This is, obviously, not a car. But for much of the world, it really is. And unlike a clapped-out hatchback, when it’s too old perform reliably it can become a delicious dinner. Flickr’s Andreas Lenander is the builder behind this fantastic rural transportation scene, and you can join the road to the market via the link above.
We love weird old vehicles here at The Lego Car Blog. Whilst other automotive sites are enthralled by the latest Lamborghini, we’re more interested in obscure British saloons, communist-era economy cars, and Japanese boxes. Or this.
‘This’ is a Werner Uniknick UK52/60, a 1970s German forestry tractor based on the already awesome Mercedes-Benz Unimog, but cut in half and then re-attached with an articulated pivot in the middle.
This tremendous Technic recreation of our new favourite thing comes from previous bloggee and TLCB Master MOCer Nico71, who constructed it for the recent BuWizz Gathering 2025 in Slovenia.
Powered by a BuWizz bluetooth battery and four Power Functions motors, Nico’s Uniknick features remote control four-wheel-drive via portal hubs, articulated steering via twin linear actuators linked to the steering wheel, and a motorised winch, plus centrally-oscillating suspension, a working and removable four-cylinder engine, and opening doors and hood.
It’s a build as impressive as the real-world vehicle it replicates, and you can recreate it for yourself as Nico has produced building instructions too. There’s much more to see at the Eurobricks forum (including links to instructions) and you can articulate your way there via the link above.
YouTube Video
Is your new Ford Bronco too big to get to the really cool off-road places? Then you need to switch it for an ATV, thanks to TLCB Master MOCer thirdwigg!
Constructed only from the parts of the official LEGO Technic 42213 Ford Bronco set, thirdwigg’s ATV (or ‘quad bike’ in TLCB’s home nation) alternate features working steering, pendular suspension front and rear, plus a W6 piston engine, and with building instructions available you can create it for yourself too.
There’s more to see including that link to instructions at thirdwigg’s ‘42213 ATV’ album, and you can jump to a trail somewhere cool via the link above, or alternatively click here if you want to downsize your Bronco, but not quite this much…
By American standards Ford’s new Bronco isn’t particularly large. But as this writer is not American, it still looks pretty massive. Which means this is much more to his liking, Suzuki’s diminutive Samurai.
Constructed only from the parts found within the LEGO Technic 42213 Ford Bronco set, damjan97PL / damianPLE shrinks the fat Ford into a rather smaller off-road alternative, complete with opening doors and hood, working steering and suspension, and a three-cylinder engine.
There’s more to see at both Eurobricks and Bricksafe, and you can put your Bronco on a B-Model diet via the links above.
The Lego Car Blog Elves are running about making spacey noises today, courtesy of this; Gaurav Thakur’s enormous Classic Space ‘Enceladus Expedition Convoy’.
Consisting of two linked 6×6 mobile laboratories, Gaurav’s creation is packed with Classic Space goodness, including complicated control centres, beep-boop robots, and a variety of lab equipment.
A crew of Classic Spacemen (plus a few Space babies – perhaps there’s an board crèche too) studiously operate the convoy vehicle and its contents, and there’s heaps more Classic Spacery to see on Flickr.
Join the ‘Enceladus Expedition Convoy’ at Gaurav’s album of the same name via the link above!
It wasn’t just British and Italian cars in the late-’70s and ’80s that failed to start in the morning and/or dissolved if they got wet. No, the French made some awful cars too, including today’s, the woeful Renault 20.
Sitting at the top of their line-up, there was (much like the aforementioned British and Italian cars) a lot to like about Renault’s executive hatchback, including some innovative engineering that included both crumple zones and side-impact protection.
But none of that mattered when the cars were heroically unreliable, tragically underpowered, and rusted within just a few years of leaving the forecourt, resulting in a resale value of almost nothing at all. Still, there is one Renault 20 we like, the pioneering Turbo 4×4 Dakar, with a 1.6 litre turbocharged rally engine and all-wheel-drive courtesy of the rear axle from a Renault Trafic van.
