Tag Archives: porsche

All Night Smokin’

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Back in the 1980s, anything that was bad for you could be found on the side of a racing car. Which has got to be cooler than the crypto currency and credit cards we get today.

This particular mobile billboard for cancer comes courtesy of Porsche, and the last time they won the Le Mans 24 Hours with the 962C, when Hans-Joachim Stuck, Derek Bell and Al Holbert crossed the line twenty laps ahead of the second-placed car. Which was also a Porsche 962C.

Built by SFH_Bricks, this exquisite Speed Champions replica of the 1987 race winner includes a superbly authentic livery thanks to Brickstickershop, custom wheels, and building instructions are available too.

Head for post-race cigarette via the link above.

Le Mans ’71

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It might be Ferrari and Toyota at the top of endurance racing right now, but there’s one manufacturer that has dominated Le Mans more than any other; Porsche.

Winning the Le Mans 24 Hours on nineteen occasions, the first of Porsche’s victories came in 1970 thanks to this; the magnificent 917K.

Powered by a wild flat-12, the 917 debuted in 1969, where it was… rubbish. Dodgy aerodynamics (which were still largely experimental at the time) made the car terrifying to drive at high speed, but Porsche refined the car, chopping the tail off and later fitting it with two stabilising fins and a magnesium chassis.

The result was the most dominant one-two in Le Mans history, when in 1971 both 917Ks finished some thirty laps ahead of the third place Ferrari.

This spectacular Speed Champions recreation of the ’71 race winning car, complete with its iconic Martini Racing livery, comes from previous bloggee SFH_Bricks of Flickr, who has captured the 917K absolutely beautifully in brick form.

Building instructions are available and there are more stunning images to view at SFH’s photostream. Click the link above to take a look, and wait thirty laps for the Ferrari to catch up.

Porsche vs. Porsche

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Le Mans is getting very exciting of late, with a raft of new works teams entering or re-entering the world’s most revered motor race. Lamborghini, BMW, Cadillac and Peugeot have all joined or are about to, plus – most famously – Ferrari, who took the outright win upon their return last year.

Back in the late-’70s however, the competition was rather more… one-dimensional. Porsche were the only works team competing for outright victory in 1979, and even though their 935 was already several years old, its 800bhp twin-turbo flat-6 and immense reliability meant it was so dominant that one by one all other manufacturers dropped out of endurance racing.

The result was that a third of all the entrants in the 1979 24 Heures du Mans were Porsches, and no other works manufacturers took part. Unsurprisingly, it was Porsche that took victory, competing mostly against their own cars raced by customer teams, with the Kremer Porsche 935 K3 of Klaus Ludwig, and Don & Bill Whittington crossing the line having covered the most distance after 24 hours, followed home by two other Porsche 935s and a 934.

This superb Speed Champions replica of that race-winning car comes from previous bloggee K MP of Flickr, who has recreated both the car and its livery in beautiful detail. Take a look via the link above, and get ready for a much more competitive 24 Heures du Mans than it was in 1979 in just a few days time!

Iconic Evolution

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The Porsche 911 may have looked pretty much the same for the past sixty years, but due to multiple ground-up redesigns it’s a vastly different machine from what it once was. Even the car used as the basis for LEGO’s 2016 Technic 42056 Porsche 911 GT3 RS set is now a long way behind the latest 911 iteration.

This is the newest version of Porsche’s evergreen endurance racer, the 565bhp 992-based GT3 R that made its debut last year.

Built by Lachlan Cameron (aka loxlego), this astonishing Technic replica of the GT3 R features working steering, five-height adjustable suspension, a six-speed paddle-shift gearbox (plus neutral and reverse), a flat-6 piston engine, plus opening and locking doors and engine cover.

Presented beautifully, you can find the complete gallery of images and full build details via Lachlan’s ‘Porsche 911 (992) GT3 R Flickr album, the Eurobricks discussion forum, and via the video below, plus you can find out how he creates amazing models like this one via his Master MOCers page by clicking this bonus link.

YouTube Video

LEGO Technic H2 2024 | Set Previews

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Our sneaky Elves, returning from successfully sneaking, have found yet more H2 2024 sets for us to reveal. This time it’s the turn of Technic, with no less than four brand new sets to be added to the line up. Each is an officially-licensed real-world vehicle too, which means in this writer’s case he may finally be able to afford a Koenigsegg!

LEGO Technic 42173 Koenigsegg Jesko Absolut

And here it is, the 42173 Koenigsegg Jesko Absolut. Named after a bottle of vodka and theoretically capable of a top speed of well over 300mph, just 125 Jesko Absoluts will be produced, which means the real deal will be comprehensively out-numbered by its LEGO brother.

