Tag Archives: The Lego Car Blog

A $1,000 Thank You

Some time ago WordPress, our landlords here at thelegocarblog.com, selected us as a pilot for their WordAds programme. Up until this selection TLCB was, in contrast to the proper Lego blogs, entirely advertisement free. Since then we have allowed the appearance of one or two advertisements per page (you can probably see one now, either above or below this post), managed through the WordAds programme.

These advertisements generate a small amount of revenue, and as we operate with an unpaid mythical-creature-based workforce our overheads are nice and low, even once we’ve paid for the Executive Washroom and Sauna.

This leaves us with a bit of a surplus, and because it’s a privilege to write for a million visitors a year, we don’t really feel like we need to keep it. And thus we owe all of you a huge thank you, because your visits, clicks and comments here at TLCB have – from one little ad – generated over $1,000 for good causes around the world so far.

The money raised through your visits has been used for projects as diverse as building essential facilities in India, children’s homes in Romania, the Syrian refugee crisis, the Red Cross, Unicef, and many more.

We’re mooting whether to restructure this site to allow a similar quantity of advertisements to show as the proper Lego blogs ($1,000 is great, but $20,000 would be better!), but we’re not sure about that yet. In the meantime, we’ll keep blogging, please keep clicking, and between us we can keep on doing a little bit of good : )

TLCB Team

We’re Three Today!

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Well, yesterday, but we weren’t paying attention. Anyway, yes – The Lego Car Blog is now three years old!

In the past 36 months we’ve blogged over 1,000 creations, approved over 2,000 comments, and received visitors from almost every country on earth. We’re also raising some useful money for charity too, thanks entirely to your visits and clicks.

You can let us know how we’re doing so far by adding a comment to the Feedback Page, you can share any post you see here via the buttons underneath each one, and if you’ve seen your work blogged here you can join your fellow bloggees on Flickr at the ‘Blogged by TLCB‘ group.

A heartfelt thanks to every reader

TLCB Team

Top of the MOCs

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The Lego Car Blog News!

As long-term readers will know, over the past two years we’ve been running the Master MOCers Series, in which we’ve interviewed the very best Lego vehicle builders anywhere in the world. In fact, if you were trying to score highly in Google’s page rankings you could say something like they’re the Top 10 Lego Car Builders Ever! Fact*.

With our final Master MOCer inducted into the Hall of Fame last month we now need a new series to fill the (rather large) shoes vacated by our Master MOCers.

So starting soon – and working in partnership with a popular Flickr-based Lego vehicle group – we’ll be bringing you a multi-part series showcasing the all-time Top 5 builds in a variety of Lego categories.

We’ll reveal more details in due course, in the meantime – and to neatly Segway towards the exciting new series – remind yourself of the Top 10 Lego Car Builders (fact*) by clicking on the link below.

The complete Master MOCers Series

The Top 10 Lego Car Builders Ever!*

(*This may not actually be a definite fact)

1000 Posts!

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One Thousand (and one)!

It’s been two and half years since the Elves were first released from their cages in TLCB Towers basement, and yesterday The Lego Car Blog’s one thousandth article was published! The Elves can’t take all the credit though, as around 100 blog posts are attributed to you our readers, or to the several guest bloggers who have written for the blog since its inception.

All one thousand of our articles are available to view in The Lego Car Blog Archives, just scroll down to the bottom of the page and pick a month, or enter a term into the Search function to see your chosen content.

You can also read all our official LEGO Set Reviews by clicking here, and you can flick back through our interviews with the best Lego builders on the net via the Master MOCers Series.

A huge thank you to each of you for your readership, without you this blog would just be the mutterings of some madmen. As always you can let us know what you think and you can suggest creations that might be of interest via the Feedback and Submission Suggestions page.

TLCB Team

We’re 2 Today!

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Two years ago today MOCpages, Flickr, Eurobricks and Brickshelf started to receive a few extra visitors each night. Always in the shadows and easily spooked, the new arrivals wandered through the vast halls of the online Lego Community in search of their quarry.

