Andrea Lattanzio aka Norton74 is heading to the beach! Both of these radical Model Team hot rods have appeared here at TLCB before, but the addition of a few surfboards and the threat of being eaten by a shark has made them even cooler! See the image in full at Andrea’s photostream via the link above, and you can find our original belongings of the green Ford Model-T and black Ford Roadster via these links. Dude.

We tried to find a Star Wars quote to link to here, but it seems no-one actually said ‘Join the Dark Side’ in any of the movies. Who knew?

Anyhoo, you can join the dark glide (see what we did there? No… oh yeh, the lack of a quote thing…) thanks to Dennis Glaasker aka Bricksonwheels and his sinister-looking 1:10 scale Harley Davidson Street Glide with chrome-delete.

Built from entirely black pieces (or very very dark grey) Dennis’ Street Glide includes a detailed engine, handlebar controls, and even brake and clutch cables fashioned from silicone wire, which means they aren’t black pieces at all and this sentence is contradicting itself.

This isn’t going well. Whatever, there’s more to see of Dennis’ brilliant brick-built bike at his photostream. Glide over to Flickr via the link above.

It’s a scene that even we’re familiar with; Empire AT-ATs stalking across the snow covered plains of Hoth and towards a Rebel Alliance base soon to be in great peril.

Luke Skywalker, commander of Rogue Squadron and famous for some reason, leads defence in a company of small Snowspeeders.

And so goes down one of the most memorable battles in the Star Wars franchise, and one that has been recreated beautifully in micro-scale by Flickr’s GolPlaysWithLego. There’s much more of this stellar build to see at Gol’s photostream via the link, where there are also instructions available so you can recreate your very own Battle of Hoth in miniature at home.

Volkswagen, following the need to pay some huge fines, are having a bit of a model cull at present. In the for the chop are pretty much all of their three-door cars, including the Scirocco (boo) and the New New Beetle (meh). Still, that makes room for even more SUVs (sigh)…

With the Volkswagen Group’s line-up becoming ever more boring by the minute we’re going back to more interesting times, before dieselgate, greedy shareholders, and every customer needing a truck to take their kids to school.

This is the original Beetle, commissioned by Hitler, designed by Ferdinand Porsche, and becoming the world’s most successful car design ever.

This superb Model Team style Beetle comes from previous bloggee Lennart C, who has built one of the toughest cars to recreate from LEGO ever brilliantly, including a wonderfully detailed interior and an authentically replicated flat-4 engine.

There’s more to see of Lennart’s beautiful bug via the link above, and you can see LEGO’s own officially-licensed Volkswagen Beetle set by clicking here.

Germany got a bit ambitious in the 1940s. Not content with being complete dicks in Europe, they sent an expeditionary force to North Africa to assist their ally Mussolini in expanding his fascist ideas across the Mediterranean. Fortunately before long the Italian King had had enough of Mussolini and arrested him in 1943, triggering the collapse of Italy’s invasions and the eventual switch to fighting against, rather than for, the Germans.

This led to the German forces surrendering in Africa in 1943, although of course continuing to fight everywhere else, and the Afrika Korps were disbanded. Not really a worthwhile campaign then, but the Afrika Korps did get some very cool vehicles…

This is one of them, an Sd kHz 7 half-track, which was kinda like an armed, convertible, off-road people carrier. Watch Audi launch one imminently…

This wonderful cartoon-esque Afrika Korps Sd kHz 7 comes from previous bloggee and TLCB favourite Redfern1950s, and not only has he loaded his half-track with period-correct goodies, he’s built some interesting-looking characters to ride in it too!

There much more of the Sd kHz 7 to see at Red’s Flickr photostream – head to Africa and join the Korps via the link above!

It is conceivable that humans will land on Mars well within our lifetime. This means that even if there isn’t alien life on Mars, there will be, well… alien life on Mars. For the first time in the history of mankind, we will be aliens.

Flickr’s Andreas Lenander imagines what a landing in 2050 could look like with his ‘HORN’ shuttle, complete with a rather splendid looking Martian surface.

Fast forward a few decades and driving across Mars will be as mundane as trucking up the M40. At least according to fellow Flickrer Luis Baixinho and his Mars Truck.

See more of each build via the links in the text above.

*The title of this post definitely comes from this rather than this. Sorry LEGO, it wasn’t one of your finest efforts, even with the Futurama-esque tubes.

We don’t particularly like wasps. They do eat pests and pollinate, but they also crash picnics, and no-one likes an uninvited guest.

We do like this one though, Ciamoslaw Ciamek‘s ‘Blacktron Wasp Intelligence Interceptor’ which, like its namesake, has a sting in the tail! See more at the link.

