Tag Archives: Off-Road

Virtual Adventure

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These days most adventuring is viewed digitally. TikTok, Instagram, YouTube… there are millions of videos purporting to show adventure, available to watch from the comfort and safety of wherever people consume such content on their phones. Which is everywhere. And so ironic it hurts.

Thus today we too are virtually adventuring, courtesy of newcomer CelestialCapture and this tremendous overland-equipped Toyota Land Cruiser 70-Series. Replicating the legendary off-roader brilliantly, Celestial has also fitted an exciting array of adventure items, including a snorkel, spot lights, bull-bar, and roof-rack, whilst some excellent bespoke ‘decals’ add to the adventure-based vibe.

There’s more to see of Celestial’s digital Land Cruiser 70-Series on Flickr, and you can head on your own virtual adventure via the link above. Once you’ve done that though, perhaps put your phone in your pocket and head outside. Real adventure is often just around the corner.

Sunset Stripe

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We love a sunset stripe here at The Lego Car Blog. From classic Toyota pick-ups to vintage LEGO sets, red over yellow looks the business. And even more so when it’s been applied to a remote control 6×6 off-road truck.

This remote control 6×6 off-road truck is the latest creation by TLCB Master MOCer Nico71, who has equipped it with Power Functions Servo steering, twin L-Motor six-wheel-drive, a high/low gearbox, a V8 piston engine, all-wheel suspension, opening doors and hood, plus the coolest of sunset stripes.

There’s lots more to see at Eurobricks and Nico71’s excellent website (where building instructions are also available), and you watch the sunset via the links above.

YouTube Video

To the Museum!

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TLCB Opinion of the Day; Archeologists are glorified looters. Whether it be an item of great reverence to a particular culture, the wealth of an entire people, or the bones of someone’s ancestor, they’re all ripe for digging up and sticking in a museum.

Cue Indiana Jon… um, we mean ‘Johnny Thunder’, who’s about to get his hands on the ‘Lost Sun Disk’ from the mouth of a hidden jungle totem. He may have to shoot a native or two, but that ancient treasure belongs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art!

Newcomer workhardbuildhard is the builder behind the aforementioned theft, with Johnny and an accomplice ready to make their daring escape in a neat grey Jeep CJ. The locals certainly won’t be able to keep up with that!

There’s more of the build to see at whbh’s photostream via the link above, or alternatively visit any Western cultural museum for innumerous items of great worth successfully looted by brave archaeologists.

Kramping Our Style

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This is a MAN TGS Agro truck, and it’s pulling a Krampe KS 950 Off-Road trailer, which can carry (and tip) twenty-five tons of harvested crops. We’re hoping the contents is barley…

It evidently doesn’t take much to prompt TLCB Staff to think about beer, so whilst we track one down (or several), you can see more of this excellent build courtesy of Keko007 on Flickr.

Bowser’s Castle

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On to another ’80s German automotive icon through the medium of vintage cartoon characters, and this – a Mercedes-Benz Unimog U1700L ex-military truck turned into an off-road camper by a man named ‘Bowser’.

We suspect he’s not the fire-breathing arch-nemesis of an Italian plumber, but he still sounds pretty cool, what with this awesome ’80s Unimog as his home. Sseven Bricks is the creator of this brick-built replica of Bowser’s truck, and you can find it on Flickr via the link above.

Blue Blood

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The Lego Car Blog Elves have been peaceful of late. We have Febrovery to thank for that, what with there being a regular supply of whimsical space-based vehicles arriving at TLCB Towers, none of which have motors, remote control, or giant smushy wheels at all.

We knew it couldn’t last forever though, and thus today normal service was resumed as one of the Elves thundered into TLCB Towers atop this, gyenesvi’s giant ‘Blue Bird’ BuWizz-powered remote control Ultra4 off-road buggy.

The Elves serenely making beep-boop space noises in the corridor stood no chance, as twin BuWizz Buggy Motors, four-wheel-drive, and double-wishbone / trailing-arm suspension squashed them into the carpet, before the Elf at the controls – maniacal with glee – fled the scene on foot.