Aimed at ages 10+, the new 801-piece set includes a working V8 engine driven by the rear wheels via a differential, ‘hand of god’ steering, and the Jesko’s ‘dihedral synchro-helix door system’. Which basically means they open upwards.

Arriving in August of 2024, expect 42173 to cost around £47 / $50, and for bedroom floors everywhere to become the venue for some serious top speed testing.

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LEGO Technic 42176 Porsche GT4 e-Performance

From the world’s theoretically fastest car, to LEGO’s actual fastest, this is the brand new Control+ powered 42176 Porsche GT4 e-Performance.

Also aimed at ages 10+ and with a similar parts count, 42176 claims to be the fastest remote control LEGO set yet. Servo steering and motorised drive are powered by a new on-board rechargeable battery, operated via the Control+ app.

Said app also controls the working LED lights (via some trick new lighting pieces), and provides ‘live data feedback’, so drivers can perfect chasing the cat.

A range of real-world sponsorship decals (gone are the days of sets wearing stickers saying such things as ‘Race’, ‘En-Jin’, ‘Fuel’ and suchlike) enhance a reasonable approximation of the GT4’s shape, and you’ll be able to get your hands on the fastest LEGO set yet for £150 / $170 when it races into stores on August 1st.

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Lego Technic 42182 NASA Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle LRV

Some of the Lego Community’s very favourite things to create are lunar rovers, with hundreds of all shapes and sizes uploaded each year. All of them can can trace their existence back to this; the Lunar Rover Vehicle, or ‘LRV’.

Packed inside the Apollo 17 mission, the lunar rover carried scientific equipment and astronauts across the moon’s surface, and now – thanks to the new 42182 NASA Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle LRV* set – builders can reimagine this astonishing moment in human history at home.

Constructed from over 1,900 pieces, many of which are accurately coloured in gold and bronze, 42182 can be folded up just like the real thing (or, less exotically, a wheelchair), and features working steering and suspension, brand new tyres, plus tools, some ‘moon rock’, and three separate attachable equipment sets including the wonderfully named ‘Traverse Gravimeter Experiment’.

Which might not sound like much for £190 / $220, but with a black box aimed at ages 18+ and a description using phrases such as ‘a mindful project’, 42182 is targeted very much as a ‘display’ piece, despite its Technic billing. And – as a display piece at least – the 42182 NASA Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle LRV* is out of this world.

*Yes LEGO named 42182 twice. But if it’s good enough for Ferrari and Lamborghini…

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But wait, didn’t you say ‘four brand new sets’? We sure did. We’ll be back with the fourth new addition soon, and it’s a goodie…

Insert Midlife Crisis

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This site may have, on occasion, mocked Corvette and muscle car owners. However here in Europe we’re no better, because once a man reaches a certain age – and/or his hairline passes a certain point – he’s almost legally obliged to buy a Porsche Boxster.

This writer is closer to that point than he’d like to admit, but as he has not the funds for Porsche’s entry-level sports car, this will have to do instead.

Built by TLCB Master MOCer Thirdwigg, this brilliant brick-built Boxster (or 718 as they are now called) features a flat-six engine, working steering, opening doors and front/rear trunks, and it includes a working convertible top, for that authentic wind-in-the-thinning-hair experience.

Constructed in an appropriately midlife crisis colour, building instructions are available, and you can join us wondering if buying a Boxster would make us cool again* by clicking here.

*(It won’t. Ed.)

Oiled Pig

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There are many famous racing liveries that have arisen from decades of motorsport sponsorship, most of which were for things so bad for you that their advertisement is now banned (like this, and this, and this, and this, and this).

But fast cars seem to attract dodgy businesses, and thus these days the cigarette sponsorship has been replaced by energy drinks (which we’re pretty sure will, one day, been seen like cigarettes) and the biggest scam of modern times; crypto currency. Thankfully however, one sponsorship mainstay from motorsport’s past clings on; oil companies.

For how much longer though we’re not sure, as there is a movement on the fringes to ban the advertising of things related to the fossil fuel industry, and what starts on the fringes has a tendency to gather momentum and become mainstream, where lots of people shout and post things on ‘X’ and get upset.

Which would be a shame, because oil company liveries have been some of the best, particularly this one, the iconic orange-and-blue of Gulf Racing.

Adorning Fuku Saku‘s wonderful (and incredibly intricate) Porsche 911 GT3 RS, the Gulf orange-and-blue livery looks fabulous, and there’s more of the build to see of Fuku’s Flickr album. Click the link above to take a look, or here to peruse the other Gulf Racing vehicles from our Archives.

Grey Pig

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Almost every modern car on the roads of TLCB’s home nation is grey. And an SUV. Except that is, for one very specific category of owner. The YouTuber.

