Proving you don’t need a huge pile of bricks to make something great is Joao Campos and his lovely fictional ‘TR-14 Brickingham’ roadster. Joao hasn’t used many pieces, but the ones he has are employed brilliantly – even being positioned upside-down in places. See more of his classic roadster on MOCpages.
Our Elves tend to favour big creations, with which they can run down their colleagues and smush them into the carpet. But here in TLCB office we like small creations too, showing what skill and clever parts usage can achieve over big budgets and unlimited bricks. Here are three of the best uploaded to the interweb this week. From left to right;
All are proof you don’t need access to a Legoland-sized pile of pieces to build something great. If you’ve found a small creation that you think should appear here you can let us know – just drop us a comment at the Feedback page.
We balance out today’s posts with something befitting the beautiful sunny weather we have outside TLCB office. This lovely little Model Team Datsun Roadster is the work of TLCB regular Senator Chinchilla, and it’s earned a very happy Elf a delicious yellow Smartie. See more of the diminutive Datsun on Flickr.
*You might think this is just another exceeding witty (yeah right!) TLCB title, however it is in fact the name given to the very first Nissan (Datsun) ever manufactured. Yes, it really is!
Mazda’s MX-5 / Miata is one of TLCB office’s very favourite cars. Small, light, cheap and enormous fun, it’s just like the Elves. Apart from you’d need to replace ‘and enormous fun’ with ‘little shits’.
Sorry if we’re grumpy today, the Elves started one hell of a fight last night after we let them watch some of the World Cup. With no known nationality the Elves tend to support whichever team is more violent, and thus when a Columbian kneed a Brazilian in the spine one of them immediately replicated the move on a colleague, sparking a mass Elf-fight. Sigh.
With order restored and the main protagonists removed from the office by way of TLCB catapult, we can get back to blogging cars. This one is small, light, cheap and enormous fun, and it comes from previous bloggee Rhys’ Pieces. His brilliant Mazda MX-5 Miata features a host of tasteful* modifications that are seen regularly on the thousands of Miatas that race every weekend. To see more of his excellent model take a trip to Flickr via the link above.
*Apart from the massive camber (or ‘stance’). Which always sucks. Why Rhys, why?
Originally designed and produced by Lotus, the remarkable Super 7 has been in production for well over half a century. Caterham Cars bought the rights to the design in the mid-’70s and it’s been the mainstay of their business ever since.
A wonderfully simple car in real life, the Super 7 is actually fiendishly difficult to recreate from Lego; just working out how to let the front wings turn with the wheels gives us a headache. Carl Greatrix wasn’t phased though, and he’s recreated the British icon with such attention to detail it’s quite possible his models are of higher quality than many real Sevens built by Caterham customers.
Much as we enjoy building things we think we’d leave the construction of a real Seven to the guys in the Caterham factory. Likewise we’re fairly sure that the quality of Carl’s builds will take some beating. See just how good his pair of Super 7s are by clicking the link to Flickr above.
It’s sunny here at TLCB Towers and that makes both us and the Elves a bit dozy. Luckily Chris Elliott, one of our Guest Bloggers, joins us to pen today’s post;
Channeling his inner European luxury car designer, Tobias Munzert brings us this gorgeous remote-controlled concept car in stunning red with wide silver rims à la Ferrari. Utilizing both System and Technic parts this model is creatively constructed and wonderful to look at from all angles. You can check out more pictures of this beauty (in addition to more of Mr. Munzert’s work) on his Flickr photostream here, or via his MOCpages account.
We love the Mazda MX-5 Miata (Eunos in some markets) here at The Lego Car Blog. Often called ‘girly’, or ‘gay’ by sexist homophobes with a gentleman’s area deficit, the MX-5 is one of the best handling cars money can by, and – if you go for a first generation ‘NA’ model – you really don’t need a lot of money at all. This makes the little Mazda an ideal weapon of choice for modifiers and racers.
Previous ‘Featured TFOL‘ and Guest Blogger AadenH has recreated this popular track day sight in Lego form, including all the modifications you’re likely to find on any number of MX-5s that frequent the world’s racetracks every weekend. You can see all the photos of AadenH’s Lego Mazda on Flickr here, with thanks to our readers who suggested this creation via the Feedback and Submission Suggestions page.
Ever since they ripped open the delivery bag and saw the cover art on the 31006 Highway Speedster, the Elves have been playing the Miami Vice title music. Fortunately it’s on a TV Tunes of the Eighties playlist and we get to enjoy the Airwolf theme every now and again. Sharp little fingernails had soon ripped open the four bags of parts, eager to be zooming their white Ferrari lookalike across the floor and handbrake turning it on the tiles of the TLCB executive washroom & sauna. Once we’d helped the Elves rescue the tyres from under the TLCB deluxe minibar, they set to work on the 61 stages of the main build. As with the 31005 Construction Hauler this might seem like a lot of stages but this set’s starting age is just 7 years old and so the number of steps is understandable. Having said this, Step 61 is to turn the car the right way up, which even the Elves managed without getting too confused.
