There aren’t many Japanese cars that can challenge bona fide supercars, however the Toyota Supra Mark IV did just that, being faster and having more power than 1990s supercar exotica.
Cue this splendid Technic example, which is constructed only out of the parts from a genuine supercar; the LEGO Technic 42154 Ford GT.
Built by Eurobricks’ Alex Ilea, the Supra features working steering and suspension, a piston engine under an opening hood, and opening doors too.
There’s more to see at the Eurobricks forum and at Alex’s Bricksafe gallery, where links to building instructions can also be found, and you can convert your 52154 set from Detroit to JDM via the links above.
Toyota like the word ‘Cruiser’ in their model names. The Land Cruiser, so called because it was basically a copy of a Land Rover and ‘Rover’ was already taken, the Urban Cruiser, which sounds like someone looking to pay for, er… night time affection, and this; the FJ Cruiser, which was named after the original Land Cruiser that was itself named to mimic the Land Rover.
Unoriginal naming aside however, Toyota 4x4s are of course superior to Land Rovers in every way, and the FJ Cruiser even added a dose of rare Toyota funkiness, with suicide doors, a contrast roof, a wraparound rear window, and three windshield wipers.
This neat Speed Champions scale recreation of the FJ Cruiser is the work of Ben of Flickr, who has captured Toyota’s most aesthetically interesting 4×4 brilliantly in brick form. There’s more to see at Ben’s ‘Toyota FJ Cruiser’ album and you can cruise on over via the link above.
After years of very limited top-tier competition, the fastest class at Le Mans undergoing a spectacular resurgence. Works teams from Ferrari, Toyota, Porsche, Peugeot, and Cadillac all entered in 2023, with BMW, Lamborghini and Alpine all set to join in the coming years.
The 2023 24 Heures du Mans was won by a jubilant Ferrari, returning almost six decades after their last win, following an epic race-long battle with favourites Toyota. Joining his previously blogged classic Le Mans endurance racers, SFH_Bricks has recreated the 2023-winning Ferrari 499P brilliantly in Speed Champions form, alongside a host of other Hypercar-Class teams from this year’s event.
The second place Toyota GR010, doubtless still miffed at being slowed down by the FIA ‘Balance of Performance’ rules that likely cost them the win, the wonderfully-liveried (if uncompetitive) Penske Racing Porsche 963, and the third-placed Cadillac V-Series.R join the Ferrari 499P in SFH_Bricks’ ‘Le Mans 2023 Hypercars’ album.
Each Le Mans Hypercar wears an accurate livery -created in collaboration with brickstickershop – and is presented flawlessly, with building instructions available too. Join the 2023 race courtesy of SFH via the third link in the text above, plus you can check out the top-tier Le Mans cars from decades past via the second.
One of the coolest liveries in motorsport has got to be Toyota’s diagonal sunset-coloured TRD striping. Seemingly unchanged since the ’80s, said livery has appeared on everything from NASCARs to Baja trucks, and it’s the latter we have here today.
Built by SpaceHopper, this superb Toyota T100 Baja off-road truck features Control+ remote control drive and steering, working suspension, a fully-caged interior, stunning attention to detail, and – most importantly – a simply brilliant recreation of Toyota’s famous TRD livery.
There’s more of Space’s Toyota T100 Baja model to see at both Flickr and Eurobricks, and you make the jump somewhere in the desert via the links above.
You might think that the slowest car in the world would be some steam-powered contraption from the late 1800s, or perhaps the thing that moves the space shuttle. But no, if the internet is to believed the slowest car ever is in fact a 200bhp sports car from the late 2010s.
Which just goes to show how the internet’s comments sections are filled with more nonsensical hyperbole than the inside of Donald Trump’s head.
The Subaru BRZ and its Toyota GT86/Scion FRS siblings are throughly brilliant analogue (as much as a modern car can be) rear-wheel-drive sports cars, with low weight, modest power, and – admittedly – the same torque as a smoothie-maker.
Still, that just made getting the most from the sublime chassis even more fun, and we’re pretty sure that when everything is electric, automatic, and festooned with electronic safety interference (which is the reason the car’s second-generation will last just a few short years), the BRZ and GT86 will become highly sought-after classics.
This fantastic Model Team recreation of the slowest-car-in-the-world-according-to-the-internet comes from Flickr’s Mihail Rakovskiy, who has replicated the Subaru BRZ brilliantly. Opening doors, a superbly realistic engine under the raising hood, an opening trunk, and a life-like interior all feature, and there’s lots more to see at Mihail’s ‘Subaru BRZ’ album. Click the link above to make your way very slowly there.
