Tag Archives: Paris Dakar

Trucking Down to Dakar

sariel-dakar

Well, Buenos Aires to be truthful. The Lego Car Blog Elves love visiting Sariel’s Lego workshop at www.sariel.pl It’s the home of great Technic builds and there’s often hamster food lying around for our workers to steal to supplement their rations.

Sariel’s latest creation is this bright and brilliant Dakar Truck, based on a Tatra T815 4×4. It uses Lego’s bright, lime green, of which Sariel is apparently a big fan, plus loads of custom stickers. Twin Lego RC motors power the truck to 12kph, giving occasional cornering problems, as you can see in the video below.

The Bull

DAF 3300 Paris Dakar Truck

Back in the 1980s the Paris Dakar Rally was a very different proposition to how it is today. GPS hadn’t been invented and the race was as much about navigation as speed. European manufacturers were taking the event seriously though, and creating purpose built machines. Dutch truck builder DAF joined the race in 1985 with their heavily modified 3300 off-road truck, driven by Jan de Rooy. ‘The Bull’ as it was known finished in 2nd place within the truck category, and we bet it looked bloody cool doing so.

Nanko Klein Paste shows us how The Bull looked with his awesome recreation in Lego form. Utilising four Power Functions medium motors for drive and with some monster suspension, Nanko’s Technic version of the Dutch legend looks as capable off road as any Lego model is likely to get. See all the photos and details on Flickr at the link above.

America, F*** Yeah!

Lego Hummer

This might be the most American post we’ve had here on The Lego Car Blog since the ThunderCougarFalconBird, a symbol of freedom and obesity; the Hummer. LegoMarat‘s excellent model recreates the car driven by American NASCAR racing hero Robby Gordon in the 2012 Dakar Rally, which was, er… disqualified.

The Dakar Rally is no longer held from Paris to Dakar due to the threat of terrorism in North Africa, and instead races through the deserts of Argentina and Chile, but retains its iconic name.

Curiously, Hummer may undergo a similar transformation. Following its collapse in the wake of the financial crisis (no tears were shed here at TLCB for that) the American icon may be sold to the Chinese. Hilariously, a communist Hummer is a real possibility.

And with American patriots now spitting coffee over the keyboards we’ll quietly depart with a bonus photo. If you want to see more you can check out all the images of LegoMarat’s work via Flickr at the link above.

Lego Hummer Robby Gordon