In every second-hand toy store, pre-school, or forgotten box in the attic, a blocky beep-boop robot, batteries long-depleted, is waiting…
We’re all doomed when they finally rise against their human overlords, but until then we’ll enjoy this one by Flickr’s Shannon Sproule, who has channeled considerable retro-toy aesthetics into his brick-built homage.
There’s more to see at Shannon’s photostream and you can await the inevitable blocky robot uprising via the link above.
All is not what it seems today. Because this lovely Brio-esque wooden train is not a lovely Brio-esque wooden train at all, but a lovely Lego one.
Built by Maxx Davidson, this fantastic scaled-up wooden train runs on LEGO’s rail system, yet looks at first glance identical to the wooden railways that will be immediately familiar to anyone who has kids, has had kids, has been a kid, or has been anywhere near anywhere that has kids.
You can take a closer look at your childhood via the link above, whilst we eagerly await a Hot Wheels track, a red plastic boat, and one of those wire bead thingies that seem to be in every doctor’s surgery waiting area.
We’ve all wanted to do it. Build a desk-toy forklift that is. Well Flickr’s Nathan Hake did anyway, and has done so, with this neat and brilliantly-engineered desk-appropriate creation.
A knob at the back raises the forks, enabling the movement of a variety of pallet-based items, one of which is itself smaller forklift. If that one was lifting an even smaller forklift it’d be some kind of forklift inception…
We’ll move on before our brain melts, but you can check out more of Nathan’s desk-toy forklift in action at his photostream. Click the link above to climb onto his desk.
The coolest remote control car of the 1990s was, by far, the TYCO Rebound. Just take a look at the commercial, which is very probably the most ’90s thing ever filmed.
It sure worked on this TLCB Writer, but – alas – not his parents, who never did oblige. Now, decades later, Daniel Church has reawakened this writer’s unfulfilled longing with this stupendous brick-built replica of the indestructible two-sided RC car.
With a suite of Powered-Up components hidden inside, you can even drive Daniel’s creation off a small cliff just like the real thing. Probably.
There’s more of the model to see (including images showing it alongside the ’90s original) at Daniel’s ‘TYCO Rebound 4×4’ album on Flickr, and you can make the jump whilst asking your parents repeatedly for something they could never afford via the link in the text above.
LEGO’s 1,500 piece, £150, fully transforming 10302 Transformers Optimus Prime set got TLCB Elves very excited when we revealed it here last year. In fact we thought they could only be more hyped if Megan Fox herself arrived at TLCB Towers, at which point a few of the staff would likely have matched their fanaticism. However previous bloggee Ralph Savelsberg has proved there is even more excitement to be had, with his fantastic Optimus Prime ‘Combat Deck’.
Based on the Transformers G1 toy, Ralph’s creation attaches to the official 10302 set brilliantly, before unfolding to reveal an array of equipment essential in the protection of Earth. The toy’s boom-mounted rotating missile thingumy, combat stations, and a spring-fired ‘Roller’ armoured 6×6 car are all accurately recreated in brick form, as are the stickers and livery, which Ralph has replicated superbly via some cunning brickwork.
There’s a whole lot more to see at Ralph’s ‘Lego Optimus Prime with Custom Combat Deck’ album on Flickr, and you can join a gaggle of ridiculously excited Elves there by clicking the link above.
That lump of rock orbiting 550,000 miles above us all has only been landed on by one nation, the USA. But what if the Soviet Union had made it there too? Well the two countries would have fought over it, obviously.
Cue Shannon Sproule’s ‘Battle for the Moon‘, a retro-futuristic lunar conflict in which wind-up mechanoids, barely one step above pots-and-pans-robots, ‘battle for the ultimate high ground’. There’s more to see on Flickr, and you can blast off to pick a side via the link above!
*Link. Naturally.
“That’s not a car” we hear you thinking to yourselves. Er, well no, it isn’t. But it is probably one of the few vehicles on earth that – along with the Cozy Coupe Coupe – almost all of us have had a go driving. The primary coloured ‘Big Wheel’ tricycle is the shared beginning for countless lifetimes of automotive journeying, and Jacob sadovich‘s Lego recreation is so perfect we can almost hear the trundling of the wheels and feel the knee strain in getting it up the driveway. Go for a pedal at Jacob’s photostream via the link above – It may have been decades, but we bet you already know exactly how it drives.
Why is it that kid’s toys are used as horror movie staples (LEGO thankfully excepted)? Sentient dolls, those horrific clapping monkeys, and tricycles pedalled around a creepy old hotels.
Perhaps our subconscious is dialled into imagined horrors thanks to said genre of film, but we’re wary of this seemingly unridden tricycle by Flickr’s dicken lui.
We won’t be taking a closer look for fear of blood-filled elevators and terrifying twins, but you can make the jump to the probably-innocent brick-built toddler transport via the link above.
Hasbro’s ‘Moveable fighting man’ G.I. Joe wasn’t called that in TLCB’s home nation. He was known as ‘Action Man’, and this Writer’s parents still didn’t let him have one, what with him being ‘too violent’. In hindsight, they may have had a point.
But no matter, because here at TLCB we’re fantastically violent. Probably something to do with not being allowed Action Man toys as children…
Thus today’s creation, in the original American ‘G.I. Joe’ Action Man form, is a giant tracked ‘Wolverine armoured missile vehicle’ that was somehow deemed to be an acceptable toy. Not by this Writer’s parents of course.
