Tag Archives: volkswagen

Insert Hippy

We maintain that the scariest vehicle – other than a government-registered SUV in Minneapolis of course – is the Volkswagen Transporter camper, what with them being almost exclusively driven by top-knot wearing, ethnic peace crisp eating, alternative lifestyle evangelists. And now that we’ve successfully antagonised both the hard-right and hard-left in one sentence (there’s no bias here!), on to the model!

This neat Volkswagen ‘T3’ camper comes from Flickr’s HCKP13, who’s captured the ’80s bus brilliantly in brick form. There’s more of the model to see at HCKP13’s photostream, and you can head to a parking lot outside Starbucks to steal the free WiFi whilst bemoaning capitalism via the link above!

Beetle Built Different

Hope, magic, and more than a little ingenuity. The Lego Car Blog staff have built a great many things, but none have deployed antenna ball-joints as fenders. There’s so much going on in 1saac W.‘s Volkswagen Beetle there is genuine bafflement here at TLCB Towers as to how it all holds together. Join us trying in vain to figure it out at 1saac’s photostream via the link above.

Technically Camping


After pondering the deliciousness of animals in today’s other post we promised a vehicle for vegans, and they don’t get more vegany than a Volkswagen Camper!

This tremendous Technic example comes from Flickr’s Darren Thew, who has not only recreated the ‘60s exterior beautifully, there’s a fully fitted interior inside the opening doors complete with furniture, a folding bed, and a kitchen for making, um… lentils? We’re not sure what vegans cook, but whatever it is they can do it here!

There’s lots more of Darren’s split-screen VW to see at his photostream, and you can enjoy eat a delicious healthy van-based meal via the link above.

Camp Beige

The holiday season is near its end, and thus we’re already thinking about the next time we can escape this crumbling ruin of an office filled and the mythical creatures within it (the Elves, not TLCB staff).

Cue recent bloggee Nick Kleinfelder‘s recreation of his own 1980s Volkswagen T3 Westfalia, complete with a boot-rack, a pop-top, and a delightful beige hue that could have been marketed as ‘Infant’s Nappy’.

There’s more of the model to see at Nick’s photostream, and you can holiday in an ’80s VW via the link above.

Otto-ly Wonderful

Sometimes a vehicle needs a name, and this wonderful Volkswagen T25 Westfalia camper, owned by friend of TLCB Nick Barrett, is one such time.

Entitled ‘Otto’, Nick’s fabulous Westfalia is christened after its previous owner, whose name was inside the manual it came with.

Working steering, suspension, opening/sliding doors, and a rear-mounted piston engine all feature, as does a glorious interior, complete with a fold down bed, table, rotating chairs, kitchen, and crapper.

There’s much more of Otto to see at Nick’s album on Flickr, and you can see what makes him tick in our Master MOCers series by clicking this bonus link.

Stud Bug

In contrast to this site’s bodged operation and shoe-string budget, TLCB usually publishes models at the exotic end of the vehicular scale. Sleek, powerful, rare… the cars we feature are the opposite of both this site and the cars found in our office carpark. But not today!

Yup, this time we have a vehicle that is far more befitting of our social status, being cheap, common, and rather dumpy, it’s the humble Volkswagen Beetle, a car built in its millions to transport the masses.

Better yet this is a deeply uncool unmodified one, as 99% of those on the world’s roads are,  driven not by hipsters on their way to a trendy festival, but by ordinary workers to ordinary places.

It comes from gaehno of Brickshelf, and not only does it look fantastic – constructed as it is in traditional studs-up fashion using basic System pieces – it’s also packed with brilliant Technic functionality.

A working flat-four-cylinder engine is mated to a four-speed gearbox, there’s functioning steering, a working parking brake, switchable windscreen wipers that operate as the model drives, opening and lockable doors, front trunk and engine cover, adjustable seats, folding sun visors, and even an opening glovebox.

There’s more of the model to see at gaehno’s Brickshelf gallery, and you can take a look at one of the world’s least glamorous cars, built in a beautifully unglamorous way, via the link in the text above.

Fall in the Forest

It’s nearly summer here in TLCB’s home nation, but somewhere in the world it’s autumn, which is all the excuse we need to publish this gorgeous autumnal scene from regular bloggee 1saac W.

1saac’s beautiful Volkswagen ‘T2’ split-screen is pictured camping in a fantastic fall forest, complete with trees as wonderfully crafted as the bus beneath them. Join the tranquility at 1saac’s photostream via the link above.

We’re All Like, People of the World Man

It was the Eurovision Song Contest last night, and if any non-European readers tuned in during the vote reveal, they may have thought they’d accidentally arrived at a 1970s Vietnam War opposition rally.

Almost every country’s host took the opportunity to remind us that the competition’s songs were not in fact banal Euro-pop as we thought, but the source of love and world peace. Urgh. It’s enough to make us want to start a fight.

It was more straightforward back in actual 1970s, when world peace was dispensed not by pseudo-intellectual television hosts, but by Volkswagen-van-driving-hippies with names like Waterfall and Crystal, via beads, tie-dye, and foreign narcotics.

Cue previous bloggee 1saac W., whose Volkswagen T2 bus is so peaceful it has itself been tie-dyed. A kaleidoscope of coloured plates, afforded by LEGO’s ever expanding colour-pallet, make up the VW’s groovy exterior, and you can collect your beads and foreign narcotics from Waterfall and Crystal at 1saac’s photostream via the link above.

