. Here at The Lego Car Blog at least, we think it’s a rather good line up.
The world is, gradually, going electric. And that means even construction behemoths like this huge wheel loader are now available with battery power.
This is one such BEV, the LiuGong 856HE MAX, with a 21 ton operating weight and a gargantuan 423kWh battery.
Built by previous bloggee Bricksley, this stunning 1:17 recreation of the battery-electric wheel loader is itself battery-powered, with four Control+ motors enabling realistic drive, articulated steering, arm, and bucket movement, plus LED lighting, a back-up alarm, and even a working horn.
A LEGO Mindstorms Robot Inventor Hub enables the model to be operated via an Xbox controller, which we found most useful for terrorising TLCB Elves in the office, and you can check out the full image gallery and build details via Bricksley’s ‘LuiGong 856HE Max’ album, at the Eurobricks discussion forum, and via the video of the model in action below. Click the links above to go electric.
YouTube Video
The piston engine, a staple fixture in any mid-size Technic vehicle and up, will one day become a rarity. The immediate future of propulsion is electric, and it’s surely not long before Technic sets shift to reflect their real-world counterparts.
Previous bloggee and Master MOCer Thirdwigg is there already, with this neat ‘eHatch’, a small, all-wheel-drive electric hot hatchback.
A brick built ‘motor’ in each axle is driven as the wheels turn, the front wheels steer by both ‘HOG’ and the steering wheel, and the doors and hood open too.
Free building instructions are available if you fancy going electric yourself, and you can find them along with further details and imagery at both Eurobricks and Flickr.
Despite supposedly being a car blog, we’ve featured all manner of trains over the years. However they have almost all been steam or diesel powered, which doesn’t really reflect what is actually the prime energy source for moving people and things about on the railways.
Today electricity powers the majority of rail traffic, with it being far more efficient, a lot less polluting, and much quieter than burning fossilised dinosaurs, even if the electricity itself is generated by doing just that.
This exceptional electric locomotive is an SNCF CC6500, published by KMbricklab fresh from a win at the ‘Brick Train Awards 2023’. And they probably know about Lego trains.
There’s much more of KM’s beautifully presented model to see at their ‘SNCF CC6500 Electric Locomotive’ album on Flickr, and you can buy your rail ticket via the link in the text above.
LEGO bricks have been used to create all manner of life-size real-world replicas, from Volkswagen Campers to Ferrari Formula 1 cars, via motorcycles, pick-up trucks, supercars, and classics. Korean electric crossovers haven’t featured though. Until now.
Of course until recently, creating a life-size Kia from LEGO bricks would’ve been like making the world’s largest rice cracker; impressive and yet also immensely dull. However with Hyundai/Kia now making some of the most interesting cars on the market, recreating one from hundreds of thousands of LEGO pieces is no longer a pointless endeavour. Cue certified LEGO Professional Riccardo Zangelmi’s company BrickVision and Kia Italia, who have turned 350,000 LEGO bricks into a 1:1 replica of Kia’s EV6 electric crossover.
Riccardo’s team took over 800 hours to create the life-size EV6, plus a further four months to develop the illumination system used to recreate the real EV6’s lighting signature.
It seems that Kia Italia used that time to write some of the most nonsensical marketing guff that we’ve ever read to accompany the build, with phrases like “strongly characterising luminous personality in every circumstance”, and “particular surfaces with accentuated inclinations, an expression of refined design” two of our highlights.
You can read more automotive marketing gibberish like that via Auto&Design by clicking here, or you can watch Kia Italia’s video on the project – which is mercifully free from the thoughts of their marketing department – by clicking play below.
YouTube Video
With TLCB’s home nation outlawing the sale of non-zero-emissions vehicles from the middle of next decade, some have wondered whether manufacturers whose brands are built on internal combustion will have a place. Porsche, famous for flat-6 power, have proved emphatically that they will.
