Tag Archives: Speed Champions

Porsche Pair

It’s a Porsche sort of day here at TLCB, with two more joining the prior proper Porsche.

These two Speed Champions Porsches come from their endurance stable, bookending it across half a century.

Built by previous bloggee SFH_Bricks, there’s more to see of the 1975 917KH and 2025 963RSP on Flickr, and you can take a closer look via the link above.

Cease & Desist


Italian lifestyle brand and occasional car maker Ferrari are rather enthusiastically legalistic. Even if you legitimately buy one of their products and decide to have some fun with the badges (as electronic music producer Deadmau5 knows), they’ll send you a letter threatening court action. Because you modified your car. Something to do with brand protection apparently, which is a bit rich considering all the tat they sell with their logo on.

All of which means Flickr’s Sharpspeed can probably expect a call from Ferrari’s lawyers, because his Speed Champions ‘Montichiari’ looks almost exactly like a Ferrari Daytona. That is to say, really good.

There’s more of the ‘Montichiari’ to see at his photostream via the link above so take a look before Ferrari get it removed.

Aston Honda

If Formula 1 pre-season testing is to believed, newly formed Aston Martin Honda are in big trouble. And if we’re honest we found Aston’s move to Honda bit odd seeing as Mercedes-Benz AMG part own Aston Martin road cars, provide their engines and electrics, and have a good F1 powertrain available to buy. Still, at least it won’t change Lance Stroll’s performance, as he was at the back anyway.

Cue today’s double, from both Aston Martin and Honda (via Acura), this time with competing endurance sports cars.

Constructed by TLCB regular SFH_Bricks, the Speed Champions Aston Martin Valkyrie AMR-LMH #23 IMSA and Acura ARX-06 MSR #93 capture their real-world counterparts brilliantly, thanks in no small part to the simply outstanding liveries and custom-printed tyres.

There’s more to see of each via the links above, and let’s hope Aston Martin Honda solve their problems soon. Not for Lance Stroll obviously, but Alonso’s there too…

Ridge Racers

These days car manufacturers are delighted to work with video games makers. What you drive virtually as a kid may one day influence what you decide to drive for real. But back in the ’90s video game licensing was still rather hit-and-miss, which meant there was a glorious variety of eccentrically-named vehicles available that were inspired by – or downright copies of – real world cars.

Namco’s ‘Ridge Racer’ was one such title that eschewed licensing in favour of some tremendous own-brewed vehicles, including the ‘Assoluto Bisonte’, ‘Terrazi Troop’, ‘Age Solo Dirigient’, and – our favourite – the ‘Lizard Detector’.

Flickr’s Studworks takes us straight back to racing circa-1998 with his brilliant Speed Champions homage to the cars of ‘Ridge Racer Type 4’, complete with superb replica liveries printed by Brickstickershop.

Building instructions and access to the stickers are available, and you can fire up your PS1 to take the ‘Lizard Detector’ up ‘Wonderhill’ via Studworks’ ‘Ridge Racer Type 4 Cars’ album here!

Insert Hippy

We maintain that the scariest vehicle – other than a government-registered SUV in Minneapolis of course – is the Volkswagen Transporter camper, what with them being almost exclusively driven by top-knot wearing, ethnic peace crisp eating, alternative lifestyle evangelists. And now that we’ve successfully antagonised both the hard-right and hard-left in one sentence (there’s no bias here!), on to the model!

This neat Volkswagen ‘T3’ camper comes from Flickr’s HCKP13, who’s captured the ’80s bus brilliantly in brick form. There’s more of the model to see at HCKP13’s photostream, and you can head to a parking lot outside Starbucks to steal the free WiFi whilst bemoaning capitalism via the link above!

LEGO 77258 Speed Champions F1 Academy Car | Set Preview

Alternatively titled “LEGO go racing!”. Alternatively alternatively titled “Women in the workplace“. Yes, this is the brand new LEGO 77258 Speed Champions F1 Academy Car, and it replicates LEGO’s entry of a real car in the F1 Academy 2026 Season! Which is just like F1. Only worse. And just as gender uniform.

However, the F1 Academy’s lack of gender diversity is because it’s nearly 2026 and there are no women drivers in Formula 1, and nor have there been for forty years.