They were specially trained (by which we mean bribed and threatened) to seek out creations that had been overlooked by the mainstream Lego blogs. Creations that usually had engines, and wheels…

Today, 778 posts and 498,000 visitors later, The Lego Car Blog marks its second anniversary, and enters its toddler years. In that time we’ve brought you Interviews, Set Previews, and Reviews and of course, the best car and vehicle-related creations that the Lego Community has to offer.

We’ve made some mistakes too, such as annoying the Brothers Brick and sending a few Elves to Flickr knock-off Ipernity (Elves who are still M.I.A), but generally it’s been a great 2 years, largely thanks to you, our readers.

So as we enter the Terrible Twos, what does the future hold for The Lego Car Blog and for the car builders of the online Lego Community?

Well, to be honest, we’re not quite sure, and we think perhaps the two may take different paths. You see, since we started 2 years ago several blogs have stepped up and started to include vehicles in their posts, the newly created BrickNerd and the aforementioned Brothers Brick amongst them. This means there’s less of a need for The Lego Car Blog and perhaps our job is done, although our climbing hit rate may suggest otherwise.

We’ll see, but whatever the future of this blog and the Elves that work for it, Lego cars are finally getting the recognition they deserve.

TLCB Team

Explore The Lego Car Blog

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The Lego Car Blog has grown from its humble beginnings as the amateur LEGO-related musings of some incompetent writers, to… er, ok, it’s still basically that. But we do now have a variety of additional content available upon which you can feast your eye-holes. Here we run through what resides away from the main page.

1. Set Reviews

The Lego Car Blog’s resident anoraks have amassed a fairly extensive library of set reviews and set comparisons. These are impartial, honest assessments of some of the sets that the office collectively owns. To see what we’ve reviewed so far take a visit to the Set Review Library here.

2. Interviews

The Lego Car Blog Elves are occasionally quite formidable, especially in large groups. You might be able to take on three or four of them, but what if there’s a fifth, hiding somewhere behind you and armed with a pencil? As such we’ve managed to secure interviews with some of the best builders around, with only a few wounds to patch up once they got here. These have been compiled in our ‘Master MOCer’ Series, where you can read about how each builder got started in the LEGO Community, what influences them, and what they’ve got coming up. You can read all our interviews here, or by clicking on the ‘Interviews’ tab in the main menu.

3. Search

All the content that has appeared on The Lego Car Blog is available to view in our archives by using the search function that can be found at the bottom of every page. The ‘tags’ at the foot of each post are also hyperlinked, allowing you to find similar content. For example, you could view all of the Set Previews that have appeared on The Lego Car Blog by typing ‘set preview’ into the search bar, or you could find all of the science-fiction posts by either typing ‘sci-fi’ into the search bar, or by clicking the relevant ‘tag’ attributed to one of the posts on the main page.

4. Feedback and Submission Suggestions

The Lego Car Blog is, we hope, a nicely accessible site. You can let us know what you think of us, what we’ve missed, and what you’d like to see by adding your thoughts to the Feedback Page here. You can also suggest creations that you think should be here. Not your own, as no-one likes a show-off, but nicety is often rewarded in the LEGO Community. Suggest a creation that you think deserves to be publicised and someone may do the same for you. To read what we look for and ensure your suggestion complies we recommend reading the submission criteria here.

And there you have it! Take a look around, let us know what you think, and if you’ve got an idea for something that you’d like to see here on The Lego Car Blog let us know; it’s your site too.

TLCB Team

Chatterbox

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Yesterday one of you guys, the readers who enable this blog to happen, added the 1,000th comment to The Lego Car Blog! So a big thank you from all of us here as we approach the half-a-million views mark. In less exciting news we’ve also deleted almost 15,000 spam comments. Most of these are for fake sunglasses or ‘medz’, but a few are for things far less savoury. It reminds us what a dark place the internet can be, and that hopefully we’re one of the good guys. As always, you can let us know what you think in the usual ways. Onwards to half-a-million!

New LEGO Set Review Library!

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You can now find all The Lego Car Blog’s LEGO set reviews in one place!

