Tag Archives: Ural

Peace on Earth

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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.

Urally Good

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We may mock President Putin as regularly as we can create a tenuous link to his dickwittery, but the country he dictates is an amazing one. Spanning from the Atlantic to the Pacific across eleven time zones, responsible for the first animal, satellite, and person in space, and with a history uniting fifteen separate countries into one bloc of… er, communist misery, Russia and the former Soviet Union are a major part of our current world.

They also make probably the best off-road trucks of anyone, which are needed to traverse a vast and wild landscape, with most having their roots in the Military. Founded in 1956, off-road truck-maker Ural shares this history, and still employs 4,000 people today building trucks like this, Vladimir Drozd‘s beautifully presented Ural crane truck.

With a working crane that rotates, elevates, extends, and winches, Vladimir’s Ural functions as good as it looks, and there’s loads more of his superb model to see at his ‘Ural Crane Truck’ album on Flickr. Take a look via the link above, or here for a tenuous link to Putin’s dickwittery.

Ural-4320 6×6 | Picture Special

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This magnificent model is a Ural-4320 6×6 truck, a Soviet-era general purpose military truck first built in 1977, and still in production today.

Powered by a naturally-aspirated V8 diesel or a V6 turbodiesel, the Ural-4320 is very slow, but able to carry a variety of loads, from troops to rocket launchers, over almost any terrain. Well, unless the Russian Army recruits behind the wheel abandon them and run.

Which is what has occurred in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with over six-hundred Ural-4320s destroyed or abandoned, and around fifty captured a repurposed by the Ukrainian military, according to Dutch open-source intelligence group Oryx. Which is marvellous.

This phenomenal fully remote controlled Model Team recreation of the Ural-4320 comes from Russian builder and previous bloggee Michael217, who has brilliantly captured not just the aesthetics of the real truck, but also much of the driveline too.

A LEGO Buggy motor powers all six wheels, each of which is suspended and fitted with a portal axle, there’s Servo steering (that turns the steering wheel too), a high/low gearbox, opening doors and hood, a detailed engine, and an open load area ready to be fitted with a variety of Russian (or Ukrainian…) equipment.

There’s much more of Michael’s amazing model to see at the Eurobricks discussion forum, you can find the full image gallery at Bricksafe here, and you can watch the truck in action via the video below.

YouTube Video

Slowly Sovieting

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Some might think today’s title could refer to Russia’s creeping direction under its definitely fairly  democratically elected President, but – fortunately for us as we don’t want to experience Novichok poisoning – it also relates perfectly to this; Sariel’s amazing fully remote controlled pneumatic and motorised Ural 375D 6×6 truck.

Sariel‘s latest astonishing creation is a spectacularly engineered replica of the mighty Soviet military truck, built entirely from Lego pieces, plus a few choice third-party-supplied enhancements.

The first of these is an SBrick bluetooth controller, which allows the four-motor 6×6 drive, steering, servo-powered 3-speed gearbox, three pneumatically locking differentials, and Brickstuff LED lights to all be controlled remotely via a mobile phone or other bluetooth device.

Sariel has further enhanced his model with RC4WD ‘Rock Crusher’ tyres, fitted to Lego rims and mounted to live axle suspension on axles 1 and 3, with pendular suspension on axle 2. A motorised rear winch, working V8 engine, opening doors and hood, and a canvas load cover complete the build, and make Sariel’s Ural one of the most realistic and technically accurate trucks of the year so far.

There’s a whole lot more of this incredible creation to see at the Eurobricks forum, plus the complete gallery of stunning imagery is available to view on Flickr, where there are even a few images that seem to depict a TLCB Elf in shot, but we might be imagining that.

You can also check out a video of the Ural 375D 6×6 in action below, in which the working functions, bare chassis, and a pug named Muffin can all be viewed.

YouTube Video

Heavy Metal

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This is some heavy metal. The Ural 43206 features the usual terrible Soviet name, but otherwise it’s a most excellent heavy-duty off-road truck.

This Model Team recreation of the Ural 43206 is equally excellent, and it comes from previous bloggee Krzysztof Cytacki (aka dirtzonemaster).

Featuring a full remote control drivetrain, Krysztof’s model deploys two XL Motors to drive all four wheels, with impressive suspension on both axles, and a Power Functions IR receiver mounted in the cab.

