Everyone here at The Lego Car Blog enjoys a good hotrod*, so we were charmed by this pair from Tim Henderson on Flickr. Both cars use the ready-made LEGO car nose, angled to get the look of Volkswagen’s classic Beetle. The thing that really grabbed our attention are the nicely greebled engines, which are different for each car. Click this link to see more details in their Flickr album.
*Yes, and so does your Mom.
The Lino Martins‘ bakery knows how to deliver in style. This is a 1940s International Harvester Metro van… with one or two subtle modifications. Pick up a loaf at Lino’s photostream via the link above.
This utterly wonderful contraption comes from the brilliant Vince Toulouse of Flickr, and it looks like one of the most dangerous machines that this blog has ever posted, and it’s glorious! The bastard offspring of a soapbox gravity go-kart and a 1920s Grand Prix racer, Vince’s latest work is delightfully unhinged, and it makes use of some of LEGO’s odder parts superbly – including some long-forgotten wheels from Technic’s darker days.
There’s more to see of this beautiful creation at Vince’s photostream – step inside the Salvador Dali painting that is his mind at the link above.
We’re not really sci-fi people here at The Lego Car Blog, what with us blogging… er, Lego cars. As such George Lucas’ most famous works rarely feature here, despite all his constant meddling with the franchise.
Today though we’ve made an exception, because we do like Classic Space, and we love big engines. It’s not often that the two meet, but when they do the results are bloody brilliant. So much so that we’re even willing to overlook this build’s inherent Star Warsyness. It’s the work of previous bloggee Priovit70, and it’s easily one of the coolest Star Wars Landspeeders that we’ve ever seen. Which isn’t saying much as we haven’t seen many, but it’s also one of the coolest Classic Space creations that we’ve seen too, and that’s saying rather more.
You can check out this hovering hot rod at Priovit’s photostream – click the link above to make the jump.
Kia had taken their brave pills when they decided to name their new small car the ‘Soul’. Korean cars had a come a long way in the run up to the Soul’s release, but the one thing they were still lacking was the exact thing they were naming their new car after.
Kia got it right though, and their quirky small SUV thing has done rather well. In fact Kia’s entire range is now more than a match for the established Japanese, American and European brands. However, this new found competence had yet to be appreciated by the Lego Community, as a quick search through our Archives here at TLCB revealed that not one Kia had ever appeared here.
Today Flickr’s Tim Inman has righted that oversight, with this; his ‘Overbite’ Kia Soul rat rod. With a roof chop, rusted paintwork and stripy seats, Tim’s Soul ticks all the rat rod boxes, and being based on a modern Korean hatchback somehow makes it all the cooler.
There’s more of Tim’s Soul rat to see on Flickr – click the link above to make the jump.
Alternatively fuelled vehicles are nothing new. In fact they’ve been around longer than anyone alive today. The early days of motoring saw a number of fuel sources vying for supremacy, including gasoline, steam and even electricity.
It was of course gasoline that won, and it’s only now – over a century later – that we’re beginning to understand the environmental cost of this technological choice, and make any sort of progress to cleaner mobility.
Previous bloggee Norton74 is takes us back to the start of motoring, long before concerns of global warming and air pollution, with this magnificent steampunk Ford T-Bucket hot rod. We’re not aware that Ford’s Model-T could be had with anything other than a gasoline internal combustion engine, but some of its long-forgotten rivals could be powered by all sorts of things, steam included. It’s not too much of a stretch then to imagine that the hot rodding world could indeed merge a Model T with a steam-car.
Norton’s gloriously strange steampunk T-Bucket is just for show though – underneath all that copper is a typical small-block V8 gasoline engine, there’s no water tank and no furnace – but it looks fantastic. There’s lots more to see on Flickr at Norton’s photostream – click the link above to jump back in time.
Nope, not that secret device your Mom uses on the bus, but this – an absolutely gorgeous Technic hot rod from previous bloggee sm 01.
Underneath the brilliant Model-A Coupe-ish bodywork is period-correct leaf spring suspension, working steering, door locks and a detailed V8 engine. Plus of course full Power functions remote control drive and steering courtesy of two motors, and IR receiver and a beautifully packaged trunk-mounted battery box.
There’s lots more to see on Flickr via the link above, plus you can see the hot rod in action via the video below.
YouTube Video:
‘Motorsport Can Be Dangerous’ – so say the triangular signs attached to racetrack fences. It’s true, it can, but TLCB maths states that as the danger involved in something rises, so does the coolness of the thing in question (and therefore the more tempting it is to try it*).
Flickr builders Lino Martins and Tim Inman have built the perfect vehicles to explain this cultural phenomenon with their ’31 Ford ‘Flatline’ ambulance hot rod (above) and ’67 Cadillac ‘Hells Bells’ hearse hot rod (below). They’re a ridiculously cool way to reach the hospital (or exit it in a bag), and you can see more of each build via the links in the text above.
*Apart from The Salmon Mousse.
The world is full of wonderful forgotten cars. From middle eastern ‘princes’ abandoning their supercars in desert parking lots to the little old lady whose late husband’s classic Jaguar has been decomposing silently in her unopened garage for decades, all petrolheads dream of discovering a long-lost automotive relic.
Kosmas Santosa has recreated that moment when the door onto something special is opened with this beautifully shot garage scene, and you can see more of his ‘Abandoned Beauty’ on Flickr here.
If The Lego Car Blog Elves were to design an ambulance, it would probably look like this. Flickr’s Nathan Proudlove could well be an Elf if it weren’t for the fact that he’s a) a human being and, b) he can build creations as excellent as this one. You can see more of Nathan’s ‘Whambulance’ at his photostream – click the link above to dial 911.
ZZ Top’s ‘Eliminator’ hot rod is very nearly as famous as the band themselves. This ace Miniland replica of the iconic ’33 Ford Coupe comes from TLCB regular Ralph Savelsberg and there’s more to see here.
Nothing beats two sixes (well, in Risk anyway) so here’s our winning roll of the dice for the weekend. Above is a gloriously smooth ’52 Chevy sled by Flickr’s Tim Henderson, whilst below TLCB favourite Angka Utama has recreated Zagato’s stunning ’90s Aston Martin V8 in 6-wide form. See more of each build on Flickr via the links.
The Lego Car Blog Elves like yellow. And they also like hot rods. TLCB regular _Tiler scores a home run then, with his brilliant American Graffiti Deuce Coupe, complete with banana rear fenders! See more on Flickr.
This is probably the most beautifully built and photographed hot rod that’ve we’ve blogged to date, even by _Tiler‘s own stunning standards. We want this so much it hurts, but we’ll make do by staring wistfully at it via _Tiler’s photostream – join us on Flickr at the link above.
This slick slate-coloured hot rod was suggested to us by a reader. It comes from previous bloggee DrDesignz who has returned with this beautiful and unusually hued Model Team build. There’s more available via Eurobricks – click the link above to make the jump.