Cue Formula 1’s investment in the F1 Academy, a spec-series championship for female drivers only, on par with Formula 4, into which LEGO will enter under the banner ‘LEGO Racing’ with Dutch driver Esmee Kosterman.

Wearing a LEGO Friends-esque livery, the new LEGO Racing F1 Academy car aims to inspire a new generation of girls to get into motorsport, and brings a new Speed Champions set into the range to boot.

With new wheels and tyres, a funky new mini-figure crash helmet and steering yolk, plus stickers replicating Esme’s real 2026 LEGO Racing F1 Academy car, we think 77258 is a fantastic addition to the Speed Champions line-up, with a thoroughly decent message behind it too.

You’ll be able to get your hands on the new 201-piece F1 Academy Car for $28 / £22 when the 2026 F1 Academy season begins in March, around the same time the sexist pigs in Formula 1 begin their own 2026 campaign.

On the Wings of an… um, Seagull

Seagulls are roundly disliked in TLCB’s home nation. Found on rubbish dumps or in British seaside resorts (which amount to the same thing), they make irritating ‘CAAAW!’ noises, crap all over the place, and mug people for their chips. However in car form, they’re rather wonderful…

This is the mid-’50s Mercedes-Benz 300SL ‘Gullwing’, perhaps the only time a coupe has been more desirable than the roadster, thanks entirely to those magnificent doors.

This splendid Speed Champions version, complete with the aforementioned gullwing doors, comes from previous bloggee SFH_Bricks, and with building instructions available you can recreate it for yourself. There’s more to see at SFH’s ‘1954 Mercedes-Benz 300SL’ album and you can CAAAW, crap all over the place, and steal someone’s chips via the link above.

Space Race

The mid-’90s were a high watermark for Renault. Their Espace multi-purpose-vehicle was a smash hit, creating an entirely new class of car in Europe that other manufacturers scrambled to copy, whilst on track their V10 Formula 1 engine was winning absolutely everything with Williams and Benetton. And then in 1995, in moment of utter genius, they decided to merge the two…

The result was the Renault Espace F1, a one-off carbon-fibre minivan with a mid-mounted 800bhp V10 F1 engine, a top speed of nearly 200mph, and publicity other manufacturers could only dream of.

This fantastic recreation of Renault’s unhinged MPV is the work of Flickr’s Sergio Batista, and features replica decals, 3D-printed wheels, LED lights, a detailed engine and brick-built suspension, plus – in authentic Espace tradition – space for multiple mini-figures. There’s lots more of the model to see at Sergio’s photostream you can race back to when Renault were on top via the link above.

Barracuda*

If TLCB Elves were to design a car, it’d probably look like a ’70s Plymouth Barracuda. Lime green bodywork, a black hood with a giant scoop in the middle of it, racing stripes, and an enormous V8 engine packing up to 425bhp from over 7 litres, the Hemi ‘Cuda was wildly different to the cars trundling around our home nation at the time.

Cue this splendid Speed Champions scale recreation of Plymouth’s third-generation Barracuda from previous bloggee gnat.bricks, which includes all of the aforementioned attributes plus -and more unusually at this scale – a brick-built drivetrain, including  full-length exhausts, gearbox, driveshaft and differential, and steering arms/suspension. These don’t function of course, but then neither did the steering/suspension of the real ‘Cuda.

There’s more of gnat’s brilliant Barracuda to see at his ‘CUDA SC’ album on Flickr, and you can jump back to ’70s America via the link above, whilst clicking the link below for the most appropriate soundtrack imaginable.

*Today’s excellent title song. Of course.

LEGO 77256 Speed Champions Time Machine from Back to the Future | Set Preview

Great scott! It’s the brand new LEGO 77256 Speed Champions Time Machine from Back to the Future!

Already available as the 1,900-piece 10300 Back to the Future Time Machine, Doc Brown’s Delorean-based time machine will shortly be available in Speed Champions form!

With 357 pieces including brand new Doc and Marty mini-figures, 77256 recreates cinema’s most iconic car in ‘Back to the Future’s first and second movie configurations, with the protagonists able to sit side-by-side inside and accurate time-travelling modifications included.

