Tag Archives: truck

Town to Technic

The early-’90s were a golden era for LEGO’s ‘Town’ theme. Shops, restaurants, race tracks, 9V trains, and – our favourite – sea ports. The pinnacle was 6542 Launch & Load Seaport, which included two ships, a marvellous crane, and a truck, from which containers of various loads could be transferred to sea or rail, with LEGO ingeniously standardising the container mounts across a wide variety of sets.

Friend of TLCB Thirdwigg (aka wigboldy) is on a mission to recreate this glorious Town set in Technic form, including an upscaled version of 6542’s truck and the containers it carried. With working steering, deployable trailer support legs, and a piston engine under the tilting cab, the increased scale affords a few more working features than the four-wide original, and you can check out further images of Thirdwigg’s fantastic truck and the other components within his 6542 project created so far via the link above.

Double Dutch

We’re trucking across the Netherlands today, thanks to two brilliant brick-built Dutch trucks. Well, one’s German, but it’s in use by a Dutch building materials company, so it still counts.

The first (above) is the work of serial bloggee Arian Janssens, and is a lovely classic DAF FA 3300 ATI with a matching drawbar trailer in tow. Working steering, openable load areas, and beautiful detailing all feature, and you can see more of Arian’s DAF via the link above.

Our second Dutch truck (below) is a 2010s MAN TGX, also outfitted with a three-axle trailer, plus a crane, a superbly replicated livery, and a suite of remote control motors to bring it to life. Flickr’s z_onno is its maker and you can see all the images of this excellent modern-day MAN via the link in the text above.

Free Dump

No we’re not talking about the utter scumbags who tip their trash on the side of the road, but – today – all of us, because this lovely mini dump truck can be built for free, courtesy of previous bloggee Thirdwigg.

It features working steering, a mechanically raising tipper, opening doors and dropsides, plus those free building instructions (a hundred TLCB Points to Thirdwigg), and you can dump for free on Flickr via the link above.

Knuckledragger

No we’re not talking about ‘Immigration and Customs Enforcement’ officers again, but rather this utterly splendid Volvo FH 8×4 truck, complete with a rear-mounted Fassi knuckleboom crane. Constructed by TLCB Master MOCer and regular bloggee Ralph Savelsberg, the model recreates a truck in use by British heavy haulage firm ‘Rawcliffe and Sons’, with accurate decals replicating the livery of its real-world counterpart. Brick-built outriggers and posable four-wheel steering also feature, and you can drag your knuckles over to Ralph’s photostream for more superb imagery via the link above.

All My Circuits

LEGO’s Power Functions and Control+ components are excellent for bringing vehicles to life. Third-party BuWizz and SBrick go even further, with more power and programmable control, and hundreds of creations have appeared here over the years powered by their components. But the drawback with all of the above is, as with your Mom, size.

Too big for many models, it means remote control is reserved for only larger creations. But not today, because this dinky 7-wide Mercedes-Benz Actros 6×4 truck is fully remote controlled!

Powered by a Circuit Cube Hub hidden in the cab, there’s a tiny drive motor – just three studs long – and a servo to steer. What’s more, it’s maker Ts_ has included drive to all four wheels, as per the real truck.

Able to pull a sizeable three-axle trailer, there’s more of Ts_’s remote control Actros to see at the Eurobricks forum, including an image of how the third-party electronics fit within it. Click the link above to peek inside.

The Lego Multicar Blog

This strange looking device is an IFA Multicar M25, a small cab-over truck built in East Germany designed to perform numerous jobs. This one comes from previous bloggee DamianPLE (aka damjan97PL) who has fitted it with motorised drive, steering, and tipper, all controlled remotely via a third-party SBrick.

There’s also a tilting cab, under which sits a working four-cylinder piston engine, opening doors, and a detailed interior too, with more to see – including a video of the Multicar in action – at the Eurobricks forum. A gallery of over two-dozen images is also available to view on Bricksafe, and you can find both via the links above.

Red Lorry, Yel… er, Red Lorry

Despite the protestations of the Elf that found today’s creation, it is in fact only one lorry (and thus earns one meal token). But its creator (and TLCB Master MOCer) Nico71 has ingeniously engineered his design in no less than three different ways; manual, Power Functions, and Control+, with the option of BuWizz bluetooth control too.

All variants feature opening doors and hood, working steering, second-axle suspension, and a clever lockable steering mechanism for the three-axle trailer, whilst the Power Functions and Control+ variants add a motor to the steering (either via a rack and pinion or Servo, depending on the format) and remote control drive. It’s a brilliantly executed trio of options and you can find full details, plus a link to building instructions, at the Eurobricks discussion forum. Click the link above for red lorry, red lorry, red lorry, or on the video below to watch Nico’s truck in action.

YouTube Video

Taking Out the Trash

The big news this week is that of a scumbag despot who has massively overreached his electoral mandate being seized and tried by a scumbag despot who has massively overreached his electoral mandate.

The result is that New York City now hosts a Venezuelan President in court facing charges of drug trafficking and terrorism, after previously convicting – on 34 counts – the man that has brought him there.