The Taycan – Porsche’s first EV – is formidably fast, has a reasonable range, and – unlike Tesla – isn’t built like total crap. However all of that is secondary to the fact that in the UK, company car drivers can pay a tiny fraction of the tax that they would versus combustion engined vehicles.
As is sadly often the case, this means the poor – who can’t afford a £100k electric Porsche – will be subsiding the rich so they can get one on the cheap, but it has meant that the Taycan is a wildly popular company car in the UK.
Cue 3D supercarBricks, who has created the businessman’s favourite beautifully in appropriate Business Grey. The brick-built Porsche Taycan includes opening everything and top quality presentation, with more to see at 3D’s photostream.
Click the link above to take a look – just note that if you decide to buy some LEGO bricks to build one yourself, you’ll pay more tax than an owner of the real thing.
This is a Japanese National Railways Class EF66 electric locomotive, which we definitely knew for ourselves and aren’t just quoting the builder KMbricklab. Rather than show off our considerable and extensive knowledge of all things trains here, we’ll simply direct you to KM’s excellent ‘JNR Class EF66 Electric Locomotive’ album on Flickr. Click the link above to journey across Japan.
What’s the most annoying element of current car culture? Nope. It’s Tesla. More specifically, the fanatical members within it who worship at the Cult of Elon.
Don’t get us wrong, we love what Tesla have achieved. They’ve brought the widespread adoption of EVs forward by about a decade, created easily the most fun car features ever seen in the industry (whoopie cushion seats everyone!), and created the fastest accelerating road-legal vehicle on the planet. Which can seat five. And take their luggage.
But for every wondrous innovation Tesla have made, there’s a huge mound of dog crap countering it at the other end of the scales. Abysmal quality, the continuing ‘Autopilot’ lie, a wildly inflated unsustainable stock market value, and – most depressingly – the awful pay and conditions in which men, women and children work in Africa to mine the battery materials, so that a rich westerner can feel environmentally smug driving one mile to the store to buy organic kale, without a hint of irony.
The world’s richest man has had the issue of child labour, death and injury raised at Tesla board meetings (by Congolese nuns no less), where any changes proposed to better safeguard supply chain workers were rejected. Because he’s an absolute assclown.
As you can tell, we’re not members of Elon’s cult, but we do still appreciate his cars. When they’re not broken.
Cue 3D supercarBricks, who has recreated Europe’s best selling car in 2021, the Tesla Model 3. 3D’s model includes opening doors, tailgate and front trunk, beautifully accurate bodywork, and a life-like interior, with the realism further enhanced by custom replica wheels and LED tail light guides.
And the panel gaps are more consistent than the real thing too.
It’s a great build that’s definitely worth a closer look, and you can do just that at 3D’s photostream via the link in the text above, where an array of other excellent Lego cars can also be found.
Finally, if you’re a member of the Teslarati (or would like to raise awareness of the abuses occurring in their supply chain with those that are), take a look here and talk about it every time someone evangelises on Tesla’s behalf.
This is a BMW i3, one of the first dedicated electric cars from a mainstream manufacturer, and one of the weirdest too.
Launched in 2013 the i3 brought the arrival of BMW’s ‘i’ sub-brand (‘i’ because German car brands have zero imagination and if in doubt, stick an ‘i’ in front of it), and it was quite unlike any of BMW’s other products. A suicide-doored B-Seg MPV-style hatchback, the i3 was powered by either an electric motor, or an electric motor backed up by a motorcycle engine generator.
Despite this oddity the i3 was mostly well received, and sales have climbed every year since launch as electrification has become increasingly accepted, although they still haven’t topped more than 40,000 annually. However the i3’s strangeness – and its moderate success – mean there will be no replacement.
These days you don’t need an electric car to be deliberately weird; a regular car that happens to be electric is the order of the day, thus there is no place in BMW’s line-up for a suicide-doored B-Seg MPV-style hatchback.