We’ve now got some tidying up to do, so whilst we do that you can check out gyenesvi’s Ultra4 buggy at Eurobricks and Bricksafe, where further images, renders, a video, and a link to building instructions can all be found.

Febrovery Special

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The Lego Car Blog Elves are well-fed during Febrovery. A huge array of blogworthy spacey vehicular creations are created, earning the Elves many meal tokens, and TLCB Staff much angst, as it’s a subject about which we know nothing.

No matter, because here are some of our Febrovery favourites from the last week or so, beginning with Pascal’s ‘Turtle P.O.W.E.R’ (above), cunningly created from an upside-down boat hull.

Next we have previous bloggee Nikolaus Lowe’s ingenious ‘Earth Mover’ (above), which has taken the most literal approach possible to its name, whilst newcomer EXT511’s ‘Mineral Detector’ (below) is deployed to… um, detect minerals. Look, we said we knew nothing.

On to Blacktron, and another builder making their TLCB debut. Luna S’s ‘Electroplanetary Tracer’ (below) joins the growing catalogue of 2025 Febrovery entries, and brings the villains of classic space into the roving community.

And finally (below, clockwise from top left), a montage of oddities, from Littlepixel’s ‘UggyBuggy’, Martin Spunkt’s ‘Biscuit Rover’ (no we don’t know why either), to – frankly – a pair of vehicles transplanted from the tarmac at Heathrow airport into space, courtesy of fiftyshadesofbley and David Roberts. Because spaceships need boarding stairs and avgas too.

All are available to view via their respective links in the text above, and you can find them – plus lots lots more – at the Febrovery Flickr group, where thousands of roving creations of all shapes and sizes reside.

Unimog For You

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LEGO’s fantastic Technic 8110 Mercedes-Benz Unimog set earned a near perfect score when it was reviewed on these pages nearly a decade-and-a-half ago. Which means that today it’s rather expensive. And it’s also rather large.

But fear not readers, because you can get your hands on your own Technic Unimog courtesy of prolific ‘mog maker (and Master MOCer) Thirdwigg, which is rather more affordable, and takes up rather less space.

His latest recreation of the Mercedes-Benz multi-purpose tractor comes in at 1:21 scale, and features working steering, an inline-4 engine, a tipping bed, and opening doors. Building instructions are available so you can create it for yourself, and you can find a link to them plus all the imagery at Thridwigg’s ‘Unimog U406’ album here.

Rolling a Six

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Are you an ostentatious wealthy douchebag but your name’s Tanner rather than Al Mahmood? Then have we got the vehicle for you!

Powered by a 700hp V8, and with two extra wheels because… more, this is the Hennessey Ford Velociraptor, the perfect vehicle in which to win America’s ongoing pick-up truck arms-race.

Built by previous bloggee Rolic, this excellent Model Team recreation of the pointless pick-up features opening doors, tailgate and hood, a detailed interior and engine, working steering, and suspension on all six wheels.

There’s lots more to see at Rolic’s ‘Ford velociraptor’ Flickr album and you can one-up that guy in the Dodge Ram 3500 via the link above.

When a Truck Overtook a Rally Car

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Back in the ’80s, motorsport rules were… loose. Group B rallying created monsters beyond anything seen before, and Dakar… well that was even wilder. Entered in the late-’80s, DAF’s unbelievable eleven-ton TurboTwin 95 X1 was powered by two engines with three turbochargers each, producing a combined 1,200bhp, and which – as this infamous helicopter footage from the 1988 event shows – made it so fast it could overtake the leading cars.

Piloted by Dutch legend Jan de Rooy, the TurboTwin won the truck category in 1987, before an awful 180km/h crash killed one of Jan’s teammates the following year, causing DAF to immediately halt all motorsport activities and withdraw the TurboTwin mid-competition.

Sadly we’d not see its like again, but we can still get up close to DAF’s astonishing Dakar racer courtesy of previous bloggee Nanko Klein Paste, and his spectacular brick-built replica.