Recreated in brick-form by Big Easy Bricks, there’s a rotating rocket launcher, opening ammo store and cockpit, plus authentic-looking G.I. Joe decals, and there’s more to see at Big Easy’s ‘G.I. Joe Wolverine’ album on Flickr.
Click the link above to take a look, whilst this TLCB Writer investigates counselling…
The Festival of Mundanity Competition is go! We want to see your yawn-inducing vehicles, whilst the guys at BrickNerd are after your tedious objects, and Flickr’s James Bush has managed to build something that qualifies for both!
The Little Tykes ‘Cozy Coupe’ has been staple of family backyard life for decades, and James’ build could only be more hum-drum if he’d pictured it not merrily being driven whilst Dad watches on, but parked beside the bins on a grey Tuesday.
James, get on that for some extra boring points!
You can see this entry, along with James’ equally unexciting Chrysler PT Cruiser, at his photostream, and you can read all about our mundane competition via the link above, including the awesome prizes on offer for the entries that bore us the most!
Gosh today’s title is tenuous, even for us. You see a mud pack is often a volcanic mask… Anyway, this is Orion Pax‘s ‘M.A.S.K Volcano’, a near perfect brick built replica of the mid-’80s Hasbro toy that accompanied the M.A.S.K cartoon TV show.
The show, designed mostly to sell toys, pitched the ‘Mobile Armoured Strike Kommand’ (spelt wrong because it’s cooler that way) against the ‘Vicious Evil Network Of Mayhem’ (VENOM), who seemingly took a very literal and non-secretive approach to their naming.
Beyond that, we’re not really sure what the show was about, but it did lead to toys that split down the middle to reveal a giant rotating cannon (as in the case of the Volcano here), that has got the Elves very excited.
Orion’s model transforms beautifully as per the original toy and there’s more to see at his photostream. Apply your mud pack via the link!
Your first car was your best car. Well, it was almost definitely your worst car, at least in TLCB’s home nation where astronomical insurance costs prevent new drivers from owning anything with an engine larger than a lawnmower, but it was still your first taste of freedom.
However step back around ten years from your first actual roadworthy* vehicle, and you may have owned something even more special. For some of you it might have been the gloriously lethal Radio Flyer Wagon, alternatively it could have been this, the marvellous Kettler Kettcar.
Produced from the 1960s right up until Kettler’s sad bankruptcy at the start of this year, the Kettcar was a superb design that taught handbrake turns to decades of children.
Along with that simple handbrake the Kettcar was also fitted with a rudimentary gearbox, enabling drive via the pedals or neutral for free-wheeling down big hills, where that handbrake would be hopelessly inadequate.
Recreating the pedal drive, handbrake, and gearbox is Clemens Schneider, whose brilliant Technic recreation of the Kettler Kettcar was suggested to us by a reader. In fact so accurate is Clemens’ Technic replica that it would probably drive just like the real thing if you were small enough to fit inside.
There’s more of the Kettcar to see at Clemens’ photostream – click the link above to pull the handbrake!
*Definition of roadworthiness is – in our case at least – loose.
G.I. Joe has been the default choice for any patriotic American boy since the 1960s. This is despite him being, well… a doll, and – we suspect – boyfriend/GBFF to Barbie on the side (we’ve never seen Ken and Joe in the same room at once… just sayin’).
No matter, because when he’s not wearing a hawaiian shirt or driving a pink convertible, Ken G.I. Joe gets access to some pretty awesome stuff. Stuff like this, an articulated tank/rocket launcher device entitled the ‘Cobra Maggot’.
Built by Big Easy Bricks making their TLCB debut, the Maggot is every bit as playable as the real 1987 G.I. Joe toy, with working tracks, an accessible control room, and two rocket launcher/cannon arrangements. There’s more to see of Big Easy’s Cobra Maggot on Flickr – take a look via the link above.
This is a 1950s Murray Torpedo Roadmaster, a pedal car based on the Buick design of the late ’40s-early ’50s, and it might be the vehicle that we want in real life more than anything else we’ve ever featured on this website. Although we’re probably a bit fat to get in one these days.
This utterly beautiful replica of the Torpedo Roadmaster comes from Jacob Sadovich, who has built and presented his brick-built recreation of the 1950s pedal car to absolute perfection. Custom chrome, working steering, and an accurate working pedal mechanism feature, and you can jump inside for a go at Jacob’s ‘Pedal Car’ album. Unless you’re a bit fat these days…
And split.
It’s 1969, Man has landed on the moon, the Jumbo Jet makes its debut, and Woodstock hosts 350,000 spectators at the greatest musical festival the world has ever known. Things couldn’t get any cooler. And indeed they didn’t, as the era of free love ended almost as precisely as the decade did, the oil crisis hit, the world went on strike, and everything became a shade of beige or brown.
Hot Wheels ended the decade on a high too though, with their spectacular concept ‘Splittin’ Image’, recreated here in beautiful accuracy by TLCB favourite Lino Martins, complete with oversize engine and twin canopies.
A little over fifty years later and history seems to be repeating itself, with the world spiralling towards some kind of bleak apocalypse, factories shut, hospitals full, and even brown making a comeback on cars. It seems a perfect time to revisit Splittin’ Image then, not just because it hinged on the pivot between two very different times (as we suspect we are too right now), but also because with two separate cockpits it’s perfect for social distancing!
Head to Lino’s photostream via the link above, isolate yourself in one of the cockpits, and hope things aren’t about to go all 1970s on us.