Which brings us seamlessly to today’s creation, this splendid 1978 Autocar DK Trashmaster garbage truck, for decades the default vehicle for tidying NYC’s streets.

Constructed by previous bloggee Sseven Bricks, this excellent recreation of New York’s most recognisable garbage truck captures its appearance brilliantly, and includes a working trash compactor alongside some wonderful visual attention to detail.

Sseven’s Flickr photostream hosts full details and imagery of the build, and you can take the trash to the curb in NYC (or a president, whether Venezuelan or American) via the link in the text above.

Trucking Tuesday

We’re a Lego car blog, which is why all of today’s posts haven’t been cars… OK, we sometimes suck at our brief, but this is a lovely model nonetheless. A DAF FAS 2200 DU, it comes from serial bloggee Arian Janssens, who has both constructed and presented his latest classic truck beautifully.

Working steering, folding drop-sides, a posable grab crane (complete with a mechanism to slide it along the load bed), a steered drawbar trailer, and loaded pallets all feature, with almost two-dozen images of the model available to view showcasing its exceptional attention to detail. Take a closer look at Arian’s ‘DAF FAS 2200 DU’ album via the link above.

Timber!*

It’s time to take down TLCB Towers’ Christmas tree, which gives us the chance to pretend to be lumberjacks! This means removing any remaining decorations that the Elves haven’t eaten, chopping it up, and chucking it in the garden waste bin that is usually otherwise only used to dispose of Elven casualties.

Proper lumberjacks however are far more skilled, and once their tree is expertly felled it’s transported from the forest on vehicles like this one; Keko007’s fantastic Volvo FH16 500 timber truck. Packed with detail, Keko’s creation includes a deployable folding grab crane and a drawbar trailer, with lots more to see at his ‘Volvo FH16 500 Timber Truck’ album on Flickr. Shout ‘Timber!’ via the link above.

*Today’s title song. Obviously.

Tanked Up

It’s the day after TLCB Christmas Party, which means we’re still drunk. No matter though, as we’ll be tanked up from now until New Year anyway. Cue TLCB debutant JLD25’s splendidly rendered Dodge L700 tanker truck, which could well be full of virtual alcohol. Hurrah!

If the L700 looks rather small for an American semi-truck that’s because it was based on the A100 van, and if it looks a bit more digital than you’re used to here, that’s because it… um, is. Despite the lack of physicality however, it carries both excellent detail and a range of ‘working’ features, and there’s more to see JLD’s ‘Dodge L700 Semi’ album on Flickr. Click the link to get tanked.

Peace on Earth

This Christmas will mark the fourth since Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour Ukraine. There have been at least 400,000 casualties since then, with Russia continuing to target residential areas (breaking international humanitarian law) and civilian energy infrastructure (also breaking international humanitarian law).

This means millions of Ukrainians are currently without heating in freezing winter conditions. Children. The elderly. Babies.

But there is hope, with various charities risking their own lives to bring heating and supplies to civilians suffering and freezing near the front line. You can find one such charity below, where you can donate to help provide wood-burning stoves that may keep a baby from freezing to death this Christmas.

Dnipro Hope Mission

The excellent models featured in today’s post come from Flickr’s Konstantin, being a Russian 2S43 ‘Malva’ self-propelled gun and 2S40 ‘Floks’ self-propelled mortar respectively. There’s more of these (and lots of other Russian military equipment) to see at their photostream, and you can head to a warehouse near the front line in the East of Ukraine via the link above.

Friday Farming

We’re off to the farm now, courtesy of Konstantin of Flickr and these splendid agricultural machines. The first (above) is an MTZ ‘Belarus’ tractor made in, um… Belarus, whilst below is a very modern looking tracked combine harvester pouring grain into a very un-modern ZIL 130 truck. All are brilliantly detailed for the scale and you can bring in the harvest via the link above.

Big Green Bogie

We’re on a bit of an Eastern European streak here at TLCB which continues with this, gyenesvi’s fantastic Zil 131 6×6, which replicates a monstrous real-world trial truck.

The 6×6 drivetrain is propelled by three Powered-Up motors plus a fourth to steer, with the wheels also turning a V6 engine under the hood. More impressive is the immense suspension, which is a combination of live-axle at the front and a tandem bogie at the rear, each with spring-loaded linkages. The result is some seriously impressive ground clearance, as displayed in the wonderful on-location shots, and you can recreate it for yourself too as gyenesvi has produced building instructions for the design.

There’s more of the Zil to see at both the Eurobricks forum and at Bricksafe, and you can pick a big green bogie via the links above.

Christmas Star

It’s nearly Christmas, and so TLCB is entering the season of tenuously-titled festive posts. Cue this excellent FSC Star 21 tipper truck, which probably isn’t quite as important as the star that appeared two-thousand years ago over Bethlehem, but we still like it.

Created by Flickr’s Jakeof_ it captures the 1960s Polish truck superbly, including a working tipper with an opening tailgate too, and you can follow the Star to our infant saviour in a Bethlehem stable a building site in Poland via the link above.