Constructed in 1:16 scale, Nako’s TurboTwin recreation includes those two triple-turbo engines, complete with intake pipes, radiators and intercoolers, pressure vessels and ancillaries, a removable body liveried with superbly replicated decals, a hugely detailed interior behind opening doors, and full LED lighting from Brickstuff.

On display at the DAF Museum in Eindhoven later this year, there’s more to see of Nanko’s amazing creation at his ‘DAF TurboTwin 95 X1’ album on Flickr, and you can overtake a Dakar-winning Peugeot rally car at 200km/h in an eleven ton truck via the link above.

Bond Bug(gy)

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It’s the first of February, which means the annual build-a-thon ‘Febrovery’ is back for another year! Before enthusiasts of old British cars get excited, Febrovery is not a homage to long-dead Brit car-maker Rover (Aww. Ed.), but instead expands upon one of LEGO’s earliest set staples, the lunar rover. Although we say lunar, but planetary is fine too.

We’re only on Day 1, yet an array of roving machinery has already been uploaded to the Febrovery Flickr group, including this wedgy orange example from prolific sci-fi builder David Roberts.

Looking rather like the weird ’70s British microcar, the Bond Bug (Hooray! Ed.), David Roberts’ creation points the way to a plethora of rovers sure to follow, and you can check out his orange wedge at his photostream via the link above, whilst this TLCB Writer tries to avoid our editor before he starts talking about crap British cars again…

MAZter Builder

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This tremendous machine is a Soviet-era MAZ-537L, an 8×8 heavy ballast truck which – in this configuration – was designed to pull the Soviet Union’s largest aircraft.

The exceptional recreation of the MAZ is the work of [Maks] of Flickr, who has constructed it beautifully, complete with four-wheel-steering and working suspension. There’s much more to see at [Maks]’s ‘MAZ-537L’ album, and you can tow a ginormous Cold War bomber somewhere in Russia via the link above.

Short & Ugly

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Short, ugly, slow, and looks older than it is. No no, not this TLCB Writer (and he’s offended you thought so), but this neat render of the UAZ-469, a Soviet-era off-road vehicle that is still in production today. Flickr’s Thinh Thi is the creator of both these soft-topped military and civilian versions, which cunningly include four opening doors, and you can check them out via the link.

Ol’ Yella

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This amazing machine is a Kenworth 993, a cab-over, six-wheel-drive, heavy duty truck designed in the 1980s to move heavy equipment. And, in one extraordinary case, a nuclear reactor.

We say ‘cab-over’, but the cab was not in fact over anything, as the 700bhp Cummins V12 that powered the 993 was too large to fit under the it, instead being mounted directly behind.

Capturing this unusual design is TsungNing Lee, who has recreated the Kenworth 933 in spectacular detail. Enormous third-party tyres afford a scale that enables incredible realism, with TsungNing both building and presenting his creation in stunning fashion.

There’s much more to see, including work-in-progress photos, at TsungNing’s photostream, and you can take a closer look at this remarkable truck via the link above.

Off-Road Alternative

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The excellent LEGO Technic 42177 Mercedes-Benz G 500 set has successfully brought one of the market’s best known 4x4s to bedroom floors (or more likely Dads’ shelves) everywhere.

But what if you like retro-looking off-roaders but you’re not a wealthy Russian laundering money in the South of England? (Who seem to make up 100% of the G Wagen owners around TLCB Towers). Previous bloggee gyenesvi has the answer!

Using only the parts from the official 42177 Mercedes-Benz G 500 set, gyenesvi has created this superb Land Rover 90, complete with all-wheel-drive, all-wheel-suspension, working steering, an inline-4 engine, an operational gearbox, opening and locking doors, a detailed interior, and a whole heap of accessories.

The result is so good you’d be hard pressed to know it’s an alternate, and with building instructions available you can rebuild your own Mercedes-Benz G 500 into a Land Rover 90 too.

There’s much more of gyenesvi’s phenomenal 42177 B-Model to see at the Eurobricks forum, where a detailed description and further links can be found, plus the complete image gallery is available to view at Bricksafe.