We’re going to have a very fat (and possibly very sick) Elf later today…

These three excellent Technic Mercedes-Benz Unimog 437s were found by one Elf, as they all come from previous bloggee Thirdwigg. Designed as a modular build, Thirdwigg’s ‘mogs can be built as long or short wheelbase, standard or doka cab, with manual features or Power Functions remote control, and with a variety of tipper bed options.

Each version also features four-wheel-drive linked to an inline-4 engine, working steering, and front and rear suspension.

There much more to see of the various ways in which Thirdwigg’s brilliantly-engineered Unimog 437 can be built at the Eurobricks discussion forum, you can find more images of the design on both Brickshelf and Flickr, and you can watch a video of the various ‘mogs on YouTube by clicking here, whilst we hand out three meal tokens to the world’s luckiest Elf.

The year is 1970, and Porsche need to win some races. Their new 917 endurance racer proved hugely unstable in 1969, with downforce still a relatively new phenomenon harnessing it was still largely experimental.

Cue chief engineer John Horsman, and an unlikely revelation caused by the splattering of bugs on the Porsche’s bodywork. John noticed that the 917’s tail was clean from insects, meaning that air wasn’t reaching it. A hasty modification with some aluminium sheets was made to the cars, and the 917 was transformed.

The newly modified 917K won all but one race in the 1970 endurance championship, taking first and second at Le Mans and, along with the Porcshe 908, relegating Ferrari to fourth place.

The 917 was run by serval works and part-works teams in the early 1970s, and it dominated sports car racing. The most famous of these are perhaps the Gulf Racing cars, thanks largely to Steve McQueen and his 1971 film ‘Le Mans’.

It’s this car that Technic building legend Sariel has chosen to recreate in Lego form, and he’s done so brilliantly.

Underneath the incredible bodywork (which includes wonderful period-correct decals) are no less than four LEGO RC Buggy Motors, with two third-party BuWizz 2.0 bricks controlling a pair each. This gives Sariel’s Porsche 917K both amazing speed and the ability to be controlled remotely via a bluetooth device.

Sariel’s 917 also features fully-independent double-wishbone suspension both front and rear, dihedral opening doors, and remote control steering that turns the steering wheel in the authentically detailed cockpit too.

It’s one of the finest Technic supercars of 2018 and one that is definitely worth a closer look. An extensive gallery of images is available to view at Sariel’s Porsche 917K Flickr album and you watch a video of the model in action and join the discussion courtesy of the Eurobricks forum.

See more of Sariel’s astonishing Technic recreation of the greatest endurance racer of the 1970s via the links above, and you can watch the original trailer for the 1971 movie ‘Le Mans’ by clicking here.

This is the latest creation from TLCB regular Horcik Designs, he’s called it a Trophy Off-Roader, and its sort-of-but-not-quite a Toyota FJ, Jeep CJ and something weird and communist all rolled into one.

Wherever it’s from we like it (which is a good metaphor for people), and with Power Functions remote control drive and steering, plus working suspension, Horcik’s model boasts some decent technical functions too.

Click the link above to see more on Flickr.

As has been documented on these pages before, the current obsession with SUVs is not one shared here in TLCB Towers. However there is an exception. Volvo…

Sold by Ford during their purge in 2010 to stave off bankruptcy, Volvo are now under the ownership of Geely, and – much like Jaguar and Land Rover sold to the Indians by Ford two years previously – the Chinese have done a far better job of managing Volvo than Ford ever did.

By providing cash and economies of scale, but by letting Volvo be Volvo, the cars coming out of Gothenburg are a world apart from the dull badge-engineered knock-offs built under Ford’s stewardship.

The latest XC90 encapsulates this mantra; with superbly Swedish design, engines no larger than 2 litres, using turbocharging, supercharging, and hybrid electric to boost performance, and self-driving technology, Volvo’s flagship SUV is very probably the flagship SUV. Not bad for a company best known for estate cars.

This beautiful recreation of the latest XC90 ‘Excellence’ edition comes from previous bloggee dgustafsson1317, and he’s built the big Volvo brilliantly. A superbly detailed exterior (including bespoke 3D-printed wheels to replicate those on the real car) continues inside with a stunningly accurate interior, made all the more impressive by the need to squeeze in a raft of Power Functions electronic wizardry.

Five motors power the all-wheel-drive system, steering, and the electrically opening tailgate, all of which are operable remotely via a Bluetooth device thanks to a third-party SBrick. The build also features all-wheel suspension, neat brick-built windows, and some excellent custom badges too.

There’s much more of the model to see at dgustafsson’s enormous Volvo XC90 Excellence album on Flickr – click the link above for over fifty stunning images.

The Toyota Supra is a legend. Specifically this one, the fourth (and final – for now) generation produced from the mid-’90s to the early-’00s, and available with a twin-turbo straight-six that could annihilate Porsches, BMWs, and well… just about anything else at the time.