All three builds in this set follow a basic, studs up configuration, with some touches of SNOT work. The chassis for each of the models are two 16 stud, old-school Technic beams and the car gradually builds up using an impressive selection of slopes, curves and cheeses. The rear end has the most SNOT with a nice, Ferrari style lighting bar and a lifting glass cover for the engine. Disappointingly, the engine is perhaps the weakest part of the build, being made from just six 1×1 round plates and a couple of 1×2 grille tiles. There’s space for a lot more and it’s a great opportunity to do a bit creative building. The Elves got very excited at step 44, with the addition of a 1×1 round tile in trans-red. This sits inside the air scoop on the bonnet, almost like KITT’s sensor, which provoked a change of 80’s theme music for a while. Further steps build and attach the working, supercar style scissor doors and more body trim on the front of the car. This includes a neat front light cluster, which uses minifigure brackets for some SNOT. Surprisingly the wing mirrors aren’t colour co-ordinated with the rest of the bodywork, something of an omission for an expensive looking supercar. The glass roof neatly seals onto the windscreen, though the cockpit is hard to see into. This is no bad thing, as it is very sparsely furnished. Once the wheels are added, you’re left with a 10 wide by 22 long sports car. The build quality is well up to sustaining the odd crash into a skirting board or tumble from a table. The axles through the chassis (as opposed to clipped-on wheels) and low centre of gravity, give great performance for zooming across carpets in a straight line. The Elves managed runs of over 7 metres along the TLCB decking.
As with other sets in the Creator series, this set comes complete with an instruction book for each of the three builds. This will be a relief to parents and Elf keepers alike, as they’re spared the task of having to download and print instructions from Lego’s website. It’s a horrible sight to see an over-curious Elf dragged into the giant TLCB Lego instructions printer and rolled out flat on the other side. Apart from the waste of paper, it takes forever to get the pipe into their mouths to pump them up again.
The second build is a 16×8 tow truck. Again, this is a mainly conventional, solid Lego construction. A nice bit of SNOT work converts the sports car’s low profile windscreen into a flatter screen on the truck and clips it on quite neatly. The crane moves, pivoting on the back axle and friction pins. A few more parts could have added something more than the little tow hook but this set already has loads of parts for the price. The third build is a Lotus 7 type, front engined roadster. In common with the other models, this car is solidly built for zooming across floors, using conventional techniques with a bit of SNOT on the side.
This set provides good value for money. Its 286 parts currently retail in the UK for around £12.00 or $22.00 in the USA. For the same price, you get just 113 parts in the 79005 Wizard Battle set from the Lord of the Rings range. The set also includes some fairly rare parts. There are two of the white 93273 1x4x2/3 plate with bow, which currently sell on Bricklink for US $0.30 each and aren’t available from a UK vendor. A down side of all of the Creator series for younger builders might be the lack of minifigures. As we noted in the review of 31005, licensed sets are often minifigure rich but lacking in basic bricks with which to be creative and build your own creations. The 31006 Highway Speedster is a great source of a good variety of white bricks to help supplement any Lego collection.
With its value for money, variety of parts and three different alternative builds, 31006 is a great set for the young or old builder. It rates a 9/10 for value & contents and perhaps just an 8/10 for style because of the lack of detail in the engine bay of the main build.
If you’d like to see the complete catalogue of The Lego Car Blog’s set reviews simply click on the ‘Reviews’ tab in the menu.
These three Porsche-ish sports cars were found on Flickr. The Elf responsible expected three meal tokens (and was sorely mistaken), but nevertheless it’s a neat find. Eric Badis is the builder and you can see more here.
One of our Brickshelf-based Elves returned with this today, a beautiful fully-studless RC car in an eye-popping paint scheme. Underneath that bright bodywork is a Power Functions RC system including an ‘L’ drive motor and return-to-centre steering. VKyppwnsall is the builder behind it and you can see all the details, including the RC chassis design, on Brickshelf.
Simple is best sometimes. Marcus Paul aka Er0l keeps it clean with his 6-wide red convertible. See more here.
Chris Elliott recently pointed out we hadn’t featured any vintage cars for a while, then offered to rectify this with his own imagined vintage car, the 1927 ‘Bruegger’ Drophead. Points for being so forward Chris! Still, it is a lovely creation. You can see more on Flickr.
This gorgeous classic sports car is the work of Senator Chinchilla on MOCpages. It’s a Sunbeam Tiger which, much like the far more famous AC Cobra, is a light British sports car with a huge American Ford V8 squeezed under the hood.
Unlike the AC Ace, on which the Cobra was based, the beautiful Sunbeam Alpine base-car was a success in it’s own right – far more so than the V8 Tiger version. Sadly Roots, Sunbeam’s parent company, were bought by Chrysler in 1967, who couldn’t allow a Ford V8-engined car to continue in the range, and thus killed it off (before killing the whole company off too…).
The Senator’s Model Team version features opening doors, hood and trunk, and has the most important Tiger feature of all; a working V8. See more at the link above.
*For those that don’t understand the title reference, click here.**
**Unless you’re Dutch.
The Elves are still hard at work, scouring the ‘net for the best Lego vehicle creations built by Lego fans. These two come from de-marco on Flickr, who’s used some ace SNOT techniques to create simple but original looking bodywork for his Town style tow-truck and sports car. See more at the link above.
Angka Utama has an impressive back catalogue of over 160 micro-scale cars over on MOCpages. It includes both real and fantasy creations, in a variety of styles and colours. His latest creation is rather like a Swiss watch. It’s small, cleverly designed, packed with moving parts and powered by clockwork. The Elves were particularly attracted to the “Redster”, as they can open the bonnet, the boot and the doors to sit on its white seat. The car is built on a pull-back motor chassis. Unfortunately this means that the Elves have been zooming across the office floor all morning without having to exchange their food tokens for motor batteries.
This post was kindly written by Guest Contributor (and previous blogee) David Roberts. Check out his own wonderful creations here.