Tag Archives: Pontiac

My Other Car’s a Camaro

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Are you a fan of the LEGO Icons 1034 Chevrolet Camaro Z28, but don’t have a handlebar mustache and spend your nights chucking dice in an alley? Then why not rebuild your Camaro set into something altogether different?

Cue Nathanael Kruipers‘ stunning Pontiac Firebird, constructed entirely from the pieces found within the 10304 Camaro set, yet rebuilding the set to create a car driven by… OK, exactly the same stereotype.

Still, the Camaro and Firebird were the same cars underneath, so perhaps that’s not surprising, and it makes creating the Firebird from the Camaro rather appropriate.

Building instructions are available and there’s much more of Nathanael’s brilliant 10304 alternate to see at his photostream. Click the link above to join him in the alley.

Bonneville ’66

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Car manufacturers are sometimes a little… er, ambitious with their names. The ideal car for running on the salt flats of Bonneville is not one of the largest production vehicles ever produced, fitted with drum brakes and a three-speed gearbox.

The Pontiac Bonneville first launched in 1958 as a two-door hardtop or convertible, based on the luxurious Pontiac Star Chief, but de-specced to bring the price down. By the fourth generation – pictured here – the range had expanded to include four-door hardtop, sedan and station wagon body-styles, all of which were powered a range of variously-sized V8 engines, and the luxury had been reinstated to make the Bonneville Pontiac’s most expensive model.

This beautiful Model Team recreation of the Bonneville two-door ‘Sports Coupe’ from 1966 captures the excess of the car superbly, with builder Jakub Marcisz replicating the full-size barge in stunning detail.

Opening doors reveal a wonderfully accurate interior, a lifelike V8 engine sits under the opening hood, and the trunk opens to reveal, well – some complicated building techniques, but the real car’s trunk was almost unfeasibly large, thanks to a total vehicle length exceeding 5.5 meters.

Come to think of it, maybe Jakub’s Pontiac Bonneville isn’t so optimistically named after all. It’s really very large, and very yellow, just like its desert namesake, and there’s much more to see at Jakub’s ‘Pontiac Bonneville 1966’ album on Flickr. Head into the heat of Utah via the link above.

We’d Still Like a Pontiac

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We miss Pontiac. Sure they were part of the raging dumpster fire that was General Motors by mid-1990’s, and they created atrocities like this (and this. And this)*, but they also built some of America’s coolest cars.

From Solstice to the Firebird Trans-Am, there are a few Pontiacs we’d be proud to have in TLCB Towers car park, but none more so than this; the ’68 GTO.

Produced from 1963 to 1974 (and again as rebadged Holden in the mid-’00s), the GTO is credited with popularising the muscle car genre in the late ’60s. With a choice of V8 engines, a range of rubbish gearboxes (two-speed automatic anyone?), and also sold by GM’s other brands (see the Chevrolet Chevelle, Oldsmobile Cutlass, and Buick Special), there was a GTO for everyone.

This neat Speed Champions recreation of Pontiac’s finest hour comes from yelo_bricks of Flickr, making their TLCB debut. Both built and presented beautifully, there’s more to see at yelo’s ‘1986 Pontiac GTO’ album – click the link above to take a look at all the images.

*No we hadn’t forgotten the Aztek. We like the Aztek. And so should you.

Toothpick in an Alley

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If there’s a car more likely to be driven by people who are usually found chewing a toothpick in an alley wearing a leather jacket and a bad moustache than the ’77 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, we’re yet to find it.

This Speed Champions scale Trans Am comes from Rolling Bricks, complete with a lift-out T-top, opening doors, and a golden flaming bird motif.

Don your leather jacket and head to an alley to chew a toothpick via the link above.

Brick KITT

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We’re not sure why robots in the eighties were uptight nerds, but KITT was the wheeled equivalent of C-3PO.

However unlike Star Wars’ anxious golden bi-ped, KITT had flame throwers, lasers, a tear gas launcher, a giant taser, and ultramagnesium charges at his disposal. And we don’t even know what that last one means.

Equipped with none of that, but looking rather cool nonetheless, is Jerry Builds Bricks‘ 8-wide Speed Champions version of the Knight Industries Two Thousand, which captures the TV star car beautifully.

There’s more of KITT to see at Jerry’s photostream, and you can head there to deploy some ultramagnesium charges via the link above.

Smokey and the Bandit | Picture Special

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This is a Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am, a car made famous by the ’77 movie ‘Smokey and the Bandit’, and possibly the only car in history to look kinda-cool with pin-striping. Plus a giant flaming bird motif of course.

This exceptional 1:8 recreation of the American icon is the work of Chris Radbone of Flickr, who has not only replicated the exterior of the ’77 Trans-Am beautifully, complete with pin-striping and giant flaming bird motif, his model is a qualified Technic Supercar underneath.

A Technic frame holds a working V8 engine, all-wheel suspension, functioning steering, and a D-N-R gearbox, all of which are concealed behind the wonderfully accurate Model Team exterior.