The Lego Car Blog Team is pleased to announce the arrival of a new feature at The Lego Car Blog! We’ve been busy cataloging all our past set reviews so that we can bring you a new ‘Reviews‘ tab in the main menu; a resource that contains a library of every LEGO set we’ve ever reviewed! Clicking on a picture will take you straight to the review for that set, or to the comparison page where it’s matched against a similar set of a different vintage.

All newly reviewed sets will be added to this Review Library as well as continuing to appear on the homepage, and you can still find all our reviews via the Search or Category functions if you wish.

As always you can let us know what you think of the new Review Library via the Feedback page or the comments, and if you’d like us to review a particular set (or if you’d like to review one and get your name here on The Lego Car Blog) you can get in contact in the usual ways.

TLCB Team

500 Posts!

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Picture courtesy of PetricaK

Five Hundred (and one)!

Today a rather exciting milestone was reached here at The Lego Car Blog. We’ve published five hundred posts! Well, five hundred and one including this one, but that’s not as snappy a title. Fittingly it’s one of of our newest writers who hit the big five-oh-oh too.

So a rare congratulations to the Elves (we may get them a cake, if we’re feeling generous), and also to you, our readers, without whom we’d have no reason to write. You’ve also contributed 40 or so suggestions to the grand total! (But you don’t get cake.)

As always, keep your suggestions coming, and if you’re interested in joining the team here at The Lego Car Blog, get our attention via the Feedback page in the main menu.

TLCB Team

The Lego Car Blog Advertising Update

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Times Square Advertising courtesy of Sean Kenney

Today something new has appeared on The Lego Car Blog. You’ve probably noticed it underneath this post. Yes, we’ve become corporate sell-outs. WordPress (our landlords) are trialling something called WordAds and The Lego Car Blog, a little to our surprise, has been selected as a Beta tester for the programme.

What does this mean?

The Lego Car Blog will feature an advert, typically underneath the first post on each page, sourced via Google or another provider.

What are the benefits?

Potentially, as we grow, we could receive earnings to cover the cost of running the site. The first payment is made at $100. Despite our success, with just one ad on the blog this could take two years or more to reach.

What type of adverts will show?

This will depend on your search history among other factors. They will be mostly video based (and silent) using YouTube’s platform. So far all the adverts that we’ve seen have been for large reputable multinationals, including a car company, a well known photocopier manufacturer, a bank, a university, and a leading brand of toothpaste.

Do I have to do anything differently?

Nope. If the advert shown isn’t of interest you can continue using The Lego Car Blog as normal. If it is, and there was one featuring Beyonce that caught our eye, then click on it and you’ll be taken to the advertiser’s webpage.

How can I help support The Lego Car Blog?

We thought about running an ‘Adopt-an-Elf’ scheme, but you really don’t want to adopt one. However, you can support TLCB by Following us via the link at the bottom of this page, Linking to us if you have a MOCpages, Flickr or other LEGO-sharing account, and Sharing our stories around the web. We know lots and lots of you are doing this, so a big and heartfelt thank you from everyone here!

For more information on The Lego Car Blog’s partnership with WordAds please click here.

TLCB Team

thelegocarblog.com!

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thelegocarblog.com!

We love our WordPress landlords. They’ve given us a robust, moderately flashy website that provides an attractive facade to hide the amatuerish incompetence going on behind the scenes in The Lego Car Blog office.

However, despite our love for the WordPress guys, we weren’t really fans of the ‘.wordpress’ in our domain name. So…. drumroll… now it’s gone!

The Lego Car Blog is now available at simply ‘thelegocarblog.com’, which makes far more sense. Fear not if you’ve linked to us using the old ‘.wordpress’ URL, these links will still work.

We’re also raking in sufficient hits for advertising potential. As we approach the 1/3 million views mark site advertising could become a possibility. Let us know what you think about this in the usual ways; via the Comments or the Feedback and Submission Suggestions page.

Thanks for your readership, whether you’ve been with us since the beginning or you’ve discovered us for the first time today. We’ll strive to continue bringing you the best Lego vehicles that the web has to offer.

TLCB Team

Write for The Lego Car Blog / Get Featured!

