Tag Archives: Lego

Bat Soup

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Bats in water aren’t at the top of many menus. This is because a) how many other meats do you have to reject before ending up at bat?, and b) the aforementioned dish may have paralysed the world for two years. Thanks China.

Anyway, today we do have a bat in water, courtesy of ABrickDreamer‘s diorama depicting the moment The Dark Knight launched the Tumbler through a waterfall in 2005’s ‘Batman Begins’.

There’s more of Brick’s Batmobile to see on Flickr; click the link above to take a look and maybe start a global pandemic.

Top Grades

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After extolling the virtues of creations that don’t need a suite of electronics earlier today, here’s one with a suite of electronics. Because shut up, that why.

It is astonishing though, coming again from Flickr’s Beat Felber who is on something of a mass upload. This one is a Champion 100-T motor-grader, a Canadian design from the 1970s, and the world’s largest.

Powered by one LEGO Power Functions L Motor and eight third-party CaDa micromotors, Beat’s grader can drive, steer, lean its front wheels, pivot the cab articulation, plus raise, lower, angle, pitch, and side-shift the blade, all remotely operable via bluetooth thanks to three SBrick controllers. Which would make it an unmatched Elf-squishing device if it wasn’t so slow.

Still, whilst the TLCB Elf that found Beat’s Champion grader may be disappointed, we certainly aren’t, and there’s more to see of this astonishing creation at his ‘Champion 100-T’ album. Click the link above to receive top grades.

Get the Fire Brigade*

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Here at The Lego Car Blog we can be a bit guilty of leaning towards creations with twelve motors, fifteen sets of LEDs, and six programmable bluetooth controllers. Because we are (and this will no doubt come as a surprise to readers of a niche website about Lego cars), nerds at heart. Not Brothers Brick levels of nerdiness, but still.

Creations featuring the aforementioned suite of electronics are often amazing in their operation (there’s one before this post and there’ll be another after it too), but they’re also out of reach for many Lego fans due to the cost of the components within them.

Thus today we’re replacing resources with intellect, thanks to this superb fire truck by Flickr’s Jeroen Ottens.

Featuring just a single Powered-Up motor, Jeroen’s fire truck can rotate, raise, and extend its ladder, all of which can be controlled independently, plus deploy four stabiliser legs too. An ingenious gearbox – activated mechanically by levers mounted on the sides and rear of the truck – takes the motorised power to where it’s needed, whilst the model also features mechanical steering (front and rear), as well as opening doors and hatches.

It’s a brilliant example of Technic engineering ingenuity, and you can take a look at how Jeroen has done all this with just one motor at his photostream. Click the link above to get the fire brigade.

*Today’s wonderful title song, featuring equally wonderful moustaches.

Enormous Dump

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Nope, not Detroit, but this; an utterly gargantuan Terex Unit Rig MT 6300AC. Designed to work alongside the world’s largest rope shovels, this 400-ton truck operates in an Australian open-cast ore mine, and is pictured here – to scale – alongside a Hilux-style pick-up, showing just how huge it really is.

Powered by a twenty-cylinder with electric assistance, the MT 6300AC produces 3,750bhp, and is now – like every piece of mining equipment it seems – part of the Caterpillar empire.

This incredible replica of the Unit Rig MT 6300AC still wears its Terex livery however, and has been recreated in phenomenal detail by recent bloggee Beat Felber, who is on something of an upload spree.

His latest build merges System and Technic building with several well chosen third-party components, including RC tyres (LEGO don’t make any large enough), SBrick bluetooth control, and a CaDa micro-motor, along with a suite of Power Functions parts to provide remote control drive, steering, tipping, and lighting.

There’s also working suspension, opening doors and hatches, plus deployable ladders, with much more to see at Beat’s fantastic ‘Terex Unit Rig MT 6300AC’ album on Flickr. Take a look via the link above, whilst we await an angry comment from a Detroit resident.

Summer of ’59

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As uninspired, dreary and monotonous as American cars have been since the late-’90s, they were spectacular, inventive, and pioneering in the late-’50s. Tail-fins, chrome, and delightful shapes abounded during America’s automotive golden years, with two high watermarks being Chevrolet’s gorgeous C1 Corvette and iconic Impala.

Recreating these icons of Americana is SFH_Bricks, who has begun a new series building the most famous ’50s cars in Speed Champions scale. Joining his previously blogged Cadillac El Dorado, the Corvette and Impala pictured here capture each classic Chevrolet beautifully in miniature (with the pieces used for the Impala’s tail-lights in particular perfectly formed for the task).

There’s more to see of SFH’s wonderfully presented classic Chevrolet Corvette and Impala models (including details on building instructions) on Flickr via the links, where we’re sure a fleet of ’50s American classic will be sure to join them.

From Monaco to the Moon

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Barely a week goes by without yet another supercar start-up promising to build a brand new supercar, hold their own race series, and go to the moon. Which means of course, that most never build anything more than a fancy website and a few ludicrous press-releases before fading into nothingness within a year.

