Tag Archives: Petrol Station

Coles Express

We’ve featured thousands of cars here at The Lego Car Blog, but very rarely do we feature the places where they fill up. Of course the days of the gas station – at least in their currents forms – are numbered, but for now they remain one of society’s few remaining meeting places.

Wealth, gender, and race matter not at the gas station, where the entire spectrum of humanity congregate by hoses full of ancient zooplankton, over-priced bags of sweets, machine-served coffee, and last-minute flowers.

This superb brick-built recreation of one of the last bastions of physical interaction comes from Kale Frost who constructed it as a commissioned piece. Click the link to join us standing at the pump pondering which over-priced bag of sweets to buy at his ‘Coles Express’ album on Flickr.

Art Déco Gas Station – Picture Special

We regularly post beautiful Lego creations here at The Lego Car Blog. From sports cars to trucks and motorcycles to fighter jets, the produce of the online Lego community is often jaw-droppingly good, and it is of course the very reason that this website exists.

Today though we think we may be publishing the most beautiful vehicle-related creation that we’ve found in our five years of blogging. This is Andrea Lattanzio’s ‘Art Deco Gas Station’, and it is unbelievably perfect.

Based on a real-life gas station in Tucson, Arizona, Andrea’s incredible creation returns to the golden age of pumping gas, when stations such as this one were meeting places in their own right, rather than simply tools enabling people to get to the place they want to go.

With two period-correct Shell gas pumps underneath a wonderful curved awning, a fully equipped store, diner, and workshop, Andrea’s build offers more than just a fill up.

Three lovely Town scale vehicles feature in the build too; a neat step-side pick-up truck, a gorgeous tan-coloured hot rod coupe, and a brown hot rod roadster receiving some attention in the garage.

There’s a lot more to see of Andrea’s spell-binding build at his Flickr photostream, plus you can read our interview with the builder as part of the Master MOCers series by clicking this link.

Esso Service 1953 – Picture Special

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This magnificent 1953 Esso service station is the work of previous bloggee Andrea Lattanzio (aka Norton74) and it’s probably as close to perfect as a Lego creation can possibly be.

Designed by Dutch architect Willem Dudock 112 of these beautiful structures were built across the Netherlands following World War 2 in order to meet the needs of the rapidly expanding road network. Dudock’s brief was to design a station that was cheap and simple to construct, and that minimised the raw material usage – a critical factor for a country rebuilding itself after years of conflict.

Andrea’s incredible recreation of Dudock’s ingenious design is not light on raw material however, as every conceivable detail has been replicated perfectly in Lego form, from the beautiful art deco fuel pumps (attended by Andrea’s previously blogged Volkswagen Transporter) to the brilliantly detailed workshop tooling.

We highly recommend taking a trip Andrea’s wonderful Flickr Photostream where you can see more of the Netherlands in 1953, and we may also be seeing more of Andrea here at TLCB soon…

Gas Station Contest on Eurobricks

danthaman11's Octan Gas Station

Alas, no official set either: danthaman11’s Octan Gas Station

Gas stations, filling stations, servos – the dinosaurs of the petrol age are still a popular LEGO subject. Disappointed that the Gas Station at the Copenhagen Toy Fair won’t be an official set, Eurobricks user Lego City Mann has proclaimed a contest named “The Servo Showdown!” It’s not an official EB contest (although it is hosted there), and we think it’s a rather nice idea.

“Get your imagination fueled”, as Lego City Mann puts it, and join the contest on Eurobricks.

We’d like to take the opportunity to feature danthaman11’s amazing Octan Gas Station on TLCB which, whilst not involved in the contest, should give you plenty of inspiration.

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