In this writer’s opinion, the most beautiful car ever made is not a Ferrari, Bugatti, or other exotic… it’s a Toyota. A white one.
This is the 2000GT, Toyota’s record-setting 1967 sports car built in conjunction with Yamaha, and surely one of the most perfect car designs of all time.
This lovely Speed Champions recreation of the bewitching 2000GT comes from Thomas Gion, apparently taking eight iterations before the shape was right. 3D-printed wheels and some inspired parts choices make this well worth a closer look, and you can make the jump to 1967 via the link in the text above.
This TLCB Writer would very much like an FJ40 series Toyota Land Cruiser. Because if there’s one classic off-roader cooler than the Land Rover Defenders we see every day around TLCB Towers, Japan’s answer is it.
With LEGO now having a licensing partnership with Toyota (and having released two Land Rover Defender sets), we’re super hopeful that an official Land Cruiser set may be on the cards, but until then the online Lego Community is filling the void admirably.
This is the latest fan-built Land Cruiser found by our Elves, and not only is it an orange FJ40 (an excellent start), it’s also fully remote controlled for maximum fun.
Built by gyenesvi, a suite of Power Functions components deliver motorised drive and steering, plus there’s live-axle suspension, a high/low gearbox, opening doors, hood and tailgate, and a folding windshield.
Building instructions are available and full details and images can be found at both Eurobricks and Bricksafe; click the links above for more classic off-road fun.
This is a 1980s Toyota Hilux, and it is the best pick-up truck ever conceived.
Slow, small, and seemingly unbreakable, the ’80s Hilux is the pinnacle of Toyota over-engineering. It also wore some excellent side stripe decals, which immediately makes it cool, as does (and is) this brilliant Model Team replica of the iconic 4×4 from previous bloggee Vladimir Drozd.
Underneath the wonderfully accurate exterior – resplendent with period-correct stripes, roof lights and fender extensions – is a Technic chassis with both steering and suspension, and there’s much more of the model to see on Flickr.
Take a look at Vladimir’s brick-built version of the best pick-up ever made via the link above.
Toyota’s Supra has – thanks to car culture, hype, a certain move franchise, and internet exaggeration – become a legend impossible for anything, even the Supra itself, to live up to.
But get past the internet commenters, and the A90 Supra is really rather good, and as modifiable as its predecessor too.
Flickr’s 3D supercarBricks has recreated the latest Toyota Supra in fine fashion, capturing the exceptionally difficult curves of the car’s form superbly in Danish plastic.
Of course, being a Supra on the internet, it has to be modified too, with 3D duly obliging via a set of wide arches, an enormous rear spoiler, and some phat rims. Extra internet points scored.
There’s more of the build to to see at 3D’s photostream, and you can click the link in the text above to make the jump.
If there’s one car responsible for the over-hyping of an entire model line-up, this is it.
Brian O’Conner’s ’10 second’ Toyota Supra from 2001’s ‘The Fast and the Furious’ took a fairly fat, mostly automatic GT cruiser and turned it into a 1,000bhp legend. Complete with orange paintwork and the stupidest stickers, millions of teenagers suddenly had a new hero car, and the internet has been full of arguments about 2JZs ever since.
However even TLCB Team, convinced though we are that the ‘Fast & Furious’ movie franchise is one of the worst Hollywood has ever produced, have to admit that LEGO is on to a winner by turning the films’ star cars into official sets.
We’re pretty sure that an official LEGO ‘Fast & Furious’ Toyota Supra set will follow, but ArtemyZotov of Eurobricks couldn’t wait, and thus has built his own ‘Brian O’Connor’s Toyota Supra’ from the first ‘Fast & Furious’ movie, matching the scale of the official Technic 42111 Dodge Charger set.
So good is Artemy’s Technic Supra that we think LEGO will struggle to top it, and not only does it really look the part (stupid stickers included), it features remote control drive and steering, opening doors and hood, and a modular chassis and body.
There’s lots more to see at the Eurobricks forum and via the video below, plus Artemy has made building instructions and a download for the decals available too, so you can build this Supra for yourself at home. If you own the Technic 42111 Dom’s Dodge Charger set and a LEGO train, you know what you need to do!
Things this TLCB Writer would like; More sleep, better hair, Jennifer Lawrence’s phone no., and a modified Toyota FJ60-Series Land Cruiser.
