It’s time for an old-timey police chase! Which would be similar to a modern police chase, only with more “Stop you reprobate, do you hear me? Stop!” type phrases being shouted somewhat politely through a loud hailer, and fewer ‘News’ helicopters broadcasting the unfolding mayhem live to the serially unemployed.
The cars would also likely be much cooler than today’s police chase defaults of battered Dodge pick-ups or 2003 Honda Civics, at least in the mind of this TLCB Writer, and certainly if 1saac W.‘s glorious ’53 Hudson Hornet and ’51 Nash Statesman police car are involved.
Built using only original LEGO pieces and off-cuts from LEGO sticker sheets, 1saac has captured each car beautifully in Speed Champions form, and there’s more to see of both the Hudson and the Nash at his photostream – click the link above to jump downtown in the mid-’50s.
We had a three-way Elf fight here at TLCB Towers today, as a trio of intrepid internet investigators returned with three sixties classics. This inevitably led to a fight over whose was best, but as all three are being blogged they’re all winners, much a like a pre-school sports day.
The first of today’s small-scale replicas is 1968 Mercury Cougar, in a rather fetching turquoise. Regular bloggee Jonathan Elliott is the builder and there’s more to see at his photostream.
Our second sixties classic is rather more exotic, being the first miid-engined supercar and arguably Lamborghini’s finest hour, the magnificent Miura. Moritz Ziegler is the builder behind this excellent orange Speed Champions recreation and there’s more to see at the link.
The final car in today’s trio steps down from Speed Champions to Town scale, yet somehow manages to be even more detailed.
Built by 1saac W, this brilliant late ’50s to early ’60s Nash Metropolitan is a refinement of a previously blogged build, enhanced with some clever chrome stickerage and really rather clever roof design.
There’s more to see of 1saac’s updated Nash via the link above, plus you can see the appearance of the original, which includes the backstory of this unusual car, by clicking here.
Cities can be wonderfully diverse places, where different cultures, races, and even languages mix together to create a greater whole. The automotive industry is rather similar, although these days certain quarters see this as some kind of evil globalisation, rather than countries making what they’re best at to, again, create a greater whole.
However back in the 1950s sharing production between countries wasn’t really a thing yet, until Nash came along with their design for a new sort of car (in the U.S. at least), railing against ‘bigger is better’ by making something… smaller. Their revolutionary mindset continued to production, which wouldn’t have been profitable in the U.S.
Instead Nash turned to Austin/Rover in England, who were selected to produce the car on behalf of Nash and fitted it with their own B-Series engine. The car became the ‘Metropolitan’ upon it’s return to the U.S where, in yet more revolutionary thinking, it became the first post-war American car marketed specifically to women.
The Nash Metropolitan received mixed reviews from an American motoring press rather unwilling to try anything that wasn’t sixteen feet long, but these proved to be rather different when people bought the Metropolitan and actually used it, whereupon it surpassed expectations.
It wouldn’t be until the oil crisis of the 1970s that America really took small cars seriously though, and marketing to women was probably further behind that even, yet Nash and Austin’s collaboration had proved the concept some two decades earlier.
Fast forward to today and we seem to be in some sort of ‘Tenet’ style inversion, as ’50s style ‘bigger is better’ and ‘not foreign’ are climbing America’s agenda once again. We’ll stick with the little ’50s Nash Metropolitan though, a revolution ahead, and now perhaps behind, the times…
Oh yeah, Lego… This beautiful little 4-wide recreation of the Metropolitan comes from previous bloggee 1saac W., and there’s more to see at his photostream. Click the link to join the revolution.
This is a Nash Rambler Palm Beach, a concept car from 1956 styled by Pininfarina that sadly never made production but that unusually still exists today.
This beautiful Model Team recreation of the Palm Beach comes from Tim Inman of Flickr, who had replicated the stunning ‘50s lines superbly in Lego form, complete with a realistic straight-6 under the hood and an accurately detailed interior behind the opening doors.
There’s more to see of Tim’s Nash Rambler concept at his photostream; click the link above to head to an American motorshow c1956.
*Today’s travesty of a title song. It reached #1 in TLCB’s home nation. The same country that brought the world The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Queen, and Oasis. We’re not sure what happened in ‘94.
Before the wilder excesses of fins ‘n chrome, American cars had a special kind of elegance, not seen before or since. This 1940s Nash Ambassador shows off its flowing curves, cunningly crafted from little rectangular blocks by Senator Chinchilla. See more on MOCpages.
