Tag Archives: ralph savelsberg

Merry Liftmas

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This is a Sennebogen 608 telehandler, which is used to lift things and people to and from high places. And its maker Ralph Savelsberg has absolutely missed a Christmas trick by not building a Christmas tree for it to place a star atop. Still, despite the festive omission it is a brilliant build, and includes interchangeable attachments on the extending and elevating boom, deployable stabiliser legs, and some excellent replica decals. You can reach for more images at Ralph’s photostream, where you can take a look at it not placing a star atop a Christmas tree via the link above.

Mine’s Longer Than Yours

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No really, it is. Because unless yours is a supertanker, today ours is bigger. This spectacularly long DAF and Nooteboom Telestep trailer combination comes from Ralph Savelsberg of Flickr, and replicates the real wind-turbine transporting trucks operated by Van der Vlist of the Netherlands. Because the Dutch love a windmill.

So do we as it happens, what with them providing endlessly renewable energy and still allowing sheep and whatnot to graze underneath. Anyway, Ralph’s creation can elongate to a quite unbelievable length, and like the real rig cunningly includes five axles with four that operate consecutively greater steering angles, presumably so it doesn’t require all of Belgium or another neighbouring country to turn around.

There’s much more to see at Ralph’s Flickr album and you can take a look at the longest erection on Flickr via the link above.

MOCbashing

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Endlessly reusable, LEGO is all about taking something and turning it into something else. The Online Lego Community is filled with designs and techniques that can influence your own creations, with builder Austin Vail taking particular inspiration from TLCB Master MOCer Ralph Savelsberg.

Using the ‘kitbashing’ approach (a method used by plastic modellers wherein they mix the components from multiple kits to create something new and unique), Austin has reverse-engineered several of Ralph’s builds (no “I need instructions” here!), before mixing various parts of them up to create something new, in this case a splendid gasser hot rod.

Portions of Ralph’s ZZ Top Eliminator, American Graffiti Deuce Coupe, and Volkswagen Beetle (the latter cleverly reversed so its front forms the rear) are all bashed together to create the whole, with the result paying both homage to its inspirer yet also being a distinctive creation in its own right.

There’s more to see of Austin’s gasser, including a description of how it was built, at his photostream. Take a look via the link above and maybe start MOCbashing for yourself!

Every Day’s a School Day

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Of all the thousands vehicles that The Lego Car Blog has featured over the years, we’d bet this is the one that hits the most of you in the feels.

Created by Master MOCer and prolific vehicle builder Ralph Savelsberg (aka Mad Physicist), this splendid mini-figure American school bus is so perfect we can practically hear the windows rattling and someone at the back getting wedgied.

There’s more of Ralph’s bus to see on Flickr and you can jump back to your childhood for a bumpy seatbelt-less ride to school via the link above!

Picking Cherries

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Cherry pickers seem to rarely pick actual cherries. Fixing telephone wires, street lamps, and lopping trees sure, but cherries no.

Cue Ralph Savelsberg and this excellent mini-figure scale Mercedes-Benz Unimog, complete with a rear mounted hoist able to elevate and rotate to pick the juiciest cherries. Or fix a rural community’s broadband after a storm. But whatever.

There’s more to see at Ralph’s Flickr album and you can take a look via the link above whilst this TLCB Writer heads to the fridge in search of fruit…

Whatta Man

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“How many wheels would you like your truck to have sir?” “…All of them.”

Flickr’s Ralph Savelsberg has taken a similar approach to your Mom at the all-you-can-eat buffet with his wheel quantity, with over two-dozen present on his Allelys heavy haulage MAN TGX.

There’s more to see at his Flickr album (along with the MAN’s counterpart Mercedes-Benz Arocs that appeared here a few months ago), where a ginormous load is surely soon to appear too. And if you made another ‘Your Mom’ joke there, that one’s on you.

Transiting

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It a Transit van double here at The Lego Car Blog today, with two rather different examples of Ford’s ubiquitous workhorse.

First up (above) is Versteinert‘s wonderful 7-wide 1970s face-lifted Mk1 Transit camper, wearing some slightly mismatched wheel-arch and sill repairs, a roof-rack loaded with adventure equipment, and being a thousand times cooler than the default Volkswagen Transporter. It joins several other Mk1 Transits in Versteinert’s photostream, and you can finn them all via the link above.

Four decades later, the Mk1’s great-grandson is here in the form of this 5-wide 2010s face-lifted Mk4 Transit crew-van (below) in ‘Abnormal Load Escort’ configuration. Make your own ‘Your Mom’ joke. Regular bloggee Ralph Savelsberg is its creator and there’s more to see of his excellent Transit, and the abnormal load it’s escorting, via the link above.

Allelys’ Arocs

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We regularly feature ginormous trucks here at The Lego Car Blog. Because we’re five. But today’s is rather smaller, being just seven studs in width, yet packing in as much detail as models several times its size. Built by regular bloggee Ralph Savelsberg, this Mercedes-Benz Arocs replicates the real world trucks run by British heavy haulage firm Allelys, and you can see more of it, the trailer it pulls, and a few of Ralph’s other superb small-scale haulers via the link above.

Keep the Fath

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‘Tis the season of love, wonder, and miracles. So here’s an Iranian short-range satellite-guided tactical ballistic missile system.

