Our sneaky Elves have unearthed another new-for-2023 LEGO set, and the names just keep getting longer. This is the brand new Speed Champions 76917 ‘2 Fast 2 Furious’ Nissan Skyline GT-R (R34).
As featured in the Oscar-winning 2003 ‘The Fast and the Furious’ sequel… wait, no that’s not right… Ah yes, the awful 2003 ‘The Fast and the Furious’ sequel, Brian O’Conner’s modified Nissan Skyline GT-R was as integral to the plot as street racing culture, something about drugs, and saying ‘bruh’ in every line of dialogue.
LEGO’s officially-licensed Speed Champions set recreates Brian’s whip really rather well to our eyes, with a decent balance between brick-built detail and decals, utilising plenty of ‘SNOT’ techniques.
Aimed at ages 9+, the Speed Champions 76917 ‘2 Fast 2 Furious’ Nissan Skyline GT-R (R34) set includes 319 pieces, a ‘Brian O’Conner’ mini-figure, and will reach stores in early 2023. Will thatSupra be next?
This is the Calsonic-sponsored Nissan Skyline GT-R R34 from the early-’00s Japan Grand Touring Car Championship, but of course, you probably already knew that.
Whilst Alexander Paschoaletto‘s brilliant Skyline GT-R R34 doesn’t say ‘Calsonic’ anywhere on it, we (and most likely you) would have recognised it anywhere. That’s because this car is burned into our psyche (and retinas) from Gran Turismo, where it has, in various generations, featured as one of the star cars for over two decades.
White 3D-printed wheels, blue bodywork, and a yellow sun-strip have transported us right back to hours of early-’00s pixellated racing, and you can join us at the Deep Forest Raceway courtesy of Alexander’s photostream via the link above.
We have another one of your suggestions today, and another excellent set alternative!
This wild-looking Mercedes-Benz AMG GT R Roadster comes from previous bloggee Serge S of Flickr, who has constructed it from only the parts found within the 10265 Creator Ford Mustang set. Plus a single black circular tile for the Mercedes-Benz badge, but what’s a single black circular tile between friends?
Building instructions are available and there’s more to see at Serge’s photostream via the link above.
If there’s an unmodified R32 Skyline GT-R in existence, we’re yet to see it. And so to today’s creation, which has also cast OEM originality aside in order to create something rather more special. Which does mean it features a few non-LEGO parts, but seeing is the real car upon which it’s based features a few non-Nissan ones, we think it’s alright.
Built by Gray Gear of Eurobricks, this Nissan Skyline GT-R R32 recreates the car from the Wangan Midnight cartoon, including custom wheels, a replica straight six engine refitted with a single-shot turbo, and a few bodywork parts not officially produced by LEGO, seeing as they don’t come in black.
The model also features a working six-speed gearbox, all-wheel-drive, all-wheel independent suspension, functioning steering, plus opening doors, hood and trunk. There’s more to see for all of that at the Eurobricks forum via the link above, whilst we fall deeper into the Wangan Midnight YouTube rabbit hole.
This is a 1970s C110-series Nissan Skyline GT-R, known as the ‘Kenmeri’ because the advertising campaign for the C110 Skyline featured a couple called Ken and Mary. Yes, really. Still, Nissan’s marketing department were to take British old people’s names literally soon after, with the ‘Silvia’, ‘Gloria’, and even the ‘Cedric’.
Back to the C110 GR-R, which was only sold for 6 months – and only in the Japanese domestic market – before the oil crisis of 1973 ended sales at less than 200 units. High performance cars were looked down upon in Japan during the crisis and the Kenmeri was quickly pulled from production, making it an incredibly rare car today.
TLCB regular Jonathan Elliott has added one more C110 GT-R to the list though, with this brilliant 7-wide Speed Champions style recreation of Nissan’s rarest Skyline variant. Jonathan has captured the real car beautifully there’s more to see at his photostream – click the link above to make the jump.
Here at TLCB we whole-heartedly welcome the addition of Nissan to the LEGO Speed Champions line-up, and hope it leads to a few more partnerships with Japanese auto makers (Honda or Toyota anyone?). However the first officially licensed Nissan set – the 76896 Nissan GT-R NISMO – is not LEGO’s best effort, with more detail derived from decals than actual bricks. Still, if we were 7 we’d absolutely love it.
Cue previous bloggee Simon Przepiorka, now known as SP_LINEUP, who has constructed his own 8-wide Nissan GT-R, and it’s superb. With not a sticker to be seen SP has successfully captured all of the GT-R’s design hallmarks in wonderful accuracy, and his model features opening doors and an opening hood too.
There’s much more of SP’s brilliant Nissan GT-R NISMO to see at his photostream – click the link above to make the jump to an altogether better GT-R.
