There’d better not be speed-bumps near 1saac W.‘s house. Still, much underside worry is probably worth it to look as cool as this. Inspired by a real car in Instagram, there’s more to see of this fantastic custom ’52 Chevy on Flickr. Click the link above to get low.
*Today’s title track. Because we’re street.
OK, we’re not always strictly a car blog here at The Lego… er, Car Blog, but today’s sci-fi creations do have wheels! Well, two of them do, and enough to average 4.67 wheels per model in today’s post, which is good enough for us!
First up is Capt. Dad‘s Neo-Classic Space ‘Mobile Research’, because there’s nothing the mini-figures of Classic Space (or indeed, Neo-Classic Space) like more than researching stuff. Much greebling, many opening compartments, and a brilliant interior all feature, and you join in the research via the link above.
Next up is a creation from Neo-M-Tron, a sub-theme which we’ve just invented. This is the ‘Gigatron Flux Inductor’, a giganormous 6×6 cross between the mole thingy from Thunderbirds, a steam train, and a petrol tanker. Created digitally in Bricklink Studio plus copious editing programmes, Ghalad‘s creation is apparently the latter, and you can fill up your stranded lunar rover via the link in the text above.
Today’s third and final sci-fi build features no wheels at all, but it does use two LEGO transparent ball pieces for, um… reasons. Sylvain Daunais‘ ‘Universe Explorer’ looks superb however, and there’s more to see of his excellent Neo-Classic Spaceship on Flickr. Click the link above to take a look, whilst we find some things that have definitely got wheels…
This is a Kenworth W900 truck, and the more eagle-eyed reader may have noticed it’s been subtly modified with a little chrome and a few extra lights. Which means that if you’re six, a TLCB Elf, or from Texas, we’re sure you’re going to love it.
Truth be told we love it too, particularly as its creator Jonah Padberg (aka Plane Bricks) has included an opening hood under which lies a brilliantly detailed engine, a realistic interior, and working steering and suspension too.
There are more excellent images to view at Jonah’s photostream and you can light your way there via the link above.
In a seedy bleak cyberpunk future, you could do worse than a classic Datsun pick-up. Notoriously hardy, the Datsun 720 is the perfect tool for collecting disused electronics ready to harvest the internals. Or whatever it is these colourful characters are doing. Ids de Jong knows, and you can ask him at his photostream via the link above.
This is the ‘HMS Certitude’, an early-1800’s 26-gun ‘fourth-rate’ warship, as built by the rather talented hands of TLCB newcomer Powder Monkey.
Monkey’s creation packs in a boatload of features, including 26 working cannons across two decks, opening hatches and grills to reveal a beautifully detailed interior, a functioning capstan, woking rigging to set the sails, and an extensive crew of ‘Redcoat’ mini-figures.
Whilst a Navy ship, the Certitude does also feature a few ‘illegal’ (you could say piratical) techniques, including cut rigging, polyester cloth sails, and a few parts connected together in ways that LEGO wouldn’t countenance in an official set, but the result is a first rate, er… fourth-rate ship. 
An extensive gallery of superb imagery is available to view at Powder Monkey’s ‘HMS Certitude’ Flickr album, or you can join the discussion at the Eurobricks forum. Click the links above to weigh anchor and set sail.
This fantastic creation is a first generation Kodiak C70, a 1980s medium-duty truck marketed across both Chevrolet and GMC for a variety of applications.
Built by TLCB Master MOCer Nico71, this outstanding Technic recreation of the American workhorse captures the Kodiak’s no-nonsense exterior beautifully, but it’s what’s underneath that is most impressive.
Featuring a remote control drivetrain linked to a V8 piston engine under the opening hood, Nico’s model includes all-wheel-drive, servo steering, suspended axles, a locking fifth wheel, opening doors, and either bluetooth control via the LEGO Powered-Up app or IR Control via LEGO Power Functions.
There’s more of the truck to see at Nico’s Brickshelf gallery, where a link to building instructions can also be found, you can watch the model in action via the video below, and you can read Nico’s Master MOCers interview here at The Lego Car Blog to learn how he builds models like this one via the first link in the text above.
YouTube Video
Sometimes you don’t need ten thousand pieces to build something blogworthily good. A few hundred might be all that’s required, and previous bloggee IBrickedItUp is proving that today with three top-quality small-scale creations.
Each combines clever techniques, an eye for detail, and excellent presentation to great effect, and all have building instructions available too.
IBrickedItUp’s Jeep Wangler crossroads (plus some neat street furniture), City Bus, and ‘Back to the Future’ DeLorean DMC-12 time-machine can all be found at their Flickr photostream, alongside a range of other real-world vehicles recreated in miniature from a small number of relatively available pieces.
