This big red box is a DAF FA 1600 DF from 1975, and it comes from DAF-building specialist Arian Janssens. A big red box it may be, but it’s a beautifully built one, featuring an astonishing level of detail and a myriad of subtle curves, indentations and slopes. The livery belongs to Houtmotcentrale Rijen (apparently), which means that we have absolutely no idea what’s inside it. See if you can work it out at Arian Janssens’ photostream via the link above.
This is not a collection of beautifully arranged Danish plastic. Nope. This is a collection of beautifully arranged pixels. Yup, this stunning looking image – the product of three different builders – shows only a render of a virtual model.* But one that looks so unfathomably real that it fooled the whole TLCB office. Previous bloggee Sir.Manperson is the architect behind it and you can see more and read about the collaboration at both his MOCpages and Flickr photostream.
*We sometimes get asked why we don’t feature more digital creations. Today’s creation, despite being a digital render, proves our point. Real bricks, even the illusion of real bricks, are where it’s at.
This is Ferrari’s 1975 312T Formula 1 car, recreated in spectacular detail by TLCB favourite and Master MOCer Luca Rusconi aka RoscoPC. Rosco continues to upload his huge back-catalogue of stunning historic racing cars to Flickr, and his latest is one of the most successful single designs ever to race in F1.
Launched in 1975 the Ferrari 312T was the first Formula 1 car to feature a transversely mounted gearbox, with the ‘T’ donating that layout rather than the turbocharger you might expect, the engine being Ferrari’s long-standing naturally aspirated flat-12.
The clever gearbox position gave the 312T superb handling, something that its 312B predecessor wasn’t blessed with, and it delivered immediate results, winning Ferrari’s first F1 title in eleven years. During its long racing life from 1975 to 1980 the 312T won three Drivers and four Constructors World Championships, evolving over this time to take into account the changing regulations. Even losing its characteristic high air-box in 1976 due to an FIA ban on the design didn’t stop it winning.
The 312T was finally replaced in 1981 by the new 126C, Ferrari’s first turbo-charged Formula 1 car, leaving the 312T to be remembered as one of Ferrari’s greatest ever Formula 1 designs, and the car that made World Champions of Nikki Lauda and Jody Scheckter.
There’s much more to see of Luca’s incredible Lego replica of the Ferrari 312T at his Flickr album, and you can read our interview with the builder as part of Season 2 of the Master MOCers series by clicking here.
After publishing some weird vehicles yesterday we’re back with something that’s very The Lego Car Blog. This beautifully reconstructed 1972 Chevrolet Chevelle SS is the work of Flickr’s VR workshop, and it is – as you can see from the image montage below – quite brilliantly detailed inside and out.
With a highly detailed engine bay and interior, plus opening doors, hood and trunk, VR’s Chevelle is an almost perfect recreation of Chevrolet’s famous early ’70s muscle car. There’s lots more to see at VR workshop’s photostream – click the link above to make the jump.
Dennis Glaasker aka Brickonwheels has been building incredibly detailed bikes, trucks and cars from before this blog had published its first poorly-worded Lego-related gibberish. This is the latest in Dennis’ long line of spectacularly-chromed Harley Davidson motorcycles, a 1:10 scale ‘Softail Springer’ in – for reasons that escape us – various shades of brown. There’s a whole lot more to see at Brickonwheels’ photostream via the link above, and you can check out our interview with the builder in our Master MOCers series by clicking here.
The other Lego blogs may have beaten us to this creation, but we’ve got the best title! This International Harvester ice cream truck (see – we’re geniuses!) comes from TLCB favourite, previous Master MOCer, and all-round Lego-building legend Firas Abu-Jaber. Featuring a fully accessible and highly detailed interior, Firas’ Harvester is as cool on the inside as it is on the outside. Give it a lick at the link above.
Legendary and elusive, Chris Melby and the Abominable Snowman have much in common. Our sneaky Elves however, have managed to find both. Sort of.