LEGO’s new 42111 Fast & Furious Dom’s Dodge Charger set revealed here last month will bring one of the franchise’s most iconic cars to bedroom floors all around the world. There is another car from the movies which is just as famous though; Brian’s bright blue Nissan GT-R R34.
Found by one of our Elves on Brickshelf, this is spiderbrick’s Technic recreation of Brian’s R34, built in a gloriously old-school style that matches the 1990s car with the bricks that were around at the time.
Merging classic Model Team and Technic styles, spiderbrick’s R34 GT-R includes all of the necessities for it to earn the ‘Technic Supercar’ title, including a working straight-six engine, a 5-speed gearbox, independent suspension, all-wheel drive, and all-wheel steering.
Nissan have joined LEGO’s awesome Speed Champions line-up for 2020 with a set that’s a bit… stickery. The official 76896 Nissa GT-R NISMO set will no doubt fly off the shelves, seeing as seven-year-olds a) love the GT-R and b) love stickers, but we’re not sure that using decals for even basic shapes such as headlights is really the point of LEGO. Flickr’s Simon Przepiorka (now known by SP_LINEUP) agrees, and as such has created his own 1:24 scale R35 GT-R with bricks* rather than sticky pictures. Matching LEGO’s own 8-stud wide Speed Champions sets, Simon’s Lego Godzilla looks far more appealing than the one you can buy, and you can take a closer look at his photostream via the link above.
*Save for a red pin-stripe and the fact that the images look suspiciously digital…
It’s 2020 Speed Champions reveal time! Uncovered by one of our elite Elves thrown over The LEGO Company HQ’s wall a few weeks back, this is the brand new 76896 Speed Champions Nissan GT-R NISMO!
Slotting in between the previously revealed 76895 Ferrari F8 Tributo and excellent 76897 Audi Sport quattro, 76896 brings another real-world manufacturer into the Speed Champions line-up. The new Nissan GT-R NISMO joins the range in LEGO’s new 8-wide style that has become uniform across the latest Speed Champions sets, allowing them to look (mostly) to scale side-by-side as well as being able to fit two mini-figures.
Aimed at ages 7+ 76896 includes 298 pieces, a mini-figure racing driver, and a lot of stickers, forming the racing livery, front grille, air intakes and even the headlights.
It’s not really a look to our tastes, as we much prefer the brick-built rear to the be-stickered front, but we suspect that if you’re seven you won’t mind at all (when you’re seven stickers are awesome).
We also suspect that the new 76896 Nissan GT-R NISMO will fly off the shelves, with the GT-R being one of the poster cars for the Forza generation and also becoming the first Japanese car to be recreated as an official LEGO set.
We hope that the new Nissan GT-R’s arrival heralds the possibility of further Japanese manufacturers deciding to partner with LEGO (Toyota Supra, Lexus LFA or Honda NSX anyone?), but even if not – and although this particular Speed Champions set is a bit stickery for us – the arrival of another real-world manufacturer is something to be celebrated, particularly with a car as legendary as the Nissan GT-R
The new 76896 Speed Champions Nissan GT-R NISMO set is expected to cost around $20 and is due to reach stores by the end of the year.
Is there a car more over-hyped by annoying children than the Toyota Supra? No. But this comes close. It is of course the Nissan Skyline GTR R34, a car made more famous than it already was by a certain once-quite-good-but-now-fudging-terrible movie franchise.
The R34 Skyline launched in 1998, lasting just a few short years into the early 2000s before the GT-R evolved to became a standalone model and Skylines went back to being fairly boring sedans. Power came from a twin-turbo straight-6 making ‘276’ bhp, which was sent to all four wheels via an immensely clever all-wheel-drive system, allowing the GT-R to slay far more expensive machinery at the track and turning average drivers into good ones overnight.
This spectacular Model Team replica of the late-’90s legend comes from TLCB Master MOCer and all-round car building genius Firas Abu-Jaber, who has not only recreated the GT-R R34 perfectly in its stock form but has also added the prerequisite tuning accessories that seem to accompany it, from big wings and bigger turbos to bodykits and NO2 canisters (if you think that should say ‘NOS’ go back to school).
There’s a whole lot more of Firas’s incredible Nissan Skyline GT-R to see at his Flickr album by clicking here, where a link to yes, instructions, can also be found, and a certain blue version from a once-quite-good-but-now-fudging-terrible movie franchise is also due to appear…
Nissan make some of the most boring cars on the road today. Boring crossovers, boring SUVs, boring crossover/SUVs, and whatever this is supposed to be… Apart that is, from one car. The Nissan GT-R has been on sale for well over a decade, and whilst it may not be the bargain that it once was, it still offers super-slaying performance without the supercar price tag.
The GT-R does this through a raft of clever electronics, allowing its twin-turbocharged V6 to deploy huge power to whichever of the four wheels can use it most effectively. Until Tesla came along, there was no launch control quite like it.
The Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 takes the car into GT3 racing, where it hasn’t been wildly successful thanks to the strict class rules limiting any advantages, but where it looks really cool. TLCB favourite Lachlan Cameron thinks so too, and he’s built an incredible Technic version in homage to the wild racing car.
Resplendent in NISMO’s white and red colour scheme completed with a custom florescent sticker pack, Lachlan’s GT-R GT3 looks magnificent, and it’s packed with Technic functionality on the inside too, including remote controlled drive and steering, working suspension, a V6 engine, LED headlights and much more. Click here to jump Lachlan’s Nissan GT-R GT3 photo album on Flickr where more images and details will appear over the coming days.
A huge reputation, a legend of the car scene for almost as long as there’s been one, and incredible attention to detail… Firas Abu-Jaber and the Nissan GT-R have much in common.
This, as you may have guessed, is Firas’ latest build; a faithfully recreated replica of Nissan’s 2017 Nismo GT-R. The current GT-R is an old-age pensioner by car design standards, but like that elderly ex-marine at the bus stop, or your Mom in the buffet queue, you wouldn’t mess with it. Launched a decade ago in 2007, Nissan’s replacement for the much-loved R34 Skyline GT-R took the well known all-wheel-drive turbocharged formula and thoroughly Spinal Tapped it.
A hand-built 3.8litre V6 engine fitted with twin parallel Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries turbochargers gave the GT-R just under 500bhp at launch, a figure which when combined with Nissan’s trick all-wheel-drive system allowed the GT-R to obliterate almost any other car off the line and in the corners. Hypercars included.
Since its launch the GT-R’s power has steadily increased, with standard models up to 545bhp by 2012 and this, the 2017 Nismo version, reaching almost 600bhp. That extra 50bhp doesn’t come cheap though, as the Nismo GT-R costs around 50% more than the standard model, making it surely one of the worst value-for-money special editions in automotive history.
We’ll stick with the standard car thanks Nissan, which is genuinely still something of a bargain, and we’ll leave the Nismo GT-R, its mad carbon-fibre aero, and its even madder sticker price, to Firas Abu-Jaber’s spectacular Model Team recreation.
Firas has made an extensive gallery of stunning images available, including several showing the interior inside the opening doors, and the realistic twin-turbo V6 engine under the opening hood. See more of the legend for yourself at Firas’ photostream, and you can read our interview with the builder as part of the Master MOCers series by clicking here.
Nissan’s R35 series GT-R is getting – in car terms – pretty ancient now. It’s been 10 years since the design launched and yet, despite the continual price rises and the advancement of newer rivals, the GT-R is still capable of dispatching supercars costing three times as much a decade later.
The GT-R does feel its age inside though, where it’s miles off the pace compared to a modern design, and – oddly – it doesn’t actually feel as fast as it is, so hushed is the engine by the twin turbos forcing air into it.
It is though, an absolutely cult car, helped hugely by Nissan’s partnership with all manner of racing game developers which has immortalised the GT-R in pixels, but it’s also a car that seems to rarely feature in Lego form.
Previous bloggee (and one half of Master MOCers LegoExotics) Jens Matuschek has decided a Lego version was way overdue, and he’s built a spectacular replica of the GT-R in 2008 NISMO specification. The car features opening doors, hood and trunk, and includes a beautifully detailed engine and interior.
There are loads more superb images available to view at both MOCpages and Flickr – click the links to see the full Nissan GT-R NISMO gallery.
Nissan’s recent Le Mans adventure has been rather short-lived. First the brilliant looking Deltawing ran the ’00’ designation for experimental vehicles, but was sadly involved in a crash forcing it into retirement, then Nissan’s Nismo team returned with this; the hybrid GT-R LM.
Built to take on Audi, Toyota and Porsche in the LMP1 prototype category, the GT-R LM Nismo competed in just one race before the whole project was canned.
MOCpages’ Alexander Pachoaletto remembers one of motorsport’s most recent high-profile failures with his tidy Model Team recreation. complete with some of the most ingenious headlights of any model to appear here. There’s more to see of Alex’s Nissan GT-R LM Nismo at the link above.
Nissan’s current GT-R (previously called the ‘Skyline’) is a seriously impressive supercar killer. But we don’t particularly desire it. We’d like to have a go, sure – but to own… it’s just a bit… dull.
Not so the original Skyline 2000, which we want so much that it hurts. Even more so if it’s like this one. Davanchi M has retro-fitted his gorgeous retro Skyline with an RB26DET twin-turbo straight-six engine from a late ’90s Skyline GT-R, meaning it would go as good as it looks. Which is to say, very well indeed.
Davanchi has uploaded a full gallery of images to both MOCpages and Flickr – click the links to spool up your turbos.