Thanks to a certain Vin Diesel / Paul Walker movie franchise the Supra’s reputation has exploded in recent years, yet despite that until now we’ve never featured a fourth generation Supra here at TLCB (although earlier more humble variants have appeared).

Today, with a fifth generation Supra finally nearing production after a seventeen year absence (although sadly with probably no more power than its predecessor), we finally right that wrong, courtesy of Sam the First aka Sir.Manperson of Flickr and this wonderful Model Team recreation of one of Japan’s finest GT cars.

Originally built digitally (hence why it didn’t appear here), Sam has now built his Supra for real, and it looks stunning. With a near perfectly recreated exterior, detailed engine, fully appointed interior, plus opening doors, hood, and tailgate, Sam’s Supra is a testament to hours upon hours of digital designing.

A huge image gallery detailing Sam’s Toyota Supra is available to view at his Flickr photostream – head over there via the link above, make some ‘Pfffft, bwububusssh’ noises, and pretend it’s the late ’90s again…

We were very excited when we previewed LEGO’s 42056 Porsche 911 GT3 RS set, and then a bit disappointed by it. Which is a shame, because it’ll still rightly go down as one of the greatest Technic sets released so far.

Nevertheless 42056 is a set that many builders can improve upon, and that’s arguably what newcomer pleasedontspammebro of Flickr has done with this excellent mid-’70s Lancia Stratos Stradale HF B-Model built entirely from the pieces found within the set.

Underneath the well-proportioned exterior which includes opening doors and front and rear clamshells is a working drivetrain consisting of a transversely mounted V6 engine, 5-speed gearbox, all-wheel suspension and functioning steering.

Suggested by a reader there’s more to see of the Lancia B-Model on Flickr via the link above, where you can also find a link to instructions so can build your very own Stratos from your 42056 Porsche 911 GT3 RS set.

Alternatively you can take a look at an Audi R8 B-Model featured here previously, but whichever you chose to repurpose your 42056 set for, make sure you dismantle it the right way…

LEGO’s enormous 3,600 piece 42083 Technic Bugatti Chiron is very probably the greatest set in the brand’s already impressive history. Designed with Bugatti themselves and featuring a replica W16 engine and an eight-speed paddle-shift gearbox, 42083 has taken Technic building to new heights.

But what if you had access to another 996,400 pieces and almost 13,500 man-hours? Cue a gravelly-voiced narrator and some overly dramatic music…

Yes LEGO have built their 42083 Bugatti Chiron set for real, and not only that they’ve made it really, actually, genuinely drive too. No glue was used anywhere in the build and the power comes from 2,304 LEGO Technic Power Functions electric motors – the very same ones that you can buy in stores.

With a weight of around 1.5 tons and an estimated 5.3bhp and 92N/m of torque, the fully-functioning speedometer aboard the life-size Technic Chiron was unlikely to read anywhere close to the real Chiron’s 260mph+ top speed.

However just to be safe (or because it’s very cool!), LEGO put Le Mans winner and actual Bugatti development driver Andy Wallace behind the brick-built steering wheel for the car’s test run at the Ehra Lessien track.

It’s one heck of an achievement and one that’s unlikely to be topped unless LEGO find of way of making a working space shuttle. You can find out more about this amazing feat at LEGO’s Bugatti ‘Build for Real’ website, and you see a rather more home-built attempt at creating a fully-drivable life-size car from LEGO bricks by clicking here.

The first Gulf War – initiated when moustachioed douchebag Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, defied a UN resolution, and then gassed his own people – saw the US deploy its new ‘High Mobility Multi-purpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV) in large numbers for the first time, as president George Bush Sr. and other world leaders responded to Iraq’s aggressions.

Twelve years later and George Bush Jr. decided to finish what his dad had started, and – for reasons we’re still not sure of – defied a UN resolution and attempted to overthrow the Hussein government. There was good reason in 1991, but in 2003? Er… 911? Nope. Weapons of mass destruction? Nope…

Whatever the reason behind Bush Jr.’s invasion, overthrow the Hussein government he did, and the Humvee played as pivotal a role in the outcome as it did in the liberation of Kuwait a decade or so earlier.

This superb 10-wide recreation of the iconic military vehicle comes from previous bloggee Manuel Cara, who has recreated the desert-spec Humvee in quite astonishing detail. All doors, the roof hatch and the tailgate open, and if anything what’s underneath is even more detailed than what you can see here.

You can head over to Manuel’s photostream via the link above for the complete gallery of images, and if you’re wondering what’s become of the Humvee another decade-and-a-half on from Iraq Round 2, well the old stalwart is finally due for replacement.

The Humvee is still doing service in Iraq though, as the U.S. left many units behind upon their withdrawal from the country to equip the new non-Saddam-run Iraqi military, and because shipping them back to the U.S would have been really expensive.