It’s a great way to finish the year and there’s more to see of Chris’s superb ’77 Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am ‘Bandit’ at his photostream. Click here to make the jump to Flickr for the complete gallery of images, here to see the Smokey and the Bandit movie trailer in which this car stars, and we’ll be back soon with our 2020 round-up.

And to Our Future. No Matter Who it May Take Us up Against, or Where…

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It’s the early ’80s, perms are big, jackets are leather, and 200mph, self-driving, talking cars exist only in the imagination. And then NBC shoved C-3PO into the dashboard of a Pontiac Trans-Am. Perms remained big and jackets remained leather, but the 200mph, self-driving, talking car was now a reality, on screen at least.

The Knight Industries Two Thousand (K.I.T.T) became the coolest car for every eight year old in ’80s America, and even though most of the technology it featured is now hilariously out-of-date (even Mrs. TLCB Writer’s compact hatchback can do more* today), it’s still one of the most famous and enduring TV cars of all time.

Capturing K.I.T.T superbly in mini-figure scale, László Torma has constructed a 6-wide version of the camp coupe complete with a mini-fig Michael Knight, and he’s made instructions available too so that you can build your very own. Head to Laszlo’s photostream via the link above to take “a shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man that doesn’t exist. Michael Knight, a young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the powerless, and the helpless in a world of criminals that operate above the law“. It doesn’t get any more ’80s than that!

*OK, it can’t do 200mph, despite the way Mrs. TLCB Writer drives it.

Pontiac Firebird Trans Am | Picture Special

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This might just be the most American thing we’ve ever seen. Apart from Police brutality of course. This is the late ’70s-early ’80s second generation Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, GM’s sister car to the Camero, and the Mustang’s fiercest rival.

Powered by an expansive choice of enormous V8 engines ranging from 4.3 to 7.5 litres, plus some marginally less enormous six-cylinder motors, all of which produced about as much horsepower as a European or Japanese engine half the size, the Trans Am completely erased the words ‘oil crisis’ and replaced them with a giant flaming bird motif. Because America.

The iconic slant nose arrived in 1977, bringing with it huge sales numbers, with this iteration of the Firebird selling between 150,000 and 210,000 units annually until emissions regulations finally caught up with it in 1980. The Trans Am’s starring role in Burt Reynolds’ 1977 movie ‘Smokie and the Bandit’ can’t have hurt its popularity either, a film basically about little more than trucking, car chases, and beer*. Because America.

Recreating this icon of American automobiles is TLCB Master MOCer, regular bloggee, and all-round excellent human being Firas Abu-Jaber, who has captured the ’77 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am in astonishing detail. Firas’ model replicates the Firebird’s famous exterior beautifully, with opening doors, trunk, and hood (complete with giant flaming bird motif), plus an amazingly accurate interior, and with presentation as stunning as the model itself.

Over a dozen spectacular images are available to view at Firas’ Pontiac Firebird Trans Am album on Flickr, where a build commentary can also be found. Click the link above to take a closer look, and the first link in the text to read Firas Abu-Jaber’s Master MOCers interview here at TLCB to learn how he creates incredible creations like this one.

*Well, Coors, which is nearly beer.

Muscle Car Double

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Lego Plymouth Hemi Cuda

Founded in the late 1920s, mis-managed into administration, and then closed down in the last decade or so, Plymouth and Pontiac are best known in recent times as victims of the Big Three’s sorry tale of arrogance, greed and incompetence.

But before all that there were some good times. Really good times. In the late-’60s to early-’70s the muscle car was in a golden age, and both Plymouth and Pontiac were riding the crest of that wave.

Plymouth’s Barracuda (above) launched in the mid-’60s with a range of engines beginning at just 100bhp, yet by 1970 it was making up to 425bhp from an enormous Hemi V8. Unfortunately 425bhp didn’t sit really suit the market once the oil crisis hit in 1973, and production ended shortly afterwards, but if anything that short life has helped the ‘Cuda become one of most sought-after muscle cars in history.

General Motors were also in on the muscle car action in the 1960s, bringing – via their Pontiac brand – the GTO (below) to market in ’64. By the 1970s they too were making over 400bhp, with stock cars delivering 13.4 second 1/4 miles times straight from the forecourt. Like Plymouth the oil crisis put an end to that, but in its hay-day the Pontiac GTO sold almost 100,000 units annually, despite its slow steering and ‘amazingly inadequate’ brakes. The roads must have been a fun (if slightly terrifying) place!

Lego Pontiac GTO

The two superb Speed Champions versions of the Plymouth Hemi ‘Cuda and Pontiac GTO pictured here are the work of Thomas Gion, who has faithfully recreated both cars in just 6-studs of width, capturing the styling cues of each brilliantly.

Today both brands are gone, but the legendary cars they created in the 1960s and ’70s mean they won’t be forgotten for some time yet.