Click the link above to take a closer look, and see what your pieces could create.
‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, the Toyota Corolla, and the Monaco Grand Prix. All simultaneously the greatest examples of their respective genres, and also the most boring.
But Formula 1 in Monaco wasn’t always a procession. Before the cars were the size of school buses, which these days makes overtaking impossible, Monaco could put on quite a show.
Back in 1988, even with the complete dominance of the McLaren-Honda MP4/4, the ’88 Monaco Grand Prix delivered. Twenty-six cars started – two of which were even called ‘Megatron’ (seriously, look it up!) – just ten finished, and Ayrton Senna was the class of the field.
Out-qualifying his team-mate Alain Prost by a staggering 1.4 seconds, Senna led the race by almost a minute… until he didn’t. A momentary lapse of concentration eleven laps from the finish and he hit the wall, whereupon he exited his broken McLaren and walked home.
Prost took the win (his forth and final Monaco GP victory), followed by Gerhard Berger’s Ferrari some twenty seconds back. Which means there’s perhaps some artistic license with the cars’ proximity in alex_bricks‘ stunning 1988 Monaco Grand Prix vignette, but in every other respect this is a spectacularly realistic homage to the Monte Carlo street race.
Recreating the circuit as it was in the late-’80s required Alex to watch old race footage (which is surely some of the most fun research required to build a Lego model), matching his brick-built version of the Mediterranean Principality to the televised imagery from the time.
The result is a replica of the streets of Monaco as they were in 1988 so perfect we can practically hear the noise from the Formula 1 cars bouncing off the walls of the buildings, with Alex displaying his incredible build at the Brickfair show earlier in the year.
Fortunately he’s uploaded a few images to Flickr too, so you can join TLCB Team immersing themselves in Monaco in 1988 via his photostream. Click the link above to head the greatest race on the Formula 1 calendar, long before it was boring.
LEGO’s latest Icons set is arriving with a boom. This is the brand new Icons 10318 Airbus Concorde.
Developed in the 1960s by France and Great Britain, the Aérospatiale/BAC Concorde was the world’s first supersonic airliner. Flying at twice the speed of sound, Concorde halved traditional jet airliner travel times, and could fly higher and faster than even fighter jets of the time.
Unfortunately this incredible speed meant immense noise, and not just the sonic boom but during take-off too, limiting supersonic flight to the skies over open water and causing almost every potential airport destination to block Concorde flights in the face of local opposition.
It also meant huge costs, more than double those of a conventional jet airliner, with Concorde (operated in effect by the British and French governments) losing money every single year.
The British Concordes were eventually sold for ‘next to nothing’ to the newly privatised British Airways, and yet – despite all the problems and the financial disaster of the project – Concorde was the way for wealthy passengers to fly transatlantic until its retirement in 2003.
Paying homage to probably the most iconic aircraft ever built, the new 10318 Concorde set recreates the supersonic airliner from 2,083 pieces, and includes a miniaturised interior, working retracting landing gear, and the aircraft’s famous ‘drooping nose’ that allowed the pilots to see the ground when taxiing.
Measuring over a metre long and aimed at ages 18+, 10318 is expected to cost $199.99 / £169.99 / €199.99 when it reaches stores next month, and you can book your supersonic flight from September 7th.
This dinky 1950s Mercedes-Benz Unimog ‘Gasolin’ tanker probably isn’t going fill many gas tanks, but it’s going to look properly cute filling what it can. Christoph Ellermann‘s is the builder behind this wonderful classic off-road tractor, and you can fill your tank in the ’50s, as long as too many people haven’t filled theirs first, via the link in the text above.
LEGO’s excellent new Icons 10321 Corvette set looks is a glorious addition to their officially-licensed line-up. However, at $150 and aimed at ages 18+ it is likely to be out of reach for many TLCB readers. No so today’s model, which has all the style of the 10321 set, yet uses 1,000 pieces less. Recent bloggee SFH_Bricks is the builder behind this superb Speed Champions Corvette C1, building instructions are available, and you can find them, and it, by clicking here.
The Lego Car Blog Elves are running around the office making VTEC noises. Which isn’t annoying at all. Still, said racket is at least accurate, because – around TLCB Towers at least – the nighttime streets echo to the sounds of the youths of today driving their ageing Civic Type-Rs fitted with silly exhausts on full throttle. Everywhere. BWAAAAAA!
Still, the clientele isn’t really Honda’s fault, and the late-’90s first generation Civic Type-R (based on the sixth generation Civic) is rapidly heading to genuine classic status. Which will soon make it too expensive for the aforementioned youths to be irritating with.
