Tag Archives: mini-figure

Big Yellow Taxi*

This TLCB writer always found it strange that American taxis used to be ginormous V8 sedans. Threading through congested city streets, the only thing lower than miles-per-hour was the miles-per-gallon.

Today’s far more efficient hybrids and EVs make much more sense, but they do somehow seem less… American than the V8 barges that preceded them.

Cue Sseven Bricks’ fabulous ‘75 Plymouth Fury taxi, which captures the spirit of the lost cabs beautifully. There’s more to see on Flickr, and you can hail a ridiculously inefficient ride via the link.

*Today’s absolutely lovely title song.

Hill & Biens


We’re sticking with classic cars today, and this lovely Speed Champions 1958 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa, that won Le Mans in the hands of Phil Hill and Oliver Gendebien.

Created by SFH_Bricks, this beautifully presented model captures the iconic Ferrari racer superbly, and you can join Hill and Gendebien in France in ‘58 via the link.

Beef Pew

Along with cyberpunk and melon as a starter, we really don’t understand sci-fi. And that’s why, in our minds, pretty much all spaceships go ‘pew-pew!’. Except today, because this one goes ‘PEW-PEW’. Probably. It’s beefy.

That beef begins with two LEGO City cement mixer drum pieces on either side, whilst a Second World War bomber-like gun turret provides the ‘pew’-ing. Sorry, ‘PEW’-ing.

Flickr’s Thomas Jenkins is the builder behind it and you can join him for some beef pew at his photostream. Click the link above for a taste, or wait for a proper Lego site to blog this without referring to a bovine based broth.

Perfect Paint


TLCB’s home nation likes a neatly painted truck. Most trucks are still plain white of course, but many firms go the extra mile with their visual identity, painting their vehicles in beautiful colours that hark back to the days of horse-drawn carts, canal boats, and traction engines. This is one such truck, a Volvo FH12 operated by Newis heavy haulage and constructed superbly by Flickr’s Ralph Savelsberg. There’s more to see at Ralph’s photostream and you get your brushes out via the link above.

Atomic Wedgie

Tightly-whiteys, budgie smugglers, keggs, chuddies… You’ll have to ask David Roberts why he’s designed a spaceship to look like a giant pair of undercrackers, but if you do, please also ask him why he didn’t build this in white. Perhaps with a brown streak at the rear. A missed opportunity David…

If You’re Going to San Francisco


For those who come to San Francisco
They’ll find bricks placed with care everywhere 

On the streets of San FranciscoCars and vans will climb hills into the air

The improved lyrics of 1960s hippy nonsense, prompted by this fantastic diorama published by Brickleas of Flickr, who – with his fellow collaborators – has captured the spirit of ‘60s San Francisco wonderfully in this epic diorama.

Beautiful detailing abounds and you can go to San Francisco via the link above. Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.

More is More


When it comes to cars, we’re ‘less is more’ people. Subtlety and understatement are the order of the day. For TLCB Elves however, more is definitely more. Which means they’re very excited by this Classic Space ‘Wayfarer’ spaceship, which is absolutely bursting with ‘more’. Flickr’s Gaurav Thakur owns the hands that have packed an enormous array of spacey things into, onto, and underneath the ship, and there’s even more ‘more’ to see at their photostream. Take a look via the link above.

Land Roadster


What do you get if you cross a Land Rover with a vintage roadster? A Land Roadster of course, with this one owned by Adventurers hero Indiana Jones Johnny Thunder. There’s working steering, space for three mini-figures, and more to see courtesy of Sseven Bricks via the link above.

Cease & Desist


Italian lifestyle brand and occasional car maker Ferrari are rather enthusiastically legalistic. Even if you legitimately buy one of their products and decide to have some fun with the badges (as electronic music producer Deadmau5 knows), they’ll send you a letter threatening court action. Because you modified your car. Something to do with brand protection apparently, which is a bit rich considering all the tat they sell with their logo on.

All of which means Flickr’s Sharpspeed can probably expect a call from Ferrari’s lawyers, because his Speed Champions ‘Montichiari’ looks almost exactly like a Ferrari Daytona. That is to say, really good.

There’s more of the ‘Montichiari’ to see at his photostream via the link above so take a look before Ferrari get it removed.

Perfect Seaplane Pavilion

The coolest way to travel is – and there’s no argument here – by seaplane. You taxi through sparkling waters, the engine roars, and the thumping of the hull on the waves suddenly becomes total serene smoothness. You look down below to the retreating ocean, now dotted with islands and boats, as you travel to a place that you know can only be at least as beautiful as the one you’ve just left. Yeah… we want to join Eero Okkonen‘s ‘Seaplane Association’, whose utterly gorgeous pavilion stands atop a rocky pinnacle with its aircraft waiting beneath it. Join us in enquiring about membership via the link in the text above.

Yavin’ a Rebellion

TLCB Staff are leaving the comfort of their garages today and heading to the jungle moon Yavin 4, where the Rebel Alliance are planning an audacious attack on the Galactic Empire.

Hidden inside an ancient temple, a multitude of mini-figure Rebels, their X-Wing and Y-Wing fighters, and a handful of helpful droids are readying themselves for the momentous mission.