The set even includes realistic ‘Delorean Motor Company’ decals without the official licensing, but seeing as the movies came too late to save Delorean, they’re probably not in a position to sue…

You’ll be able to get your hands on the new 77256 set in the very near future for $28 / £22, and we think it looks fantastic. It’s almost like LEGO travelled back in time to repeal their previous effort…

Ridge Racer

It’s the mid-’90s, and the peak of racing games involved far too few pixels, minimal physics, empty highway tunnels, and an array nondescript Japanese-esque cars. Cars like this one, the ‘F/A Racing Kamata Fiera’ from 1993’s ‘Ridge Racer’.

Wonderfully constructed by Flickr’s StudWorks, this Speed Champions homage to the earliest days of Playstation racing captures the fictional racer brilliantly, including an authentically recreated ‘Namco’ livery on its appropriately blocky exterior.

There’s more to see at StudWorks’ ‘Ridge Racer – F/A Racing Kamata Fiera’ album and you can join us on a pixilated mountain highway in 1993 via the link above. And if you have no idea what racing games were like three decades ago, click here to see just how good you have it now!

Rallye Raid

France may not be the first nation that springs to mind when thinking about the world’s best off-roaders. British Land Rovers, American Jeeps, Japanese Land Cruisers… sure, but the French? Except they are. By miles.

The originators of expedition rallies, French drivers have won the Dakar more times than any other nation, which makes sense seeing as the race used to start in Paris. This is one of the amazing machines that propelled a Frenchman to a Dakar win, the wild Citroen ZX Rallye Raid.

Based (kinda) on a small French family car, the ZX Rallye Raid won a total of four Dakar Rallies, cementing itself as one of the greatest rally-raid endurance racers of all time. This fantastic Speed Champions recreation of the 1994 Citroen ZX Rallye Raid Evo 4 encapsulates the iconic off-roader brilliantly in brick, and comes from regular bloggee SFH_Bricks.

With removable front and rear clamshells, superbly authentic decals, and mechanicals as detailed as the exterior, SFH’s Citroen ZX Rallye Raid is a winner in brick form too, and there’s more to see on Flickr. Jump to the desert somewhere in North Africa (or an autoroute just south of Paris) circa-1994 via the link above.

Skyline Silhouette

The Lego Car Blog Elves are running about making ‘Vroooom!!’ noises today, courtesy of one of their number finding this. It’s a Nissan Skyline ‘Super Silhouette’ racer, as built by Flickr’s Sergio Batista in Speed Champions form and – despite the annoying noises it has produced in our mythical workforce – it’s a brilliant example of small-scale building. Clever SNOT techniques and superb decals make Sergio’s Skyline far more realistic than its size would suggest, and there’s more to see at his photostream via the link above.

American Achievement

It’s the day after that Alaskan summit, in which presidents Trump and Putin held, to quote Trump, a “10 out of 10” discussion, in which they “got along great”. Except it achieved nothing at all. Still, we suppose Trump and Putin do have much in common, so that’s nice.

But when America does put its mind to Europe, it can achieve great things. Cue the Cadillac V-Series.R, General Motors’ entrant into the burgeoning WEC Hypercar class, and now a race winner sitting third in the sizeable top-tier class of the championship. Which bodes well for Cadillac’s forthcoming entry to Formula 1.

Built on an Italian Dallara chassis and run by the British Jota Sport team, it also proves that America can benefit from European expertise. We hope that might be remembered in round two of the Ukrainian peace talks that perhaps should include Ukraine.

Oh yes, the car! This superb Speed Champions replica of the Hertz Team Jota Cadillac V-Series.R comes from prolific Le Mans Hypercar builder SFH_Bricks, who has captured the racer and its golden Hertz livery beautifully. Building instructions are available and you can head to the heart of European racing in an Italian-British-American collaboration via the link above.

In the Shadows

Here around TLCB Towers the default vehicle of choice is a black-on-black SUV with a vanity plate. Because the British public have no imagination. But black-on-black can look awesome, as evidenced here by Flickr’s SFH_Bricks and this brilliant mid-’70s Porsche 911 Turbo, which is both constructed and presented in black. Photographing an all-black build can be a tricky exercise, but SFH has nailed it, placing his creation on a black background with clever highlighting, and you can join him in the shadows via the link above.