It’s fight night! And we have two long-time adversaries (and previously allies) in the diesel locomotive category. Starting in the yellow corner, from America, it’s the EMD GP 38-2! Aaaand in the black corner, from Russia, it’s the TEM-18DM!
Each is pulling the finest hardware from their respective militaries, and you can place your bets courtesy of TLCB debutant Konstantin on Flickr via the link! Let’s get ready to railrooooad!
Things have been quiet here at TLCB Towers. Days have passed without us publishing anything, during which time the only sound in the office was the soft clicking together of bricks. And that’s because our friends at No Starch Press sent us a copy of their new book to review, and it’s a belter! This is The Great LEGO Puzzle Book by Jacob Berg.
An ingenious idea (that we’re amazed hasn’t surfaced until now), The Great LEGO Puzzle Book takes a handful of the most basic pieces that all LEGO fans are likely to own, and uses them to create over a hundred building puzzles.
Jacob begins The Great LEGO Puzzle Book with ‘2D to 3D’, with the challenge being to turn an image of pieces in profile into a real-life 3D stack. The challenges progress with increasing difficulty before moving on to more complex variations via ‘Complete the Cube’, ‘Master the Shadows’, ‘Third Shape Missing’, and lastly – our favourite – ‘Fill It!’, which is kinda like a brick-based version of that wild Japanese game show.
Each of the aforementioned chapters contains dozens of puzzles, solvable using the same basic LEGO pieces, and is seriously addictive. It’s also seriously accessible, and a great game to play with kids that teaches both building and orientation skills, with all of the solutions detailed in the book’s final chapter and a few hints given along the way.
Our copy of The Great LEGO Puzzle Book was in digital form, which was clear and easy to read, and with several physical copies of No Starch’s past titles on shelves here in the office we’re confident the printed version will be up to their usual high standard.
The Great LEGO Puzzle Book is rather unique (and captivating) addition the No Starch’s expansive LEGO book catalegue, deploying our favourite little plastic bricks to a whole new purpose. If you like sudoku, crosswords, brain puzzles, or Rubik’s Cubes (or you know someone that is), we can thoroughly recommended it
On sale in the No Starch Press store, The Great LEGO Puzzle Book is available now at $17 for printed and $14 for eBook versions, which is a bargain to keep yourself (or a partner, friend, or your children) wholesomely amused for hours.
Neither of today’s posts are cars, because… shut up, that’s why. We like trains. This is one is a Spanish Renfe S-251, designed and built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and it comes from Flickr’s Ferro-Friki who has captured the 1980s electric locomotive superbly in brick form. There’s more of the model to see at Ferro’s ‘LEGO Renfe S-251’ album and you can buy your ticket at the link above.
*Today’s title song. We’re nothing if not diverse.
This is our kind of boat. Based on a painting by one of his favourite artists, Daniel Church has constructed the ‘Tug Pub’, which “sailed from town to town along the coastal lochs of Scotland serving spirits, beer, simple fare, and fantastic ambiance”. And defied Archimedes’ principle of water displacement.
There are actually a few boat-based pubs in the UK, some of which this TLCB Writer has frequented, thus Daniel’s whimsical build isn’t too far from a delightfully drunken reality. Order a pint or five on the water at Daniel’s photostream via the link!
By American standards Ford’s new Bronco isn’t particularly large. But as this writer is not American, it still looks pretty massive. Which means this is much more to his liking, Suzuki’s diminutive Samurai.
Constructed only from the parts found within the LEGO Technic 42213 Ford Bronco set, damjan97PL / damianPLE shrinks the fat Ford into a rather smaller off-road alternative, complete with opening doors and hood, working steering and suspension, and a three-cylinder engine.
There’s more to see at both Eurobricks and Bricksafe, and you can put your Bronco on a B-Model diet via the links above.
The mid-’90s were a high watermark for Renault. Their Espace multi-purpose-vehicle was a smash hit, creating an entirely new class of car in Europe that other manufacturers scrambled to copy, whilst on track their V10 Formula 1 engine was winning absolutely everything with Williams and Benetton. And then in 1995, in moment of utter genius, they decided to merge the two…
The result was the Renault Espace F1, a one-off carbon-fibre minivan with a mid-mounted 800bhp V10 F1 engine, a top speed of nearly 200mph, and publicity other manufacturers could only dream of.
This fantastic recreation of Renault’s unhinged MPV is the work of Flickr’s Sergio Batista, and features replica decals, 3D-printed wheels, LED lights, a detailed engine and brick-built suspension, plus – in authentic Espace tradition – space for multiple mini-figures. There’s lots more of the model to see at Sergio’s photostream you can race back to when Renault were on top via the link above.
This is the Northrop Grumman B-2A Spirit, otherwise known as the ‘Stealth Bomber’. In service since 1997 and designed to be invisible to radar, the B-2 is the only known stealth bomber capable of carrying nuclear bombs, which means it’s probably a good thing there are only twenty-one of them.
Well, twenty-two today, courtesy of previous bloggee Kenneth Vaessen. Constructed a decade ago but only recently photographed, Kenneth’s spectacular 1:36 scale B-2A Spirit is built from around 12,000 pieces, with working bomb bay hatches, flaps and landing gear doors, a folding crew entrance, refuelling receptacle, and a wing-span of nearly five feet (146cm).