However the recent rise of Islamic State – due in no small part to the vacuum left as Saddam Hussein was removed from power – has meant that many Humvees have fallen into the wrong hands. There’s an irony there that would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic.

As we occasionally link to those picking up the pieces after conflict in posts such as this one, here’s are some organisations that do just that; Christian Aid, War Child, International Rescue Committee.

DS. The answer to the question ‘I’d like to buy a Citroen, but can I pay more money for one?’ which literally no-one has asked ever. Citroen’s modern reinvention of the DS nameplate, which is now a stand-alone brand, is – frankly – complete bollocks. But it wasn’t always like that.

This is the Citroen DS19, launched in the mid-1950s it looked like nothing else on earth, and it is very probably the car that was, and always will be, farthest ahead of its time.

With headlights that swivelled with the front wheels, disc brakes, a clutch-less automatic transmission, power steering, and incredible hydro-pneumatic self-levelling independent suspension, the DS19 was a technological marvel.

To build one in small-scale Technic therefore, is not an easy feat. However previous bloggee Anto of Eurobricks has done just that, and his little Technic DS looks as wonderfully, unfathomably, complicated as the real thing.

Squeezed inside the reasonable Technic approximation of the DS19’s remarkable shape is a fully functioning pneumatic suspension system, allowing Anto’s model to raise and lower itself as per the real car, plus of course, it can suspend the car from bumps in the usual way that suspension does.

In addition there’s also working steering which, like the real DS19, is linked to the swivelling headlights,  opening doors, hood and trunk-lid, and even a basic interior. How Anto has fitted all that inside we don’t know but you can try to figure it out for yourself via the Eurobricks discussion forum.

Click the link above to jump to the full gallery of images, build details, and a video of Anto’s Technic Citroen DS in action.

We’re often drunk here at The Lego Car Blog, as demonstrated by the inane jibba-jabba that regularly streams from our keyboards like racist profanity from an elderly relative at Christmas time.

However no matter how much we drink, we still don’t understand ‘sky-fi’. The whimsy of, er… let’s say the nerdier corners of the online Lego Community (which is itself pretty nerdy), sky-fi seems to blend Edwardian fashion and Dickensian storylines with a complete rejection of the laws of physics. But if you’re going to reject the laws of physics, you may as well reject them in a big way.

Previewed here last month, Markus Ronge‘s brick-built world ‘Full Steam’ has begun, and the results are spectacular. This is the first of several creations Markus has built to inhabit that world; the enormous ‘Maersk Pier’ designed to cater for the luxury airship fraternity, complete with a grand Sky Bar (so patrons can drink and fly) and some of the finest detailing we’ve seen on any creation so far this year.

Despite the fact we have no idea what’s going on or how it works, it’s a place we’d seriously want to visit (if we owned a luxury airship), and with enough alcohol you can probably do just that. In your mind anyway. Head drunkenly skywards via the link in the text above.

After being rightly reprimanded for being drunk and disorderly in the Sky Bar last night we’re back on ground level with a bump. But despite the dim, grimy surroundings, this build is no less beautiful than the exquisite masterpiece featured earlier. Built by Flickr’s Pixeljunkie this glorious vintage garage is one of the most wonderfully immersive scenes we’ve ever published. With incredible attention to detail Pixel has captured every tiny component of a typical 1950s workshop, right down to some excellent custom 2×2 tiles on the walls. There’s much more to see of Pixel’s stunning vintage garage at his photostream via the link above, including a link to an oddly mesmerising video.

No, this TLCB staff member hasn’t titled this blog post from recent self experience, and he’s not thinking about you at all Amelia. Coincidentally today’s creation is, like Amelia, capable of a sizeable dumping. Built by previous bloggee Damian Plesniak (aka damianple) this neat European truck and tipper trailer combo could be an official LEGO Technic set, and contains some excellent motorised functions.

The tractor unit features remote control drive and steering, whilst the large three-axle trailer’s tipping function is motorised too, with power coming from a battery box concealed within the truck’s cab. Damian’s model also features manually operated stabiliser legs, opening doors, and a reasonably detailed (for Technic) interior too.

There’s more to see of Damian’s remote control truck and dump trailer at both Flickr and Brickshelf. Join this writer at the complete image galleries via the links above, where he’s already totally forgotten a recent dumping.

Markus Ronge‘s spectacular sky-fi world ‘Full Steam’ continues here at TLCB. Following the epic Maersk Pier featured earlier in the week Markus has now released individual images of some of the weird and whimsical sky boats that accompany it, including the Cargo Transport above and the Hercules Airtug below.

Head to the skies via the link above for the complete (and expanding) ‘Full Steam’ Flickr album to see more of these builds and the incredible world in which they inhabit.