This one (and the source of the Elven office ‘BWAAAAA!’ing) is the work of previous bloggee Daniel Helms, who has absolutely nailed the first generation ‘EK9’ Civic Type-R in Model Team form.
Opening doors reveal a life-like interior, which accurately recreates the real Civic’s ’90s plasticky dashboard via some excellent bespoke decals, there’s a realistic replica of the 185bhp, 8,200rpm 1.6 litre naturally aspirated ‘B16B’ engine under the opening hood, plus the model features an opening tailgate, working suspension, and custom ‘Type-R’ stickers and Honda badging.
There’s loads more of Daniel’s terrific Type-R to see at Eurobricks, Flickr, and Bricksafe, and you can head there on full throttle at 8,200rpm via the links above. BWAAAAA….
TLCB Elves like giant remote controlled behemoths here at The Lego Car Blog. So do we if we’re honest, but we’re also marginally more sophisticated than our mythical workforce, and thus we also like creations that are rather smaller. In fact, clever parts usage, attention to detail, and top-notch presentation often count for more in small-scale.
Proving that point today we have two excellent examples of small-scale building, each of which is only approximately Speed Champions set size, yet packs the visual punch of models a hundred times the parts count.
The first of today’s small-scale creations (above) is previous bloggee SFH_Bricks‘ superb Mercedes-Benz CLK LM. Entered in the 1998 24 Heures du Mans, both CLK LMs retired around the half-way point with engine issues, but were the fastest cars by some margin prior to their retirement. Entered in shorter races and the CLK LMs were dominant, coming first and second in every single round of the ’98 FIA Endurance Championship. You could even get a road legal version, which SFH_Bricks has built too.
Today’s second small-scale build comes from Ids de Jong, and is a gloriously Blacktron-coloured cyperbunk sports car entitled the ‘Blackstar CX2′. Two deeply cool-looking mini-figures (or – presumably – two less cool-looking ones) can fit inside, and there’s more of Ids’ creation to see at their photostream.
Click the links above to check out more of both builds, and if you’ve found a small-scale creation that you think is deserving of an appearance here you can take a look at our Submission Guidelines and let us know by clicking these words.
Skoda, one of the seemingly infinite number of brands operated by the Volkswagen Group, churn out absolutely competent yet stupedously dull boxes by the hundreds of thousands, as is the current Volkswagen Group diktat. Boring sedans, boring SUVs, boring crossovers, boring hatchbacks… Skoda make them all, and they are all quite fantastically bland.
There was a time however, pre-Volkswagen (and pre-capitalism…) when Skoda were much more interesting. Worse. But interesting.
This is probably Skoda’s most successful car from the communist era, the 120/Estelle. Launched in the late ’70s, the 120 was a compact rear-wheel-drive sedan powered by either a 1litre or 1.2 litre engine mounted in the rear. Yup, just like a Porsche 911.
The Skoda 120 also shared a few other Porsche 911 attributes, including motorsport success – regularly winning its class in rallying, and – rather less positively – the 911’s penchant for throwing itself into a hedge, despite it packing just 50bhp.
Still, that at least made the 120 interesting, as did its side-hinged front trunk, out-dated technology, likelihood of overheating, and incredibly low price.
Which means we’d take this lovely mid-’80s Skoda 120/Estelle by Flickr’s Legostalgie over a modern rebadged Volkswagen box all day, with his beautiful Model Team version including a detailed rear-mounted engine under an opening engine cover, a life-like (and suitably plasticky) interior inside four opening doors, and the weird side-hinged front trunk.
There’s more of this superbly-presented Skoda to see – including building instructions – via the link above, where you can also navigate to Legostalgie’s plethora of other Eastern European oddities, all of which are vastly more interesting than a modern Skoda SUV.
It was all going so well at TLCB Towers this morning, until this arrived…
This astonishing creation is a 2,600-piece fully remote-controlled Doosan DL 420-7 wheel loader, driven by four Power Functions motors and powered by a BuWizz bluetooth battery.
It’s the work of the amazing Michał Skorupka, better known as Eric Trax (a TLCB Master MOCer no less), who has replicated the South Korean wheel loader in simply incredible detail.
Working four-wheel-drive, articulated steering, pendular suspension, plus a motorised lifting and tipping bucket arm all feature, and all of which the Elf at the controls used to launch an assault on today’s other four-motor remote control creation.
A brick-based ‘Battle Bots’ inevitably ensued, with the Elves happily riding upon the other combatant machine being squashed in a variety of ways.
Anyway, we have control of both now, so whilst we commence some important ‘testing’ (which may or not be a similar remote control construction machine battle…) you can check out more of Eric Trax’s stunning Doosan DL 420-7 wheel loader via Flickr, Eurobricks, and Brickshelf.