Come Fly With Me

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Lego Hover Cars

It’s a bumper haul today at The Lego Car Blog, thanks to Tim Henderson and his wonderful collection of retro-futuristic hover cars. Loosely based on all manner of classic American machinery, Tim’s hover car concepts update their historic counterparts with a whole lot more vertical ability.

Lego Hover Car Station Wagon

Models include a Buick Skymaster (apt name!) station wagon (pictured above), a pair of Pontiac Grand Prix (pictured below) and Mercury Meteors (more apt naming!) (top), and a very cool Blacktron-esque Dodge Charger and Chevrolet Caprice (bottom).

Lego Hover Cars

There’s more to see of each build, all of which contain a mini-figure and some delightful detailing, plus many more besides, at Tim’s ‘Hover Car’ Flickr album. Click on the link and leave gravity behind!

Lego Hover Cars

*Today’s title song, which has instantly made this blog 37% classier.

American Classics – Picture Special

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Lego Classic Car Garage

Ralph Savelsberg, aka Mad Physicist, is one of the most prolific bloggees here at TLCB. One of our Master MOCers and a writer for the The Brothers Brick (everybody boo!), Ralph has been building stunning Miniland scale vehicles for years, and years, and years. His creations number in the hundreds, but until now he’s had no-where to put them. Finally though, a few are getting a home!

Lego Classic Car Garage

This brilliant classic car workshop, inspired by some of the workshop-builders that have appeared here in recent times, contains everything you’d expect to find in a modern repair facility, plus of course, some wonderful classic American cars. Six of the eight vehicles have appeared here at TLCB in some form or another, with the Ford F150 pick-up and a Hudson Hornet making their debuts today (we think!).

Lego Classic Car Garage

Amongst the classics are a Pontiac Bonneville, Ford Fairlane Crown Victoria Skyliner, Buick Riviera, Chevrolet Impala, Chevrolet 3100 Stepside pick-up, and the aforementioned Hudson, all expertly recreated in miniature. There are also two dreadful modern pick-ups; a ’90s Ford F150, and if that wasn’t bad enough there’s the simply awful (but superbly replicated) Dodge Ram too.

Lego Classic Car Garage

We’ll stick with the classics, and there’s more to see of each beautiful ’50s-’60s slice of Americana via the links above to the respective articles here at The Lego Car Blog, and you can see more photos of the complete workshop via Ralph’s Flickr photostream – click here and enjoy!

Cool Caravanning

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Lego 1956 Pontiac Catalina

If you’re going to tow a shed with wheels behind you to a field where you have to crap in a bucket, you may as well do it in something cool. This 1956 Pontiac Catalina certainly fulfils that brief, and the dinky caravan in tow doesn’t look too bad either. See more of both courtesy of LegoEng on Flickr.

Intel Inside

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Lego RC KITT Knight Rider

This is not the best looking recreation of Knight Rider’s KITT (that accolade belongs here or here). But KITT’s genius wasn’t found in the way that it looked, but in what lay hidden inside. This is Gabor Horvath’s remote controlled KITT, and what’s underneath is a simply astonishing piece of Lego engineering.

Gabor’s KITT contains six Power Functions motors, the first being a Large motor driving the rear wheels through a differential, and the second being a Servo motor for steering. The remaining four motors are all needed to give the model KITT’s most recognisable feature; its lights.

Up front a set of pop-up headlights are controlled via a Medium motor, whilst another Medium motor switches them on. Sitting in-between these is KITT’s scanner, which oscillates back and forth via an ingenious linear-actuator operated mechanism. It’s a properly clever solution, which Gabor has detailed through a series of images and in a neat video.

See full details of how it all works via Gabor’s MOCpage, Flickr photostream or at the Eurobricks discussion forum.

Road to Bonneville

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Lego Pontiac Bonneville 1965

America is just about emerging from the automotive wastelands it’s been occupying since the late 1970s. Sadly though, Pontiac didn’t survive its stay in the wilderness, dying alongside such names as Saturn, Oldsmobile, and Eagle. But Ralph Savelsberg hasn’t forgotten Pontiac. His recently updated and totally beautiful 1965 Bonneville reminds us of a time when the American car wasn’t a fat joke, and ‘Aztek‘ only referred to an ancient civilisation in South America. You can see more of his glorious tribute to old-school Americana on Flickr – click here to take a trip to ’65.

Lego Pontiac Bonneville

Nightcrawler

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Lego 1966 Pontiac Bonneville Nightcrawler

This blue beast is a 1966 Pontiac Bonneville Coupe, with a few modifications courtesy of the inside of Lino Martins‘ head. A chop to the roof and ground-scraping lowered suspension accentuate the already ridiculous proportions of the ’66. It’s been built for the 99th LUGNuts challenge on Flickr, and with the 100th just a few weeks away we’re expecting something pretty special to celebrate… We’ll bring you more details of the 100th LUGNuts challenge soon, but in the meantime you can check out the 99th and Lino’s entry via the links above.