No, the YouTuber chooses a whole different aesthetic, based on ‘views’, and ‘clout’, and other insufferable influencer nonsense. Which invariably means that their heavily-financed supercar will be covered in some hideously lurid wrap, with the words ‘I’ve TRANSFORMED’ my [Insert Supercar Here]’ emblazoned in bubble-writing across the accompanying ten-and-a-half-minute video.

An exhaust that also ‘TRANSFORMS’ the car will follow, before the finance agreement is terminated early – much to the insincere sadness of the YouTuber doing it – to fund the next pointless cycle of Buy-Wrap-Exhaust-for-views.

Thus, if we had enough money for a supercar, we’d get it in grey. Because that way no-one would think we’re a talentless YouTube douchebag.

Cue previous bloggee Fuku Saku’s superb Porsche 911 GT3 RS, which is not only brilliantly constructed, it’s also quite fantastically grey. Ingenious techniques recreate the 911’s notoriously tricky shape, and there’s more of model to see at Faku’s ‘GT3 RS 991.1 Gray’ album on Flickr.

Click the link above to take a look, and don’t give the YouTuber supercar douchbags your views.

IDisplayIt LEGO Display Case | Review

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Here at The Lego Car Blog, we – somewhat unsurprisingly – love LEGO cars. And trucks. And motorbikes. Which means we own rather a lot of them.

It also means that the LEGO fans foe – dust – plagues TLCB Team, with our sets and creations all gradually turning grey unless we get a paintbrush out or the bristly attachment thingy on the vacuum-cleaner.

However even then our LEGO models still face a grave peril, what with there apparently being “a ridiculous number” of them, and further partner complaints such as “Our living room is not looking like a toy shop”. But that’s not our fault. LEGO models take up loads of space. Or do they?…

Cue Official LEGO Affiliate IDisplayIt, and their huge range of LEGO display cases. Constructed from 3mm clear acrylic, IDisplayIt’s cases are strong, beautifully machined, and – best of all – stackable, allowing models can be placed on top of one another so that you have space for even more! er, we mean they’re less likely to annoy long-suffering partners.

IDisplayIt sent us two of their cases to review, the Display Case for the LEGO 10295 Porsche 911 (which is also the perfect size for several other sets), and a copy of their Display Case for the LEGO 10321 Corvette, complete with a period-appropriate pre-applied vinyl background.

Each case arrived flat-packed in a well-protected envelope, and – as per rivals BOXXCO – with all six sides covered in a protective film which is immensely satisfying to peel off. Unlike the previously reviewed BOXXCO offering though, iDisplayIt’s design uses twistable plastic connectors to join the sides together, instead of machined aluminium blocks.

Whilst we appreciated the engineering of those metal cubes, iDisplayIt’s method offers a number of advantages, with the connectors being less visible (matching the transparency of the case panels), requiring no tools (an allen key is provided), and taking mere minutes to construct with half the number of screws. Seriously, we spent longer removing the protective film. Although we did really enjoy that.

IDisplayIt’s cases are also beautifully engineered, with a superbly printed background in the case of the Corvette, and with tolerances that LEGO themselves would be proud of. The result is that IDisplayIt’s cases make the LEGO models within them look absolutely fantastic, so much so – and we don’t give such scores away lightly – that they earn the maximum TLCB rating. Yes, they really are that good.

Order in the next few days (if you’re reading this at the time of publication) and IDisplayIt will guarantee Christmas delivery, or if you’re reading this a little later they’ll do their best (just let them know).

You can check out the full range of IDisplayIt’s LEGO Display Cases via the region-specific links below. We recommend you do.

IDisplayIt Stores;

United Kingdom | Europe | United States / Rest of World

★★★★★

Ghostly Porsche

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Following on from the ‘Initial D’ manga series, ‘MF Ghost’ resets the Japanese street racing scene to the late 2020s, when self-driving electric cars are the norm and internal combustion engines are consigned to history. Except in the mountain passes…

Protagonist Kanata Rivington’s Toyota GT86 beats everyone it seems, regardless of how exotic their car is, including Jackson Taylor’s modified Miami-blue Porcshe 911 Carrera GTS, recreated here by Ilya M.

Clever techniques, accurate ‘8’ decals, and top quality presentation all feature, and there’s more of Taylor’s Porsche 911 to see on Flickr, including a link free building instructions. Click the link above to recreate your own ghostly 911, and then lose to a Toyota with half the power.

Squaring the Circle

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The Porsche 911, having its roots in the Nazi’s “peoples’ car“, is a rather bubbly, round, and curvaceous vehicle.

The official LEGO 10295 Porsche 911 set is not therefore the obvious parts choice from which to construct a supercar from a brand at the very other end of the design spectrum; wilfully angular Lamborghini.

At least it wouldn’t be the obvious choice for the unimaginative dullards here at TLCB Towers, however previous bloggee Marcin Majkowski is rather more creative.

