Tag Archives: Estate

A Virtual Triumph

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The Triumph 2000-series was, like so many British cars of the time, fantastic. Beautifully styled by Michelotti, powered by a range of smooth 6-cylinder engines, and with over 400,000 built in five countries, it was one of the finest mid-sized saloons of its era.

Which of course meant that British Leyland would go on screw it – and all of Triumph – up, as exemplified by the fact that its predecessor was a Standard and its successor a Rover. And if that makes no sense… you’re right, it doesn’t.

But let’s not get bogged down in the collapse of the British automotive industry, because back in the late-’60s and early-’70s it was still riding high, with the Triumph 2000-series a big part of that success.

This one is a 2500S estate, as superbly recreated in digital form by Lego Professional Peter Blackert (aka lego911). Alongside the excellent exterior the doors, tailgate and hood all open and there’s a detailed engine and interior too, with more to see of Peter’s virtual Triumph at his photostream. Take a look via the link whilst we fantasise about buying the real thing…

Black Box

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A few months ago the coolest car we’ve ever published appeared on this page. A mildly modified Volvo 242 Coupe, it was everything we could want in a 1980s Volvo. Except of course, to be a proper 1980s Volvo, it should’ve been an estate…

Now its maker Stephan Jonsson has constructed a station wagon counterpart, in the form of this fabulous Volvo 245, also lightly modified and fitted with a brick-built T6 Turbo engine. There’s even a tow-bar. Don’t be fooled by that rear ‘spoiler’; it’s a wind deflector for a caravan.

We’ve never wanted a car more, and there’s more to see of Stephan’s wonderful Volvo 245 T6 Turbo at his album of the same name. Click the link above to make the jump.

Swedish Brick

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We recently wrote a post about things that TLCB Elves like, so today we’re jumping straight to a thing that we like, and ignoring the Elves completely. They’re rather annoyed by this of course, but the intersection of the Venn diagram that displays their likes and ours is quite sparsely populated, so we’re unlikely to please both them and us.

Cue the Volvo 240 estate and the cause of their annoyance, which was once – by some margin – the least cool car on sale in TLCB’s home market. Driven only by antiques dealers at precisely 43mph, even if the road had a speed limit of 70, they caused Volvo such reputational damage that the brand even fired a few off a cliff when marketing later models to show how far they’d come.

However the car itself was actually very good, and now that antiques dealers are all driving SUVs (along with everyone else), the long forgotten Volvo estate has become seriously, deeply, almost mythically cool.

This magnificent slab of vintage Swede is the work of regular bloggee Jonathan Elliott, who has not only recreated the Volvo 240 estate wonderfully in brick form, he’s even chucked a sofa on the roof as a nod to its antiques transporting history.

Join us (but not the Elves) in lusting after 1980s Volvo ownership at Jonathan’s photostream via the link above.

Slightly Larger Skyline

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Not all Skylines are equal… You may know the Nissan Skyline as the all-wheel-drive turbocharged supercar killer, but the reality is it’s much more than that. By ‘more’, we might also mean ‘less’ though, as this boring 1600cc estate car is in fact a Nissan Skyline.

The Skyline name in Japan (and elsewhere) is used on standard family boxes as well as the turbocharged monsters that were exported to Europe and America, which are based on these humble beginnings.

This particular Skyline is a C110 series, produced from 1972 to 1977 and marketed as the Datsun K-Series in some export markets. A GT-R version was available, fitted with a 2000cc straight-six, but most were 1600 and 1800cc inline-fours making well under 100bhp. The estate, as built here by previous bloggee Matthew Terentev, was a peculiar thing in that it had no windows between the C and D pillars, making it sort of a van. Until we looked this up we had assumed Matthew had chosen to blank off the rear windows to hide the Power Functions remote control components that he has fitted to his model.

As it turns out, his design is remarkably accurate and one that’s worth a closer look. You can do just that at his Nissan Skyline 1800 Wagon album on Flickr. Click the link above for the most boring route into Skyline ownership…

Taxi Driver

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Lego Mercedes 300TD

Needs a few dents to be really authentic

A slightly tired looking Mercedes estate is one of our favourite cars here at The Lego Car Blog. Why? Because they are probably the toughest vehicle ever made. After 15 or so years of faithful service in Europe many were shipped to Africa where they pound the awful roads as taxis, reaching galactic milages. Senator Chinchilla is the builder behind this one, and you can check it out on MOCpages.