Whilst the first three aren’t going to happen any time soon we do have the latter here today, courtesy of regular bloggee 1saac W, whose superb brick-built FJ60 – suitably modified for overland adventures – is an absolute dream car.
Big tyres, a bull-bar, a roof cage, and a snorkel make the already awesome FJ60 even cooler, and you can check out 1saac’s brilliant build on Flickr via the link above.
Boring. Dull. White Goods. All things levelled at the Toyota Corolla (including by us), and all true. Except when they’re not.
Whilst there have been millions of tedious white boxes produced with the ‘Corolla’ name, there have also been some that really aren’t tedious at all. The AE86, Championship-winning rally cars, and even the current twelfth generation Corolla, which is both more interesting technologically and to look at than a Golf, a Focus or an Astra.
So the Corolla is boring, except when it isn’t, and this one ‘isn’t’; the lovely 1970-’78 ‘E20’ Coupe.
The second generation of Corolla, the ‘E20’ was available in sedan, coupe, station wagon and van variants (plus as a Daihatsu), with engines between 1.2 and 1.6 litres, and became the second best-selling car globally.
Built by Dicky Laban, this neat Technic recreation of the ‘E20’ Corolla coupe is interesting too, being equipped with LEGO’s Powered-Up system for remote control drive and steering cleverly packaged inside.
The second generation Toyota MR2 wowed the world when it arrived in the early 1990s. There was simply nothing more exotic looking for even twice the price, earning it the status as a ‘Poor man’s Ferrari’.
We’d say a ‘Sensible man’s Ferrari’ too, as – being a Toyota – the MR2 was infinitely better built (and – dare we say it – better engineered) than anything coming from Maranello, and the turbocharged version was even pretty quick.
After a period of ‘banger’ status, SW20 MR2s are rapidly becoming sought-after classics, and Daniel Helms (aka danielsmocs) is the lucky owner of one in real life.
Capturing his car in Lego, Daniel has recreated the second generation MR2 in brick form, complete with working pop-up headlights via a switch in the cabin, opening doors, front trunk, engine cover and luggage compartment, sliding seats, and removable ‘glass’ roof panels.
Hoping to score said loot, two entrants previously featured here have recently maximised the mundanity of their creations to increase their scores, after we said “this could only be more boring if…”.
That ‘if’ for 1saac W., who had built the default for motoring mundanity (and his own car), involved recreating the tedium of interpreting parking restrictions. In a white Toyota Corolla. Now that really is mundane.
Another builder on the hunt for more mundane points is iBrickedItUp, whose Cozy Coupe manages to span both our Vehicular category and our partner BrickNerd‘s Object category. It was pictured in a rather delightful garden scene, but outside, in the rain, next to the bins… that’s a whole heap more mundane.
IBrickedItUp has also recreated the sea of dull that is a rental car lot, with a choice of ‘white, off-white, pale-beige‘, BHBricks has built a Scion xB – a car that tried so hard not to be mundane it’s the very thing it became – and the tedium of loading a box truck, whilst Sergio Batista has built the Fiat Multipla, which is a quandary for us, as it wasn’t mundane at all, but its purpose absolutely was.
There’s still half the competition to go, and we’d love to see your boring vehicles, built in any scale, whether Town, Creator, Technic or anything in-between. BrickNerd are after your mundane objects; a few of the fantastic entries received so far are pictured above!
Aaaand here it is; the pinnacle of mundane motoring. It’s the plain white rice of cars. It’s anything by Will.I.Am since ‘Where is the Love?’. If it were a country it would be Belgium. TLCB’s fridge has more character than this. Yes, it’s the mid-2000s Toyota Corolla Sedan. In white.
There are interesting iterations of the Corolla of course, and the current one is actually a rather funky looking thing (even more so when the Gazoo Racing version arrives), but this one… er, no.
Which means it’s exactly the sort of thing we’re’ looking for in the Festival of Mundanity Competition we’re co-hosting with BrickNerd.
Flickr’s 1saac W. is the lucky duck who owns one of these in real life, and has recreated the world’s best selling car in brick form in the hope of winning some most excellent prizes.
He’s scored some decent mundane points, but there’s a long way to go, with a load of new entries appearing in the Flickr group over the last few days. You can check out these and 1saac’s brilliantly boring build via the links above, and if you’re inspired to build you own entry (we haven’t had any large scale cars yet) you check out the competition details here or over on BrickNerd, where mundane objects are the order of the day.