But back in the ’90s, a supercar start-up really did build a brand new supercar, hold their own race series, and – unbelievably – they’re now going to the moon.

Funded by the heir to the Agusta company (of aviation and motorcycle fame), Monaco-based Venturi’s bi-turbo 400 GT was designed for endurance racing, with around one-hundred produced to race in various GT championships, their own one-make series, and the Le Mans 24 hours. It was good too, competing with – and sometimes beating – racing stalwarts Ferrari and Porsche.

Under twenty were also produced for road use before production ceased in 1997, with this superb Speed Champions recreation of the road-going 400 GT constructed by LegoSEB77, who has absolutely nailed the French supercar’s mid-’90s aesthetic.

But what of the moon? Well Venturi folded in 2000, before being bought by a new owner who -with incredible foresight – transitioned the company to focus solely on electric motors. Motors which amazingly are now part of both NASA and SpaceX’s lunar rover programmes.

So there you have it, a supercar start-up that really did make the car it promised to, won races with it, and is now going to the moon, and you can see more of SEB77’s excellent brick-built version of the Venturi 400 GT on Flickr via the link above.

Backwithanotheroneofthose…

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…block rockin’ beats!* OK, we don’t often feature a title referring to the builder rather than model, but seeing as Flickr’s Beat Felber appeared here only two days ago with another spectacular model, it’s warranted.

His follow-up is even more impressive, an enormous 1:28 scale fully remote controlled (and working) replica of the world’s largest hydraulic excavator, the near 1,000-ton Caterpillar 6090.

Powered by two Cummins diesel engines the 6090 makes over 1,400bhp, and is able to move 43 cubic meters of material with each chomp of its bucket. It’s also, like Beat’s recently-blogged coal excavator, actually an O&K design that now wears Caterpillar branding.

Unlike his previous build however, Beat has chosen to recreate the 6090 in its current Caterpillar livery, creating one of the most visually lifelike creations this site has ever featured. But it’s the lifelike mechanicals that we’re more interested in…

Powered by three Power Functions battery boxes and controlled by four third-party SBricks, Beat’s creation features (deep breath); motorised crawler tracks (one XL Motor per track), a slewing superstructure (two M Motors), a fully operational boom, stick, bucket tilt and clamshell opening (each operated by pneumatic cylinders, controlled via four servo-motorised valves, and an on-board compressor driven by twin Buggy Motors), two motorised boarding ladders (one M Motor each), spinning engine and oil cooling fans (two 9V Motors), plus full LED lighting (five pairs of Power Functions LEDs).

It’s a truly spectacular feat of Lego engineering, and there’s much more to see at Beat’s ‘Caterpillar 6090 FS’ Flickr album, where over thirty incredible images and a video of the model in action can also be found. Click the link above to take a look, where we get the feeling we might be back again with some block rockin’ beats imminently…

*Today’s (excellent) title song.

Audi + Batman =

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What do you get if you cross an Audi RS Q with the Batmobile? A Toyota Tacoma-ish pick-up truck. Obviously.

This superb Technic truck is the work of newcomer mirrorbricks, and is constructed using only the parts from the excellent 42160 Technic Audi RS Q e-tron and the rather less excellent 42127 The Batman Batmobile set.

Remote control four-wheel-drive and steering, a V6 piston engine, front and rear suspension, opening doors, hood and tailgate, plus LED lights all feature, as do some glorious retro decals and ‘KC’ lights, and there’s more to see of mirrorbricks’ brilliant double-B-model at the Eurobricks forum.

Click the link above to take a look at the best and only Batmobile-Audi mash-up we’ve seen. Unless you count Bruce Wayne’s Lamborghini of course…

Coal’s OK

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This astonishing creation is an O&K RH 120 C, a 200-ton mining excavator used in British open-cast coal mines in the 1980s, and – as the most successful excavator in its class – all around the world.

Subsequently built by Terex and then Caterpillar, the RH 120 C is still in production today, with this spectacular brick-built replica paying homage to the design’s first incarnation.

Constructed by Flickr’s Beat Felber, this 1:28 scale model recreates not just the O&K’s exterior in brilliant detail, but the operation of the excavator too, thanks to a suite of Powered-Up, Control+, and Power Functions components hidden within.

A pair of Powered-Up L Motors drive the tracks, another the slewing, whilst a Power Functions XL Motor drives the huge boom. A further two motors operate the bucket, with all six able to be controlled remotely via two Control+ hubs.

Authentic period-correct decals, superb attention-to-detail, and fantastic presentation make Beat’s O&K one of the finest models to appear here this year, and you can find the full gallery of incredible imagery at his ‘O&K RH 120 C’ album on Flickr. Click the link above to visit a British coal-field c1985, and take a closer look.

Pistons Past

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This beautiful creation is a Hawker tempest Mk.V, the last British piston-engined fighter, and one of the fastest aircraft to ever fly in the Second World War.

Able to shoot down V1 flying bombs as they made their way across the English Channel, the Tempest excelled at low altitude interception, and later evolved to become the carrier-based the Sea Fury.

