Tag Archives: VW

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.

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.

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.

Sand Green

Winter is coming here in TLCB’s home nation. The trees are red and yellow, the ground is thick with the shells of various nuts, and a good proportion of the country is under water.

So to cheer us up for the coming weeks when it’ll be dark at 4pm and we’ll be permanently cold, here’s a beach buggy for sunnier climes. Built by Eurobricks’ Jurss it features all-wheel-suspension, working steering, a rear-mounted flat-4 piston engine, plus a removable (and very green) body.

There’s more to see at the Eurobricks forum, and you can pretend you’re somewhere warm and sandy via the link in the text above. Unless you are actually somewhere warm and sandy, in which case can you invite us over?

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.

Tail-less Cat

The Meyers Manx beach buggy, named after the tail-less breed of cat to match its truncated rear end, is surely one of the coolest vehicles on the planet. Being based on the Volkswagen Beetle made the Manx cheap, easy to work on, and surprisingly good off road. But it was also based on the Volkswagen Beetle.

Rejoice then, that the rebooted Meyers company has developed a new Manx beach buggy that does away with the noisy Beetle underpinnings, instead ushering in a new era of electric propulsion. And there is probably no vehicle better suited to being an EV than a beach buggy. Provided it can wet of course…

Anyway, this is the noisy, rattly, polluting, slow, and deeply cool Beetle-based original, as built by regular bloggee Jonathan Elliott. Head to the beach via the link above, whilst we dream of owning the electric version…

EuroVan

This is the Volkswagen EuroVan, or the T4 Transporter to most of the world, produced from the early-’90s to the early-’00s, and available as a van, passenger vehicle, kombi, chassis-cab, pick-up and camper.

This one, being called a ‘EuroVan’, is the North American version, where the T4 Transporter was sold from 1992 and 2003, almost exclusively with VR6-power. In Europe we could get a 1.9 naturally-aspirated diesel with 60bhp, so really we think the ‘states should’ve got that one…

Anyway, this EuroVan comes from previous bloggee Danifill, who has recreated the ’90s Volkswagen brilliantly in Technic form. There’s remote control drive and steering via a BuWizz bluetooth brick, independent front and live axle rear suspension, working head and tail lights, and brick built VR6 engine under the opening hood.

There’s more to see at the Eurobricks discussion forum – make the jump to all the details, imagery, and a video of the van in action via the link in the text above.

Topless Curves

1saac W.‘s superb classic Volkswagen Beetle has appeared here before, but – unlike this TLCB Writer – it looks even better topless. 1saac’s 1950 Hebmüller Cabriolet also allows for a title that’s sure to snare a few newcomers expecting to see something entirely different. There’s more to see on Flickr via the link above!

Beetlejuice

The Lego Car Blog Elves are rewarded with a meal token and maybe a Smartie when they return to TLCB Towers with a blog-worthy creation. The Elf that found this beautifully presented red Volkswagen Beetle by Flickr’s 1saac W earned itself a red Smartie of course, which – with delightful circularity – are coloured using crushed beetles. Every day’s a school day! There’s more to see of 1saac’s wonderful ’59 Beetle at his photostream, or click here if you’re grossed out by crushed beetles in your candy…