Tag Archives: Mark II

2JZ Inside

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It wasn’t just Supras that had the 2JZ under the hood. In fact several Toyota and Lexus products were powered by the internet’s favourite engine, including really weird stuff. Which means if you want 2JZ kudos without having to spend ridiculous Supra money, you could get one of these; the excellent Toyota Mark II / Chaser.

Launched in 1992, the seventh generation ‘X90’ Mark II was a mid-size sedan that lasted until 1996, and was available with a variety of engines, including a diesel, a twin-turbo, and the 2JZ.

This splendid Model Team example comes from recent bloggee Mihail Rakovskiy, who is making a name for himself here at TLCB with his excellent ’90s Japanese cars. His ‘X90’ Mark II is as wonderfully life-like as his other creations, with opening doors, hood and trunk, a detailed engine bay, a realistic interior, and even an accurate drivetrain visible underneath.

Superb presentation tops a brilliant build, and there’s lots more of the Toyota to see at Mihail’s ‘Lego Toyota Mark II’ Flickr album. Click the link above for the thinking man’s 2JZ.

Brickworms Jaguar MkII | Review

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It’s review time here at The Lego Car Blog, but today’s review is not an official LEGO set. Looking like a car from LEGO’s new 8-wide Speed Champions range – only with considerably more detail – this is Brickworms’ Jaguar MkII kit, one of the many custom real-world replicas available to buy on their website.

With kits from the ‘How to Build Brick Cars’ book by Peter Blackert (one of several books available to buy at the Brickworms online store), plus other vehicles such as this classic Jaguar, aircraft and even animals, there are dozens of models to choose from. But are they any good? Read on to find out!

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Our Jaguar MkII kit arrived in a cottony drawstring bag, a neat packaging solution and one we rather like. Inside the pieces required to construct the Jag were jingling happily together, as was a paper instructions booklet, which wasn’t jingling at all.

The instructions booklet for our Jaguar was rather interesting, being printed on standard paper (not gloss), and switching the black parts for a light semi-transparent blue, as you can see below, and clear-trans for yellow. This is presumably to save on ink, but – once you get your head around blue being black – it probably makes the instructions easier to follow, as black pieces can be hard to spot. LEGO have got round this in recent years by applying all sorts of colours to the hidden parts of their sets and via their beautiful glossy instructions manuals, but the Brickworms’ approach, whilst a little odd, works pretty well.

The instructional steps themselves are clear, although more complicated than the over-simplified equivalents from LEGO, with many pieces applied at once. This is also because the Jaguar itself is more complex than LEGO’s similarly-sized Speed Champions sets, with advanced building techniques and a higher level of detail. However, we did feel a bit like Beta testers with our kit…. Continue reading →

Morse Code

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Lego Jaguar Mark 2Inspector Morse, a long running drama on British television, featured a car that probably became as famous as its lead character. Morse drove a Mark II Jaguar throughout the show’s 23 year run, even though the books on which the show was based featured a vehicle slightly more Italian. TLCB regular, Ralph Savelsberg, continues his series of movie and TV cars with the famous red 1960 Jaguar 2.4. See more at Ralph’s Flickr photostream here.