Mounted on an Iveco Trakker curtain-sided truck, the Fath-360 TEL missile system is so nondescript when covered up, it could be driving down any European street and no-one would know what was inside. Good thing one of Iran’s customers isn’t currently invading a European neighbour then.

Of course you might be wondering how sanctioned Iran, and its allies Russia and Syria, are getting their hands on an Italian truck on which to mount a ballistic missile system, particularly as Italy (along with the rest of the EU) are supporting Ukraine, the very country invaded by Iran’s key customer. Well, us too.

Whatever, this neat mini-figure scale replica of the Fath-360 missile system and the Iveco Trakker that transports it comes from previous bloggee Ralph Savelsberg, who has captured it superbly, particularly the ‘curtain’ stacked over the cab to allow deployment. There’s more to see on Flickr, and you can join some Russians driving an Iranian ballistic missile system covertly through a Ukrainian town, courtesy of Italy, via the link above.

Seahawk

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We’re back, although not with a car… This is a U.S. Navy Sikorsky MH-60S Seahawk, a multirole helicopter in service since the mid-’80s. Based on the U.S Army UH-60 Black Hawk, the Seahawk features folding rotor blades and tail, allowing it to store more easily on the ships from which it operates, and serves in Search and Rescue, Medevac, Anti-Submarine Warfare, Special Naval Warfare, and various other types of Naval airborne operations.

This splendid replica of the MH-60S Seahawk comes from Ralph Savelsberg, who has recreated the U.S Navy helicopter with fantastic attention to detail detail. Enhanced by accurate markings and photographed beautifully, there’s lots more of Ralph’s creation to see at his ‘Lego MH-60S Seahawk’ album on Flickr. Click the link above to land on a U.S. Navy amphibious assault ship and take a look.

Golden Warrior

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The ‘Golden Warriors’ might sound like a Japanese kid’s cartoon or an army in ‘Game of Thrones’, but they are in fact a U.S Navy strike fighter squadron based out of Virginia.

Flying the F/A-18A since 1986, the VFA-87 ‘Golden Warriors’ were deployed in Operation Desert Storm, Bosnia, and the second Iraq War, before switching to the upgraded F/A-18E Super Hornet in 2015, in which they shot down the first manned aircraft since 1999 (a Syrian Su-22), in the skies over Syria.

It’s the upgraded F/A-18E Super Hornet we have here, courtesy of TLCB Master MOCer Ralph Savelsberg (aka Mad Physicist), whose phenomenal recreation of the U.S Navy fighter is pictured on a slice of the carrier deck from which the aircraft operates.

Folding wing-tips, detailed armaments, and retractable landing gear all feature, and you can find all of the superb imagery at Ralph’s ‘F/A-18E Super Hornet’ album.

Battle of the Atlantic

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This TLCB Writer can think of little more terrifying in the Second World War than being part of an Atlantic Convoy, traversing the frigid waters all the while knowing that death lurked beneath at any moment. Little more that is, other than being on the aforementioned submerged death itself.

Nazi Germany built around 1,100 U-Boats during World War 2, of which almost 800 – or 2/3 of the fleet – were sunk.

This superb diorama of one of those 1,100 ships, depicted here breaking the waves of a choppy Atlantic, is the work of Ralph Savelsberg, who has captured not just the U-Boat but also the ocean in which it operates in spectacular realism.

Built as part of a display for the Brickfair Virginia show, there’s more to see of Ralph’s beautifully presented model at his ‘U-Boot Diorama’ album, and you can head out onto the waters of World War 2 via the link above.

Cometh the Harvest

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It’s been a relatively quiet week here at TLCB Towers, but we can end it with three thoroughly excellent models in one. This fabulous ‘Van der Vlist’ liveried DAF XF-105 truck, Gebruder Recker gooseneck trailer, and Claas Tucano 320 combine harvester are all the work of TLCB Master MOCer Ralph Savelsberg, who has captured each in astonishing detail.

More amazingly, each model is only mini-figure(ish) scale, yet packs in as much realism as models several times the size. There’s more to see of the whole superbly presented rig and its constituent parts at Ralph’s ‘DAF XF-105 and Claas Combine Harvester’ Flickr album, plus you can read his interview here at TLCB via the first link in the text above.

Escort Service

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As revealed when we recently interviewed, er… ourselves, the single worst thing about running a world famous moderately well-known Lego website is having to remove endless spam comments.

Crypto currency, luxury goods that are absolutely definitely genuine, pills to make things bigger, pills to make things smaller, and – of course – escorts.

Thus today’s post is for the aforementioned escort commenters (most likely ‘bots from East Asia), as we have not one, not two, but four escorts appearing on the site today.

All come from previous bloggee Ralph Savelsberg, and represent (from left to right) two Mercedes-Benz Sprinters, a Volkswagen Transporter, and a Volkswagen Caddy, each perfectly capturing its real-world counterpart in mini-figure scale, with more to see on Flickr.

Book your escort via the link in the text above, whilst we delete another dozen comments advertising dubious services.

The Lynx Effect

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This excellent 1:32 scale SH-14D Lynx helicopter was found by one of our Elves today. Built by Master MOCer Ralph Savelsberg aka Mad Physicist, the Lynx is constructed in Royal Netherlands Navy livery and includes powered rotor blades, courtesy of a vintage 12V LEGO motor hidden within it. There’s more of the model to see at Ralph’s ‘LEGO SH-14D Lynx helicopter album’ plus you can check out his interview here at TLCB via the first link in the text above.