Constructed by Flickr’s NV Carmocs, this 8-wide replica of the Renault 20 Turbo 4×4 captures the 1982 Dakar-winning car beautifully, thanks in part to a superbly accurate livery and some brilliant photo editing.
There’s much more of NV’s Renault 20 to see at their photostream, and you can head to the desert in 1982 via the link above, where the lack of rain and a whole load of available spare parts were probably sorely missed by every other Renault 20 owner at the time…
‘What’s that crunchy sound?’ muttered this TLCB Writer to himself as he sat in TLCB Office. A weary trudge out to the corridor revealed the source, as a remote control 4×4 drove forwards and backwards over a small pile of flattened TLCB Elves.
On seeing a human the Elf at the controls abandoned its activity and fled the scene cackling maniacally, leaving its vehicle of choice (and the pile of Elves underneath it) behind. We’ll administer first-aid to the victims later, but first let’s take a look at the model!
It’s a K5-series Chevrolet Blazer, as recreated superbly in Technic form by Madoca 1977. A suite of Powered-Up electronics are packed inside, providing remote control four-wheel-drive, steering and a high/low gearbox.
Madoca has also engineered a properly clever drivetrain, with linked pendular suspension that automatically locks the differentials at high rates of axle articulation. No wonder it made such light work of squashing our mythical workers.
There’s lots more of Madoca’s model to see – including images of the ingenious engineering within – at the Eurobricks forum, plus you watch the Blazer in action via the video below. Click the links to take a closer look.
YouTube Video
It’s been a day of decidedly weird vehicles here at The Lego Car Blog, so we’ll round off with something resolutely normal. Splendidly built with Technic gears for wheels, a miniaturised roll cage, and a dismembered mini-figure hand for a winch, 1saac W.‘s Jeep TJ is as good as small scale building gets. Take a look via the link.
France may not be the first nation that springs to mind when thinking about the world’s best off-roaders. British Land Rovers, American Jeeps, Japanese Land Cruisers… sure, but the French? Except they are. By miles.
The originators of expedition rallies, French drivers have won the Dakar more times than any other nation, which makes sense seeing as the race used to start in Paris. This is one of the amazing machines that propelled a Frenchman to a Dakar win, the wild Citroen ZX Rallye Raid.
Based (kinda) on a small French family car, the ZX Rallye Raid won a total of four Dakar Rallies, cementing itself as one of the greatest rally-raid endurance racers of all time. This fantastic Speed Champions recreation of the 1994 Citroen ZX Rallye Raid Evo 4 encapsulates the iconic off-roader brilliantly in brick, and comes from regular bloggee SFH_Bricks.
With removable front and rear clamshells, superbly authentic decals, and mechanicals as detailed as the exterior, SFH’s Citroen ZX Rallye Raid is a winner in brick form too, and there’s more to see on Flickr. Jump to the desert somewhere in North Africa (or an autoroute just south of Paris) circa-1994 via the link above.
Revealed here earlier in the year, LEGO’s 42213 Technic Ford Bronco brings the blue oval’s newest, but retro-est, 4×4 to bedroom floors everywhere. It also provides just under a thousand pieces for B-Model building, with previous bloggee damianPLE doing just that, by turning his Bronco into this excellent Technic off-road dump truck.
Like the set on which it’s based, Damian’s alternate includes working suspension, ‘HOG’ steering, and a V6 engine under an opening hood, whilst adding a manually operable tipper too. Building instructions are available and you can find all the images, plus that instructional link, at Bricksafe and Eurobricks respectively. Dump your horse via the links above!
It’s been remarkably peaceful of late here at TLCB Towers. Elves have been finding creations, earning meal tokens, and barely inflicting extreme violence on one another at all. Which of course had to end at some point.
Cue this mighty Technic dune buggy by gyenesvi, which thundered into the office today, a jubilant Elf at the controls, and immediately flattened as many of our mythical workers as it could. Which with planetary hubs, remote control all-wheel drive courtesy of four third-party BuWizz motors, and monster suspension, was quite a lot.