You’ll be contributing to world peace about as much as this does anyway

My Other Car’s a Camaro

Bored of your handlebar moustache, wearing leather jackets, and chewing a toothpick in an alley? Then it’s time to cease your Camaro ownership and switch to something far smaller, much lighter, and altogether more classy. Yes this superb Volkswagen Golf GTI Mk1 by TLCB Master MOCer Firas Abu-Jaber has been constructed only from the pieces found within the official LEGO Icons 10304 Chevrolet Camaro Z28, yet appears completely unconstrained by the set parts source.

Like the set that donated its parts, Firas’ Golf GTI alternate includes working steering, opening doors, hood, and trunk, plus a detailed interior and engine, and you can take a closer look via Firas’ photostream by clicking these words. Or you can keep growing that moustache.

…Otherwise We Get Angry!

Or ‘…Altrimenti Ci Arrabbiamo!’ in its original Italian, is a 1974 movie – unwatched by TLCB we must confess – starring the two least Italian-sounding actors we’ve ever heard of.

Terence Hill and Bud Spencer, who were actually Italian as it turns out, compete in the film for a Puma Dune Buggy via beer and sausages. Or something like that. Our Italian’s not great.

And despite the Puma looking and sounding as un-Italian as its co-stars, it too was a product of Italy, built on the platform of the Volkswagen Beetle much like the more famous American alternatives.

This excellent Speed Champions example comes from previous bloggee Versteinert, who has captured it (and Terence and Bud in mini-figure form) brilliantly. There’s more to see at Vertsteinert’s ‘Puma Dune Buggy’ Flickr album, and you can win a dune buggy by eating Italian sausage (probably) via the link in the text above.

Golfing Blues

This TLCB Writer thinks it must be hard being a golfist.

Walking around a boring field with terminally uninteresting people, the requirement to wear stupid trousers at all times, pretending to be a company director, the extortionate price of golf bats, permanently chasing an unreachable handicap…

Nope, this writer prefers the wheeled version of the word, particularly in subtly-modified Mark 1 form, as we have here courtesy of ZetoVince of Flickr.

Cunningly constructed to recreate the angular ’70s Giugiaro styling, Zeto’s Golf is a fantastic homage to the definitive European hatchback, and there’s more to see of his superbly-presented model on Flickr. Click the link above to go golfing, without having to talk to a ‘director of sales’ or wear stupid trousers at all.

Escort Service

As revealed when we recently interviewed, er… ourselves, the single worst thing about running a world famous moderately well-known Lego website is having to remove endless spam comments.

Crypto currency, luxury goods that are absolutely definitely genuine, pills to make things bigger, pills to make things smaller, and – of course – escorts.

Thus today’s post is for the aforementioned escort commenters (most likely ‘bots from East Asia), as we have not one, not two, but four escorts appearing on the site today.

All come from previous bloggee Ralph Savelsberg, and represent (from left to right) two Mercedes-Benz Sprinters, a Volkswagen Transporter, and a Volkswagen Caddy, each perfectly capturing its real-world counterpart in mini-figure scale, with more to see on Flickr.

Book your escort via the link in the text above, whilst we delete another dozen comments advertising dubious services.

NEE NAW!

It’s been quiet. Too quiet…

Not because TLCB Elves were plotting anything, although that is a perennial concern, but because they hadn’t found anything blogworthy in ages. Fortunately the quiet was shattered today by a multitude of Elves all screaming ‘NEE NAW!!’ as loud as they could.

We have necomer lukarepinc, here making their TLCB debut, to thank for ending the drought, with not one, nor two, but a whole fleet of superb Model Team emergency vehicles.

Uploaded simultaneously to Flickr, these include a Slovenian Volkswagen ambulance (pictured above), a NYPD Bell 429 helicopter, ERV-1, and – in the absence of a title or description – a Giant Fire Truck (all pictured below).

Each is a fantastic brick-built recreation of its real-world counterpart and there’s more to see of all of the creations featured here, plus a lot more besides, at lukarepinc’s photostream. Switch on your siren via the link above!

Quality Escorts

Running a world-famous Lego blog has its upsides. Probably.

We however, are running a crumbling ruin in the corner of the internet, and whilst we receive precisely none of the fame and riches of the proper Lego sites, we do receive all the spam, marketing messages, ‘guest post’ requests, and doubtless-deserved complaints that go with it.

These take many forms, but are usually centred around medicines of a dubious nature, ‘Gucci’ handbags, and women of an also dubious nature. Cue today’s title, because we already receive a torrent of spam on the subject, how much worse can it get?

These two mini-figure scale escort vans are not the European Ford variety (nor ladies of negotiable affection), but the sort used to prevent inattentive drivers from crashing into the back of a slow-moving house, boat, or house-boat.

Built by regular bloggee Ralph Savelsberg they are a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter and Volkswagen Transporter respectively, both feature some neat decal-based liveries, and there’s more of each van to see at Ralph’s photostream. Click the link above to be escorted there.

Just a Small Slice

From yesterday’s vertically-adjusted vehicle to one that’s been altered rather more horizontally. Built for the Tillamook Creamery, several of these drastically shortened cheese-coloured Volkswagen Transporter ‘Yum Buses’ were (and are) used to promote Tillamook’s dairy-based deliciousness. This mightily complicated miniature version comes from regular bloggee 1saac W., who has captured the promotional vehicle beautifully, with a myriad of ‘cheese wedge’ bricks rather appropriately deployed to form the bus’s rounded shape. There’s more to see on Flickr and you can grab yourself a slice via the link above.