Constructed by Flickr’s Viktor Fäldt, this enormous brick-built recreation of the Rebel Alliance headquarters features an array of exceptional details from ‘Star Wars: A New Hope’, plus the aforementioned starfighters, hover trollies, and the encroaching jungle outside.

There’s a whole lot more to see of Viktor’s exceptional Star Wars diorama at this photostream, and you can head to Yavin 4 too via the link above.

Magnificent Mog

We’ve featured a lot of Unimogs over the years here at The Lego Car Blog. Some of which are very big, very detailed, and packed with working features. Today’s is very small, very detailed, and packed with working features.

Built by Flickr’s Reddish Blue, this Unimog U5023 isn’t reddish-blue at all, being rather yellow, and has got as much going on as models ten times its size. There’s working steering and suspension, three drop-sides, working stabiliser legs, and an incredible posable Palfinger crane complete with a functional winch.

An astonishing amount of visual detail joins this wealth of functionality, and is all the more impressive given the model is barely 8-studs wide.

Exquisitely presented, there’s a huge amount more of Reddish Blue’s phenomenally rendered creation to see at his ‘Mercedes-Benz Unimog U 5023’ album, where links to building instructions can also be found. Take a look via the link above at the best small-scale ‘mog you’re likely to see this year.

Neeeaaaw Whudhudhuhdua…

Pew pew, neeeaaaw, whudhudhudhudua, ploouuuumph, glaaaark! As has been documented on this pages, TLCB are not Star Wars fans. Which is probably why we like ‘Episode 1; The Phantom Menace’, because real Star Wars fans seem to dislike it greatly, and there’s a race in the middle of it with a cacophony of noises most likely made from various household appliances and some audio nicked from Formula 1.

Cue this exquisite recreation of Anakin Skywalker’s podracer (which deployed the aforementioned F1 soundtrack), flying through the desert of wherever it was they were racing being chased by the one that went ‘whudhudhuhdua’. Flickr’s Thomas Jenkins is its maker and you can join the smorgasbord of sounds at his photostream via the link above. Neeeeaaaaw! Kahsmuuush!!

Roving Mad

There’s under a week to go of this year’s Febrovery, with dozens of lunar rovers of all shapes and sizes created so far. Which means dozens of creations about which TLCB Writers – whose comfort zone really doesn’t extend much beyond ‘double-overhead cam’ – know nothing. Still, we like spacey things, so here are three of our favourites so far…

Here in TLCB’s home nation we’re pretty sure that some of the vehicles on our roads are helmed by plant-life, so non-reactive are they to any stimulus around them. Here it’s invariably an ageing small hatchback (most often a Peugeot) with a pink ‘Powered by Fairydust’ sticker on the tailgate, but Austin Vail‘s botanically-driven lunar rover is something far more retro-futuristic! Inspired by the bubble-canopied concept cars of the 1950s and ’60s, Austin’s design is ideal transportation for the flowers within, and there’s more to see of his ‘FloraTron Mooncruiser’ on Flickr.

Like, space dudes, we’re totally surfing the Mercury Nebula! There’s a Duplo van in the centre of the Scott Wilhem‘s ‘S.U.R.F for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence’ rover, and a whole lot of ‘greebling’ on the outside. The smiling classic spaceman looks pretty stoked by his ride, and you can catch a cosmic wave at Scott’s photostream via the link above.

And lastly… Blacktron aren’t just about thieving things from the other ‘trons – they need downtime too. And thus here they are tending to some crystal snails. Flickr’s Frost (aka TFDesigns!) is the maker of the ‘Blacktron Surveyor’ and you can join the mini-figures of Blacktron chilling out with some galactic gastropods via the link.

Back to the Studio

Unlikely as it may sound today, in the 2010s the biggest television programme in the world came from an old airfield hangar just outside of Guildford, in which three middle-aged men talked about cars.

The newly rebooted BBC ‘Top Gear’ grew from its producer having to pay audience members from his own pocket to stick around to the end of filming, to the most-watched television event on the planet. Over twenty seasons, dozens of cross-country adventures, and countless celebrity laps in reasonably-priced cars are now embedded in the memory of an entire generation, and Flickr’s NV Carmocs takes us right back to the height of mid-2010’s television with his fabulous homage to the place where it was all made.

With mini-figure versions of Top Gear’s three most famous hosts, a studio audience, and some of the most iconic vehicles and sets from the show, NV Carmocs has captured a hundred Top Gear memories in one spectacular diorama.

The studio set includes ‘The Cool Wall’, a V8 coffee table, the ‘Power Board’, and the plinth for perhaps Top Gear’s most famous ever vehicle, the near-destroyed late-’80s Toyota Hilux, also faithfully recreated in brick form.

There’s a huge amount more to see of NV Carmocs’ incredible mini-figure BBC Top Gear Studio diorama at their Flickr photostream, where over a dozen high quality images are available to view, plus even more of the starring Top Gear vehicles themselves.

Click the link above to go back to studio, and to take yourself back to when Sunday night TV couldn’t get any better…