Fortunately gyensvi’s buggy also has flaw in that after a particularly hard landing the steering can pop-out, which meant proceedings were halted when the Elf at the controls did indeed lose the ability to steer and crashed it forcefully into a potted plant before running away cackling maniacally.
There is still considerable cleaning up to do though, so whilst we administer some elven first-aid/disposal you can check out gyenesvi’s buggy at the Eurobricks forum (where a video and full details – including its steering shortcoming – can be found) plus you can find the complete image gallery on Bricksafe here.
Fought in 1986-’87, the ‘Toyota War’ was the last phase of the nine-year-long Chadian-Libyan War, which ended in defeat for Libya and Colonel Gaddafi (who started it by invading Chad) and the return of Chad’s seized territory.
It’s also possibly the only war named after the make of the pick-up trucks that primary fought it, with Toyota’s Land Cruiser 70-Series used prolifically on both sides, and – in Chadian hands – fitted with their French ally’s anti-tank missile launchers.
Of course countless wars since have been fought from the back of Toyotas, with the company’s trucks being the first choice of militias, terrorist groups, and legitimate armies, plus the UN and NGOs who try to piece broken communities back together again afterwards. In fact Toyota take this depressing usage so seriously in some markets they removed the ‘TOYOTA’ lettering from the back of their pick-ups to avoid the link with the conflicts in which they were so heavily used.
These two excellent 70-Series Land Cruisers from any one of the wars in which they so often feature come from TLCB debutant ORRANGE., who has photographed his models against a suitably deserty backdrop which we’re so familiar with seeing on the news.
A closer look is available at ORRANGE.’s photostream and you can head to a sad and usually pointless conflict somewhere in Africa or the Middle East via the link in the text above.
The Mercedes-Benz Unimog is not, technically, a truck. It is in fact a universal tractor, with literally dozens of different applications. Which probably explains why dozens of different Unimogs have appeared here to date. Today we can add one more, a 1980s Unimog U1400 Agrar courtesy of Sseven Bricks of Flickr. A front PTO allows any number of tools to be added in front of the cab, whilst a big cage behind it means any number can be added at the back too. There’s more of Sseven’s model to see on Flickr and you can take a closer look via the link above.
It’s been a while since we’ve referenced Putin’s tiny todger. Well, he’s still an under-endowed despot, raining increasing numbers of drones and missiles on Ukrainian apartment blocks, shopping malls, and schools. Because NATO (which Ukraine aren’t in), or Nazis (which Ukraine isn’t ruled by), or something.
Increasing numbers of Russians are also being sent to the war, with vehicles such as this one taking them. It’s a BTR-90 armoured personnel carrier, which was actually only ever intended for use by the Russian National Guard, but with at least one captured in Ukraine, they are evidently now also on the front line.
Powered by a 510bhp turbodiesel the BTR-90 is capable of 100km/h on land, where it’s as capable off-road as a tracked vehicle, and – amazingly – 9km/h on water, as it’s also fully amphibious.
This incredible Technic recreation of the BTR-90 probably doesn’t float, but it is excellent in every other respect. A suite of Power Functions motors provide remote control eight-wheel-drive and four-wheel steering, there are opening side hatches, all-wheel suspension, and a motorised rotating gun turret.
It’s all the work of previous bloggee Samuel Nerpas who has engineered his creation superbly, and you can join the front line in the fight for whatever Putin’s trying to compensate for via the link to Flickr above.
Cherry pickers seem to rarely pick actual cherries. Fixing telephone wires, street lamps, and lopping trees sure, but cherries no.
Cue Ralph Savelsberg and this excellent mini-figure scale Mercedes-Benz Unimog, complete with a rear mounted hoist able to elevate and rotate to pick the juiciest cherries. Or fix a rural community’s broadband after a storm. But whatever.
There’s more to see at Ralph’s Flickr album and you can take a look via the link above whilst this TLCB Writer heads to the fridge in search of fruit…