Chris is back with this wonderful (and enormous) Hayes HDX-1000 truck in YETI Logging & Supply Co. livery, shown here in unladen configuration carrying its own logging trailer.
Superbly detailed inside and out, Chris’ Hayes HDX is breaks with the usual yeti tradition of being pictured on the blurry fringes of an out-of-focus shot, and there is a wealth of beautifully presented imagery available to view, including work-in-progress photographs of the build.
There’s lots more of the YETI Hayes HDX-1000 to see at Chris’ Flickr photostream – click the link above to find it.
Most modifying houses that apply their, er… ‘expertise’ to vehicles, well… let’s be honest, they absolutely ruin them. Not so with Porsche resto-modders Singer, who take Stuttgart’s finest vehicles and re-fit their inner workings for the modern age. And they often somehow end up looking cooler too. This neatly built Singer 911 comes from previous ‘Featured TFOL‘ Marco. qm, and you can see the full gallery on Flickr via the link above.
With Toyota’s legendary Supra nameplate set to return next year after sixteen years out of production, we take a look back at the original. Nope, not the be-winged ’90s incarnation from the Fast and Furious movies, but this, the humble A60 type from the early 1980s.
With (much) less than 200bhp, the early Supras were essentially Celicas with pop-up headlights and an extra two cylinders. And they were wonderful. This superbly recreated digital version of the A60 Supra comes from Flickr’s Alex Sonny, and whilst the image above might not feature any real plastic bricks (making it suitably eighties in appearance), Alex’s Supra is about as realistic a replica as you will find.
More images available at Alex’s photostream – click the link above to make the jump.
France has built many fine luxury cars. This is not one of them.
Launched at the end of the millennium, the Peugeot 607 was an anonymous grey blob of a car that sold like anthrax cupcakes. Built at the height of Peugeot’s reliabilities issues, the last thing anyone wanted was a French car loaded with extra equipment which would inevitably and immediately go wrong.
This meant that like Renault’s (admittedly very adventurous) luxury offerings at the time, the Peugeot 607 was destined to be used almost exclusively as a tool for French Government officials, and then later – after the free-fall depreciation had kicked-in – as a taxi at Portuguese airports.
This Lego homage to one of the world’s least good luxury cars is the work of Rolands Kirpis of Flickr, and it is quite simply an exceptional build. Everything that makes the real Peugeot 607 look like a part dissolved dishwasher tablet makes it one hell of a tricky car to reconstruct from right-angled Danish plastic, however Rolands has done a remarkably effective job of capturing the 607’s, er… blobby-ness? Blobicity? Blobery? Whatever.
Featuring a detailed interior, an opening hood with a neat and recognisable engine underneath, an opening boot, and four opening doors with some of the most intricate window frames we’ve ever seen, Roland’s Lego 607 is definitely worth a closer look. You can see the fully gallery of images at his photostream by clicking on the link above, and we’ll leave you with one more shot capturing an inevitable moment in mid-2000s Peugeot ownership…
This is the 1978 Brabham BT46, designed by the legendary Gordon Murray and powered by an Alfa Romeo flat-12 engine, and it was amongst the front runners of the 1978 Formula 1 World Championship, securing a Constructors third place for the Brabham team.
The BT46 won two races in the ’78 season, but its win at the Swedish Grand Prix is one of the most unusual in the sport. You see this is the BT46 ‘B’, a design which raced only once, and which won by over half a minute.
Designed to take on the ‘ground effect’ Lotuses, Murray engineered an engine-powered fan to literally suck the car to the ground. Whilst it was claimed at the time the fan was used to cool the Alfa Romeo flat-12, it became obvious what its true purpose was when the drivers revved the engine, as the BT46B visibly squatted down on the track.
Effectively a reverse hovercraft, the Brabham BT46B dominated the field, which of course meant that like other ingenious developments in Formula 1, it was immediately banned. Because Formula 1 sucks.
The BT46B was never allowed to race in Formula 1 again and Brabham were forced to revert to their non fan-assisted variant, however TLCB regular and Master MOCer Luca Rusconi (aka RoscoPC) remembers one of Formula 1’s cleverest designs with his stunning Lego replica of the one-race-wonder.