Of course as anyone who’s put XL Motor torque through a LEGO UV-joint will know, off-roading with a driveline made from plastic can cause a few issues, usually in the form of a UV-joint exploding.

This isn’t something that will afflict Krzysztof’s Ural however, as he’s replaced the LEGO UV-joints in his model with custom metal ones, allowing for proper off-road ability.

A canvas load cover, opening tailgate, and detailed cab complete the build, and there’s more to see of Krzysztof’s metal-enhanced Ural 43206 off-road truck at both Flickr and via the video below, which includes a suitably metallic soundtrack. Click the links to take a look!

YouTube Video

It’s Not Easy Being Green

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Green has traditionally (and logically) been LEGO’s colour of choice for flora, being used for trees, plants, and grassy baseplates. It also features as a stripe in fictional energy company Octan’s livery, but that’s about as far as it went for green pieces for decades.

In recent times though, LEGO’s range of green hues has expanded massively, with ‘sand green’, ‘lime green’, ‘dark green’, ‘blueish green’ and, as here, ‘olive green’.

Despite increase in variety of greens however, the pieces within each hue are often still rarer than evidence of humility from Donald Trump, which explains why Rolands Kirpis took a year to find all the olive green parts required for his Ural 375D. Find them he did though, and his 12 month search paid off as his Ural looks stunning.

Underneath the olive green exterior Rolands’ truck is fully remote controlled, with three L motors driving all six wheels, a Medium motor powering the steering, along with working suspension, opening doors and hood, plus a detailed interior and engine bay.

There’s loads more of Rolands’ brilliant build to see at his photostream – click the link above to go (olive) green.

A Canadian in Siberia

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Canadians are known for their politeness and generosity. Although that might just be in comparison to their noisy neighbour in the basement. Still, even Canadian inventions demonstrate this altruism, with the country responsible for insulin, the pacemaker, the garbage bag, the electric wheelchair, road lines, and the Wonderbra, all of which – we’re sure you’ll agree – have been massively beneficial to mankind.

Cue today’s creation, a Ural 5920 tracked off-road truck, based on a design shared by the Canadians (of course) in the early 1970s. The Soviets took another decade to copy re-engineer the Canadian design, fitting a Ural 375 cab and starting production the mid-’80s until the collapse of the Soviet Union.

This magnificent fully remote controlled Technic recreation of the Ural 5920 captures the Canadian Soviet tracked truck brilliantly, including the two huge track bogies that swivel thanks to motorised linear-actuators. An XL Motor drives each pair of tracks (plus the V8 piston engine under the hood), and each track wheel is suspended by an individual torsion beam, allowing the model to traverse a landscape as varied (albeit smaller) as that travelled by the real thing.

Previous bloggee Samolot is the builder behind this amazing creation and there’s more to see – including a video of the model in action and detailed photos of the remarkable drivetrain – at the Eurobricks discussion forum, plus the complete image gallery can be viewed via Bricksafe here. Click the links above to head into the wilds of Siberia.

Laying Logs

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We like a good poo-based title here at The Lego Car Blog (see here, here and here). Today’s comes courtesy of bill2build and his neat Ural logging truck compete with grabby thingy and, er… logs. Lay one for yourself on Flickr at the link above.

Ostaszewski

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Lego Ural Ostaszewski Truck Trial 4x4

With yesterday’s Elven riot quashed we’re back in the room, and today’s creation is an Elven favourite. It’s big, remote control, and yellow, and we’re letting the Elves ride around in the back of it to keep the peace.

Built by Engine of Eurobricks it’s a Ural 4320 trial truck as run by the Ostaszevski 4×4 Team. Designed to compete in Lego Truck Trail competitions Engine’s creation features two XL motors driving all four wheels, a medium motor powering the steering (with Ackermann geometry), and there’s a rear drive disconnect via a pneumatic cylinder.

There’s more to see and full build details available via the Eurobricks forum at the link above, where you can also watch Engine’s Ostaszevski Ural in action at a recent Czech Lego Truck Trail event.

Lego Ural Ostaszewski Truck Trial 4x4

Triple Filtered

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Lego Ural Motorbike

Communistical Transport

We’re not sure what’s got into the Elves recently. Until this week we’d probably only posted three Russian MOCs in our whole existence, yet in the last few days alone we’ve posted another three. Anyway, while we investigate the Elves’ obsession with Soviet-era transportation, you can view this rather brilliant Ural motorbike from Lino M on Flickr.