It’s a jaw-dropping replica of one of the world’s most recognisable (and feared) aircraft, with more superb imagery available to see at Kenneth’s ‘LEGO Northrop Grumman B-2A Spirit 1:36’ album. Click the link above to be spirited there for a stealthy closer look.
[Read the following in an adenoidal internal monologue]. Nerds assemble! This is the brand new LEGO Icons 10356 Star Trek: U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D!
Engaging warp drive / beaming up / insert other space metaphor on November 28th 2025, LEGO’s homage to TV’s dorkiest spaceship finally brings the U.S.S Enterprise to the shelves of Star Trek fans everywhere.
And we do mean shelves, as this $400 / £350 set features no play features whatsoever. It does however feature “a secondary hull”, “warp nacelles with distinctive red and blue detailing”, nine members of the Enterprise crew in mini-figure form (none of whom we can name), a display stand, and – if you purchase before December 1st – a Star Trek ‘Type-15 Shuttlepod’ ‘Gift with Purchase’ set.
LEGO Star Trek fans can boldly go to purchase the new 10356 set later this month, whilst we boldly go to drink a beer and talk to some girls to rebalance ourselves after writing this.
Yes it’s The Lego Car Blog’s birthday! And unlike almost every previous year we’ve actually remembered on the day itself. At fourteen years old this dodgy alley in the corner of the internet is older than the Tesla Model S, Grand Theft Auto V, Pharrell Williams’ ‘Happy’, and Tik Tok. And not even a fraction as successful as any of them.
Still, millions of you have joined us over the years, whether that be for the thousands of Lego cars, trucks and motorbikes we’ve publicised, the over a hundred LEGO set and product reviews, reveals of new LEGO sets, interviews of some of the world’s best Lego builders, or the Your Mom jokes. Whatever your reasoning, we’re glad you’re here.
We’re not on social media but if you like what we do feel free to spread the word, you can click here to write to us to complain that we haven’t featured your creation, and if you really want to support us you can buy the Elves a birthday present here.
We’ll keep trying to publicise the best Lego vehicles the web has to offer, and thank you for joining us on the ride.
TLCB Team
LEGO’s fictional energy company has been supplying fuel to planes, cars and boats, as well as sponsoring pretty much every vehicle in LEGO City with a number, since ’92. Cue TLCB Master MOCer Dennis Glaasker (aka bricksonwheels), who has taken Octan’s iconic white, red and green colour scheme and flipped it to create this huge custom Peterbilt 389 and Polar tanker combo.
Constructed for the Legoworld Show in the Netherlands, Dennis’ spectacular 1:15 tanker features unique decals, custom chrome, and a livery so cool we don’t miss the red absent from Octan’s usual colour-scheme at all.
There’s more of Dennis’ stunning creation to see at his ‘Peterbilt Octan Tanker Combo’ Flickr album, plus you can find out how he creates amazing models like this one via his interview here at TLCB via the first link in the text above.
We’ve gone all Toad-of-Toad-Hall today, courtesy of this be-goggled mini-figure and his marvellous 1931 Mercedes-Benz SSKL. Flickr’s SvenJ. owns the hands behind it, which he’s also used to stretch LEGO’s latest tyres over their vintage rims for the perfect wheel/tyre combo. There’s more to see at Sven’s photostream and you can race along the roads in the early-’30s via the link above. Poop-Poop!
And so has Daniel Church. This is his ‘Wayward Wanderer’, a spectacular twin-sail concept yacht with a gorgeous curved jib formed of tessellating hexagons. The Wanderer’s beautiful brick-built hull is equally well crafted, with the only wonky element of the whole photo being the horizon. Point your bow towards it and set sail via the link above.
It’s Halloween! Which means ’tis the season of pumpkins, spooky monsters, and skimpy outfits. Unfortunately we don’t have any images of the latter, but we do have a spooky monster-driven vintage pick-up truck loaded with pumpkins, which is good enough for us. Regular bloggee _Tyler is the builder and you can click here to ghost your way to his photostream.
It’s been two decades since the Ferrari Enzo, and two since an official LEGO set depicting it. Cue nopingrid of Eurobricks, who has recreated Ferrari’s iconic early-’00s hypercar from the parts of one of their newest, the Technic 42212 Ferrari FXX K. Using 85% of the FXX K’s 900 pieces, nopingrid’s Enzo includes working steering, a V12 engine, plus opening butterfly doors, and we think it looks rather better than the donor set. Building instructions are available and you can find out more at the Eurobricks forum via the link above.
Creations for Charity, the fantastic annual fundraiser raising money for the provision of official LEGO sets to children who have little else, is back for 2025! Through the sale of unique Lego creations, hundreds of underprivileged children will receive a LEGO toy this Christmas, and you could get your hands on an amazing one-off Lego model to boot!
You can join in Creations for Charity 2025 in several ways;
You can take a look at the Creations for Charity fundraiser by clicking the link below, where fabulous fan-built creations can soon be bought. You could even join the building heroics by donating a Lego creation of your own.
Do something amazing, get involved in Creations for Charity 2025 and bring some joy to a child who really needs it.