This example wears the markings used for the 1944 Normandy landings, and was flown by ace Wing Commander Roland ‘Bee’ Beamont, who shot down nine enemy aircraft and thirty-one V1 flying bombs.

Constructed by Juliusz D., the incredible Tempest pictured here includes working landing gear, flaps, and vertical stabiliser, and joins his other spectacular Second World War aircraft including the Supermarine Spitfire and P-51 Mustang.

There’s much more of Juliusz’s beautiful Hawker Tempest to see at his photostream, and you can fly over Northern France in Britain’s last piston-engined fighter via the link above.

Adventures Across the Galaxy

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We know nothing whatsoever about sci-fi, but nevertheless we do like Classic Space, with it’s perennially-smiling spacemen, assorted research tools, and spaceships that look like a cross between a fighter jet and a racing car.

This one comes from Flickr’s Wynd, who has brilliantly re-booted the Classic Space aesthetic in the creation of his ‘Galaxy Adventurer’. Funky landing gear, a glowing engine, and a perennially-smiling spaceman all feature, and you can join him adventuring across the galaxy via the link above.

The Road to El Dorado

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This is a 1953 Cadillac Eldorado, a humungous (at 5.6 meters long / 2.3 tons) and humungously expensive 2-door luxury convertible, that – in first generation guise – lasted just one year and 500 units.

With unique sheet metal from the Cadillac upon which it was based, the first generation Eldorado was an ultra-exclusive automobile, and included such luxuries as air-conditioning (a $7,000 option at today’s prices), power windows, a heater, and that mark of unrestrained decadence; windscreen washers.

This lovely Lego recreation of Cadillac’s high-watermark comes from previous bloggee SFH_Bricks, who has captured it beautifully in brick form. Ingenious building techniques and top-notch presentation abound, and there’s more to see of SFH’s magnificent ’53 Eldorado via Flickr. Click the link above to take a closer look.

Otto-ly Wonderful

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Sometimes a vehicle needs a name, and this wonderful Volkswagen T25 Westfalia camper, owned by friend of TLCB Nick Barrett, is one such time.

Entitled ‘Otto’, Nick’s fabulous Westfalia is christened after its previous owner, whose name was inside the manual it came with.

Working steering, suspension, opening/sliding doors, and a rear-mounted piston engine all feature, as does a glorious interior, complete with a fold down bed, table, rotating chairs, kitchen, and crapper.

There’s much more of Otto to see at Nick’s album on Flickr, and you can see what makes him tick in our Master MOCers series by clicking this bonus link.

#MorePatriotism

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The misplaced patriotism continues here at The Lego Car Blog, with another American automotive icon. The Ford Bronco first appeared in the 1960s, and now – after a twenty-five year absence – the new sixth-generation model has reignited Ford’s rugged go-anywhere reputation.

Powered by a range of turbocharged engines with up to 400bhp, the 2021 Bronco continues the nameplate’s legacy, with body-on-frame construction, two and four-door variants, a removable roof and doors, and about two hundred different trims named after various outdoorsy-things.

This phenomenal Model Team/Technic replica of Ford’s most sought-after 4×4 comes from previous bloggee DamianPLE, who has recreated the off-road icon brilliantly in brick form.

Underneath the superbly recreated exterior Damian’s model features four-wheel-drive, a high/low gearbox, locking centre and rear differentials, working suspension and steering, a highly detailed V6 engine, folding seats, and – like the real thing – easily removable doors and roof.

A huge gallery of stunning imagery is available to view at Damian’s Bricksafe gallery, which includes close-up photos of the chassis as well as on-location shots, plus you can find the model’s discussion topic and further details at the Eurobricks form, where an excellent video of the Bronco’s working features can also be found.

Take a closer look via the links above, whilst we try to remember our own automotive heritage and post a model of a Morris Marina or something…

#Patriotism

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America is in the news of TLCB home nation rather a lot at the moment. Whilst we’ve quietly called, held, and politely delivered the outcome of an election in six weeks, America’s year-long campaign season continues, and – with perhaps a depressing inevitability – the barrage of political slurs, plus an argument about golf handicaps for some reason, has spilled over into something far worse.

Thus to remember that America isn’t just gun violence and two old men insulting one another, today we have the most American thing we can think of short of chanting ‘Freedom!’ on loop or a Mustang crash; the Chevrolet Corvette C7.

Built by Eurobricks’ mihao, this stunning Technic recreation of the last front-engined Corvette is so realistic we can almost see the retired dentist behind the wheel. Working steering, adjustable suspension, a V8 engine connected to a paddle-shift gearbox, opening doors, hood and trunk, plus a removable targa-roof all feature, and the model can also be fully motorised, with remote control drive, steering, and LED head and tail lights.

Building instructions for both the mechanical and motorised versions of mihao’s model are available, and you can find them and lots more besides at the Eurobricks forum. Click the link above to take a look at mihao’s fantastic American icon, and whichever old man you vote for, neither the other one, nor his supporters, are your foe.

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