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Become a TLCB Team member!

We’re looking for new models to blog, and new writers to blog them!

If you’re part of the online LEGO community and would like to take your involvement a step further, you could become one of our staff writers!

We’re looking for English-speaking (although it doesn’t have to be your first language), eloquent and enthusiastic builders to join our team. If you think you might like to start your blogging career with us then drop us a note in the usual way; via the Comments or Feedback Submissions and Suggestions page, and we’ll be in touch! Ideally you’d need to be able to blog at least one creation a week, and we can offer support and draft checks if you’ve never blogged before.

And as always, we’re constantly on the look out for new creations to feature. If you’ve found a creation that our slovenly Elves have missed then contact us via the routes highlighted above. If it’s new(ish), high quality and original, we’ll feature it here on The Lego Car Blog.

A huge thank you to those who have suggested creations already. Many have appeared on this page, and if you haven’t been successful yet, keep building – it could be your turn next!

The Lego Car Blog Team

…

1/4 Million!!

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250,000 visitors!

Last week one of you, our readers, became the 250,000th person to visit The Lego Car Blog! That’s nearly the population of Iceland! As a present to ourselves we’ll be upgrading to ‘pro’ at some point soon, meaning we’ll drop the ‘wordpress’ from our site address and possibly also earn advertising revenue, although we’re still weighing that one up.

Anyhow, thank you hugely for your readership, we hope you continue to enjoy the Elves’ findings, and as always you can give us your feedback and submission suggestions via the link in the top menu. If you’re interested in writing for us let us know too, as we’re open to new authors and sources.

Onwards to a million!

Happy Birthday Lego Car Blog!!

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A year ago yesterday, the bolts on some small nondescript metal cages were quietly slid back. As the doors of the cages swung silently open, the little figures previously contained within them stepped tentatively out, and began cautiously wandering towards the light slicing through the gloom from the open door at the end of the room.

We watched proudly from the shadows as the creatures made their way across the floor, then in perplexion as they paused and began shuffling around anxiously, and finally in annoyance as the little sods started pushing one another towards the exit and a fight broke out. The blast from an air-horn soon emptied the room, and thus The Lego Car Blog Elves were released into the world to start their unending search for the best Lego vehicles the web has to offer.

In the year that’s passed since that first day we’ve posted over 230 of the Elves’ finds. Creations, news stories and community updates have all found their way onto these pages, earning us 130,000 views, 300 comments (plus nearly 4,000 in spam) and recognition from The LEGO Group.

We’ve lost a few Elves along the way, through canine intervention mostly, and we’ve had to diffuse more than one riot, but in the main it’s been a complete joy publishing the works of some of the best vehicle builders in the LEGO community.

So, from all at The Lego Car Blog, a massive thank you to every one of you that’s visited, commented, or seen their creation featured on these pages. Here’s to our second year!

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The Lego Car Blog News!

The Top 10 Lego Car Builders Ever!*

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One Thousand (and one)!

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You can now find all The Lego Car Blog’s LEGO set reviews in one place!

TLCB Team

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Five Hundred (and one)!

TLCB Team

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TLCB Team

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thelegocarblog.com!

We love our WordPress landlords. They’ve given us a robust, moderately flashy website that provides an attractive facade to hide the amatuerish incompetence going on behind the scenes in The Lego Car Blog office.

However, despite our love for the WordPress guys, we weren’t really fans of the ‘.wordpress’ in our domain name. So…. drumroll… now it’s gone!

The Lego Car Blog is now available at simply ‘thelegocarblog.com’, which makes far more sense. Fear not if you’ve linked to us using the old ‘.wordpress’ URL, these links will still work.

We’re also raking in sufficient hits for advertising potential. As we approach the 1/3 million views mark site advertising could become a possibility. Let us know what you think about this in the usual ways; via the Comments or the Feedback and Submission Suggestions page.

Thanks for your readership, whether you’ve been with us since the beginning or you’ve discovered us for the first time today. We’ll strive to continue bringing you the best Lego vehicles that the web has to offer.

TLCB Team

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We’re looking for new models to blog, and new writers to blog them!

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