Taking the resolutely round 10295 set, Marcin has somehow managed to turn it into one of the most straight-edged supercars of modern times, the limited-run Lamborghini Countach LPI 800-4.

Utilising 1,204 (c80%) of the 10295 Porsche 911’s parts, Marcin’s Lamborghini includes opening scissor doors, a lifting engine cover, and working steering, and there’s more of his angular alternate to see at Eurobricks, on Bricksafe, and via Flickr, where a link to building instructions can also be found.

Click the links above to square your 10295 circle.

Paint my Porsche

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This incredible car is a Porsche 911.2 Speedster, and it’s been built as a commissioned piece by previous bloggee 3DsupercarBricks.

Consisting of around 1,000 parts, with opening doors, front trunk, engine cover, and flip roof, 3D’s commissioned Speedster has – purists look away now – been custom painted in the real Porsche ‘Azzuro Thetys’ metallic paint to create the amazing aesthetic you can see here.

Custom 3D-printed wheels add to the authenticity and there’s much more of the painted Porsche to see at 3D’s photostream.

Click the link in the text above to take a look at all of the fantastic images, whilst we ponder whether spraying a Lego model faded-red-and-rust to accurately recreate the office’s Rover 214 would deliver the same wow factor as 3D’s ‘Azzuro Thetys’ metallic…

More Endurance

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After years of very limited top-tier competition, the fastest class at Le Mans undergoing a spectacular resurgence. Works teams from Ferrari, Toyota, Porsche, Peugeot, and Cadillac all entered in 2023, with BMW, Lamborghini and Alpine all set to join in the coming years.

The 2023 24 Heures du Mans was won by a jubilant Ferrari, returning almost six decades after their last win, following an epic race-long battle with favourites Toyota. Joining his previously blogged classic Le Mans endurance racers, SFH_Bricks has recreated the 2023-winning Ferrari 499P brilliantly in Speed Champions form, alongside a host of other Hypercar-Class teams from this year’s event.

The second place Toyota GR010, doubtless still miffed at being slowed down by the FIA ‘Balance of Performance’ rules that likely cost them the win, the wonderfully-liveried (if uncompetitive) Penske Racing Porsche 963, and the third-placed Cadillac V-Series.R join the Ferrari 499P in SFH_Bricks’ ‘Le Mans 2023 Hypercars’ album.

Each Le Mans Hypercar wears an accurate livery -created in collaboration with brickstickershop – and is presented flawlessly, with building instructions available too. Join the 2023 race courtesy of SFH via the third link in the text above, plus you can check out the top-tier Le Mans cars from decades past via the second.

Typical Porsche Driver

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Porsche – as per Bentley, Rolls-Royce, Aston Martin, Lamborghini and almost every automotive brand – are today mostly an SUV manufacturer. Sigh.

But they haven’t abandoned their roots quite as much as would first appear, as they – like Lamborghini – have off-road vehicles as much a part of their early history as their current line-up.

Many of these were of a military purpose designed for a certain moustachioed maniac, which Porsche don’t seem keen to highlight in their corporate history, but Porsche also built tractors, such as this rather cute Porsche-Diesel Standard 218.

Powered by a two-cylinder 25bhp air-cooled diesel engine, the Standard 218 could be outrun by even the fattest TLCB Writer, but unlike the fattest TLCB Writer it could also lift over half-a-ton on its three-point-hitch.

This lovely Model Team replica of the Porsche-Diesel Standard 218 recreates the tractor (and hitch) beautifully, with superb attention to detail paid in particular to the Porsche’s visible mechanical parts.

TLCB newcomer dimnix is the builder behind it, and there’s more to see of this excellent classic Porsche-Diesel at their Brickshelf gallery. Click the link above to jump back to when an off-road Porsche didn’t mean an aggressively-driven Cayenne.

100 Ans du Mans

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The world’s greatest motor race celebrates its century this weekend. Founded in 1923 on a public road loop around the village of Le Mans, a route that would later become today’s ‘Circuit de la Sarthe’, the 24 Heures du Mans remains the pinnacle of endurance racing.

Of course due to some German expansionist policies in the late 1930s, the 2023 event is not the one hundredth running of the race, rather the 91st, but nevertheless it’s going to be a special year, with both a notable increase in Hypercar competition and the final year of the GTE class before it’s replaced by the more widely adopted GT3 regulations.

Flickr’s SpaceMan Nathan is celebrating Le Mans’ centenary, and the final year of GTE, with this lovely recreation of the Circuit de la Sarthe pitlane, complete with five Speed Champions GTE AM cars. Accurate liveries and trackside sponsorship add to the ambience, and you can enter the pitlane at Le Mans’ centenary year via the link above to watch the GTE finale.