There’s a new Mario Kart on the horizon, and even though its pixels are yet to be played by anyone outside of Nintendo, Flickr’s Clement has managed to recreate a trio of characters from the available gameplay footage. And if a cow on a scooter doesn’t get you excited, nothing will! Smash that crate, drop a banana skin, and fire a green shell via the link above!
LEGO’s expansive new Formula 1 range is now on sale, bringing every single Formula 1 team into the line-up. Which is cool and all, but Formula 1 will never be as entertaining as an Italian plumber racing to free a Princess from the clutches of a giant tortoise. Or something. We’re a bit hazy on the plot to be honest, but who cares when you can fire shells and drop banana skins in front of your foes!
Yes Mariokart is now skidding into the LEGO line-up, with the brand new LEGO Super Mario 72037 Mario & Standard Kart set!
Aimed at ages 18+ and constructed from nearly two-thousand pieces, 72037 brings the aforementioned Italian protagonist to bedroom floors and – more likely given the price – shelves everywhere, and includes a posable Mario figure in his Standard Kart, mounted on a stand that “enables fans to display the kart at dynamic angles, as if Mario is speeding through a high-stakes race or drifting in true Mario Kart fashion”.
We note that none of those two-thousand pieces are to create a green shell or a banana skin, which feels a bit miserly, but those printed eyes and Mario’s new moustache piece almost make up for it.
On sale from 15th April 2025, the new LEGO Super Mario 72037 Mario & Standard Kart can be had for €169.99 / $169.99 / £139.99 (just bring your own banana skin), or if you fancy something for less than half the price but with equally amazing nasal topiary, there’s always Nigel Mansell…
The year is 1999, ‘The Matrix’ is an international phenomenon, Y2K is terrifying the computer illiterate, ‘Star Wars’ has been rebooted (for the first time), and Santana’s ‘Smooth‘ is doing its best to counteract ‘I’m Blue (Da ba Dee)‘ and ‘Flat Beat‘. It was also the year that LEGO – terrified that children only wanted to play computer games rather than with bricks – launched… a computer game.
Available on Playstation, N64, PC, and Gameboy, ‘LEGO Racers’ took the much-loved kart-racing formula pioneered by Mario Kart, and Legofied it. Weapons crates became floating bricks, karts could be rebuilt and customised, and tracks ventured throughout the LEGO universe, visiting such themes as Pirates, Ice Planet, and Adventurers.
It’s the latter we have here today, courtesy of TLCB debutant Liwnik, and his fabulous ‘Desert Adventure Dragway’ diorama. An enormous build, Liwnik’s recreation of the Racers track includes floating brick power-ups, tunnels, weapons, and of course the appropriately rubbish Racers Karts (it was the late ’90s).
A huge gallery of imagery is available to view via Bricksafe, plus you can also check out Liwnik’s photostream on Flickr. Head back to 1999 to fire a cannon ball at an island chief via the links above, and you can click here to either relive your childhood, or experience someone else’s!
The kiddie-based cuteness continues here at the Lego Car Blog. Recreating what their kids imagine when they’re riding on their toys outside, Cecilie Fritzvold‘s ‘Baby Mario Kart’ captures all the madness of Nintendo’s finest work, complete with shells, banana skins, item boxes, Lakitu’s cloud, and some very hungry plants. And with LEGO releasing their own officially-licensed Mario line, perhaps an official LEGO Mario Kart set is just a rainbow road away.
…Is not Forza, Gran Turismo, or some other ultra-lifelike simulator. It’s Mario Kart, specifically on the ancient N64 console. Because where else can a dinosaur annihilate an Italian plumber with a dead tortoise? Exactly.
Flickr’s cshowd has captured the vintage Mario Kart madness wonderfully, and although his characters from the iconic video game are only built in digital form, if anything their slightly pixelated appearance is more appropriate!
There’re more to see of Bowser, Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Mushroom and the other Mario Kart characters at his photostream – click the link above and fire that green shell!
This is not a car. But it is Donkey Kong (and Diddy Kong) riding in a motorised mine cart, which means it’s absolutely getting blogged.
Built by Peter Zieske, Donkey and Diddy’s cart is based atop a LEGO train motor, meaning an entire mine track could be constructed for it to traverse…
Whilst we dream of that you can check out more of Donkey Kong’s cart at Peter’s ‘Donkey & Diddy Kong album’ via the link above!
LEGO have had a lot of officially licensed themes over the years. Some have been marvellous, including the current tie-up with a multitude of vehicle manufacturers to recreate real-world vehicles (keep these coming LEGO!), whereas some… Micky Mouse? Pirates of the Caribbean? Scooby Doo? Even we’d forgotten about the last two.
The new Nintendo Mario theme is, we fear, going to drop straight into whatever the equivalent of a Bargain Bucket is for LEGO sets. Still, this most tenuous of upcoming partnerships hasn’t stopped TLCB regular SP_LINEUP from building his own Mario-themed model, creating this neat Mario Kart complete with a brick-built Italian plumber on board.
Neither has the absurdity of LEGO’s newly licensed theme stopped fellow Flickrist BenBuildsLego from creating his own Mario-themed MOC either, with his admittedly rather wonderful homage to some of Mario Kart 64’s most infamous tracks, including the perilously difficult ‘Rainbow Road’ which makes us nervous just looking at it.
Click the links in the text above to fire up your engine and to fire that red shell, whilst we await LEGO’s new theme with minimal excitement.
First appearing in 1981’s ‘Donkey Kong’, Mario the dumpy Italian plumber has had quite a life; rescuing princesses, collecting gold, featuring in over 200 video games, and in doing so becoming the single most successful video game franchise of all time.
His highpoint (in our opinion) came in 1992 on the SNES, when he took a break from rescuing princesses in castles to start his own racing series. ‘Mario Kart’ is very probably the greatest racing game ever made, pitting a variety of unlikely characters together in a gloriously whimsical race for glory.
This brilliant depiction of Mario’s finest hour comes from polywen of Flickr, who has created a marvellous cuboid ‘Brickheadz’ style Mario, his go-kart, and a green shell in Lego form. Click the link above to join the race for 150cc Cup!
We’re kinda get the feeling that here at The Lego Car Blog we’re a regular annoyance to the proper Lego blogs The Brothers Brick and Bricknerd. That might be because we do regularly try to annoy them though. Nevertheless, Bricknerd do have a neat competition running currently, where their nerdy mascot, er… Nerdly*, is making appearances in LEGO form. Here he is tackling Mario Kart’s fearsome Rainbow Road, and he’s still got two balloons left and a blue shell! Flickr’s [Clever Lego Reference] is hoping for the win and you can see more of his nerdy racer at his photostream via the link above.
*We’ve considered doing something similar with our ‘mascots’, the Elves, but you really wouldn’t want that**.
**Still, at least they’re not that bloody lemur.
It’s everyone’s favourite Italian plumber! Unfortunately he looks like he’s about to spin off the edge of rainbow road courtesy of that cunningly dropped banana skin. You can join builder Cecilie Fritzvold by frantically pressing the L and R buttons, or alternatively you can click the link above.
For our readers too young to remember the SNES and Sega Megadrive, and who might be wondering what the graphics were like, wonder no more! This odd pixelated hot rod by Flickr’s RGB900 takes us back to a time of 8bit, cartridges, and blowing dust out of slots – click the link above to join us in the past.