Nor is there a place for an EV sub-brand like ‘i’, as the UK and many other European countries implement new car combustion-engine bans from as little as four years’ time. By then, if you’re not selling EVs, you’re not selling anything. Which also means of course, that technically the electric i3 with its little range-extending petrol-powered motorcycle engine, will also be banned.
Still, it was fun while it lasted, and Rolands Kirpis has paid tribute to BMW’s first EV with this rather excellent Model Team recreation of the i3, complete with a brilliantly detailed interior, opening hatchback, front trunk, and even the weird suicide doors too.
There’s much more for the model to see at Rolands’ ‘BMW i3’ album, where several top quality images are available to view. Click the link above to take a look at BMW’s past vision of an electrified future.
Usually when a new hypercar company starts up and claims to have designed a 1,000bhp car that can drive to the moon, the automotive world has a laugh, and goes back to buying Ferraris and Lamborghinis. Croatian start-up manufacturer Rimac however, have confounded expectations.
Firstly because they are indeed a manufacturer, having actually produced and sold their designs, and secondly because their cars are so ground-breaking that automotive giants are courting them as partners.
Porsche and Hyundai have bought shares in Rimac, and the company produces electrified components for Aston Martin, Koenigsegg, Pininfarina, and even Seat’s concept racing car.
It’s the car we have here that created such a stir, their 2013 Concept_One. Just ten units were produced (with nine remaining thanks to The Grand Tour crashing one), and with over 1,200bhp and a motor in each wheel, the Concept_One was the fastest accelerating electric vehicle at the time of its launch, completing 0-60mph in a little over two seconds.
Previous bloggee Vibor Cavor (aka Veeborg)‘s Model Team recreation can’t do that (unless you put it in a real Rimac Concept_One), but it does include almost everything else, including a replica removable battery in the ‘spine’ of the car complete with four brick-built motors.
Vibor might be able to put his creation inside a real Concept_One though as he lives just fifteen minutes from Rimac’s base in Sveta Nedelja. Head to Vibor’s photostream via the link above o see more of his Concept-One replica, and click here if you’d like to see why ten became nine…
Formula 1 is looking increasingly out of place by the day. Despite the return of some great tracks in 2020 and the addition of some new ones (thanks to Coronavirus), the multitude of penalties, strict development regulations, huge costs, and one-team dominance often make it not very fun at all.
Worse, it seems manufacturers can’t translate the sport to the products people actually buy. Honda have announced their departure, just as they have a decent engine after years of struggle. Williams, once a dominant force, have handed themselves over to an equity company in a desperate bid to not be completely crap. And Ferrari… well they’re still earning a disproportionally huge revenue and marketing cigarettes to children.
So what alternatives are there for racing fans? The WRC is becoming cool again, but is still in the shadow of its glory days, WEC/Le Mans would be fantastic if more than one manufacturer could build a top-tier car, and NASCAR is still blobs driving round in a circle. Which leaves Formula E… We know we know, it used to be awful, but hear us out.
No less than nine of the twelve teams are backed by manufacturers, including BMW, Porsche, Nissan, and even Jaguar, and gone are the ridiculous days of drivers having to change cars mid-way through the race because the batteries were too small to last race distance.
The batteries are a common part shared between all teams however, along with the the chassis and aero – which we think is a shame as all the cars look exactly the same – but the motors, inverter, gearbox, and software to run it all are team-specific. The stupid fan-boost remains, but apart from that it’s really starting to look rather good, with the current Formula E cars called ‘Gen 2 Evo’ to ensure their differences to the formula’s slightly rubbish beginnings are clear.
It’s one of these Formula E ‘Gen 2 Evo’ cars that we have here today, as built by previous bloggee R. Skittle and featuring its own electric propulsion thanks to LEGO’s new Powered-Up bluetooth system. A full gallery of over twenty images is available to view and you can charge over to Flickr via the link to take a closer look. Which it might be worth doing with the actual Formula E too…