Added to his ever growing portfolio of historic racing cars on Flickr, Luca’s BT46B includes working steering, suspension, a flat-12 engine, and – of course – a working fan. There’s lots more to see at Luca’s Flickr Album – click this link if you’re a fan.
This is not a real car. Well, obviously… but we mean it’s not a Lego model of a real car. Instead it’s a product borne entirely from the inside of Alexander Paschoaletto’s brainy parts, and we think it’s ridiculously good looking. A rival for Ferrari even. See if you agree at Alexander’s photostream by clicking here.
Things we don’t like here at TLCB; Mosquitoes, Kim Jong-Un, everything will.i.am has done since ‘Where is the Love?’, and the Chevrolet bloody Suburban.
Built to take drug dealers, stockbrokers’ housewives, and mildly successful rappers through the electronic gates of their gaudy mock-Edwardian mansions, the Suburban is a plasticky truck-based environmental catastrophe for people that think luxury is determined only by size.*
It’s safe to say that neither the Suburban, nor the Cadillac Escalade with which it shares its hateful platform, are products targeted at TLCB Team. Which puts us in a bit of quandary today, as this incredible Lego creation very much is.
With Power Functions remote control, opening everything, and one of the most accurate and realistically detailed exteriors and interiors that we’ve ever seen, this incredible model by Flickr’s dgustafsson1317 is everything we look for in a blog-worthy build. It’s just a shame the subject matter is a Chevrolet Suburban.
We’ll move on now before we get a nose bleed, but you can see more of dgustafsson1317’s Chevy on Flickr at the link above, where there is a suitably enormous album available.
*Which makes your Mom very luxurious.
Sorry Harry Potter fans, this isn’t a post about Harry’s Nimbus broomstick, but rather an obscure Danish motorcycle manufacturer that ceased production before the 1960s. Which to the nerds here in TLCB office makes it a much more interesting subject.
This lovely Model Team recreation of one of Nimbus’s later variants comes from previous bloggee Henrik Jensen, who has appeared here before with another Nimbus build. Henrik built this one as a commissioned piece for motorcycle club, and there’s more to see at both Flickr and MOCpages via the links.
This is not a Hot Wheels car. Nor is it an outlandish concept of what Formula 1 could look like in the future. This is the mid-’70s Tyrrell P34, and it really did look exactly like this.
Designed to minimise the drag caused by the front wheels protruding above the front wing, Tyrrell opted for tiny wheels with specially made Goodyear tyres that could sit behind it. However, tiny wheels meant a tiny contact patch, and therefore less grip, so the wheels were doubled to keep the grip levels on par with its larger-wheel counterparts.
The P34 was revealed in September 1975 to astonished onlookers, many of whom thought it was a publicity stunt, however all six wheels duly hit the track the next month, and following testing the Tyrrell P34 entered the 1976 Formula 1 season.
Solid results followed, including a 1-2 result for Team Tyrrell at the ’76 Swedish Grand Prix – the only time a six-wheeled car has won a Formula 1 race (and probably the only time one ever will, seeing as the FIA outlawed cars with more than four wheels several years later, in another pointless addition to the rule book…).
The P34 remained competitive for a few years, before the advancement of other teams and Tyrrell’s reliance on the specially-made Goodyear tyres led to the team returning to the conventional four-wheel layout in 1978, however such was the P34’s unique design that the retired race car became a collectors item overnight.
This perfect Lego replica of Formula 1’s most innovative race winner is the work of Luca Rusconi (aka RoscoPC) and it recreates the incredible Tyrrell P34 in breathtaking detail. Accurate bodywork is enhanced by a period-correct stickered livery, and like the real car all four front wheels are steered, plus there’s a working V8 engine and suspension too.
There’s lots more of this amazing build to see at Luca’s Tyrell P34 Flickr album by clicking here, and you can read our interview with the builder as part of the Master MOCers series by clicking this link.
