No! Not that hateful game that annoyed everyone on Facebook for about 5 years. Don’t worry, we’re not inviting you to grow carrots or whatever bullcrap that pointless procrastination aid was peddling. Instead we have these two excellent farming machines to show you, both of which come from Kreso007 of Flickr. On the left is a Massey Ferguson 7345 combine harvester whilst on the right is a John Deere 9460RT, and there’s more to see of each by clicking here.
Mercedes-Benz have been the dominant team in Formula 1 since the introduction of the latest ultra-high-tech but also ultra-restrictive technical regulations. Jump back over sixty years and it was again Mercedes-Benz dominating the sport in time when – perhaps surprisingly – the technical regulations were also massively restrictive.
Limiting engines to just 2.5 litres naturally-aspirated or 0.75 (yes, under a litre!) supercharged, Mercedes-Benz decided to drop their supercharging for the ’54 season and built a 2.5 litre V12 with a world-first direct injection for their new W196 racing car.
The resultant design took Juan Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss to nine wins out of twelve race entries and back-to-back world championships. In 1955 the W196 won every single race bar Monaco.
The W196’s dominance was cut short however, when one of Mercedes-Benz’s 300 SLR endurance racers powered by the same engine crashed at the ’55 Le Mans 24 Hour race, cartwheeling through the crowd killing 84 and injuring another 180. It was the deadliest moment in sporting history, yet the race didn’t even stop. Mercedes-Benz pulled out of all motorsport activity, and didn’t return for another thirty-four years.
This gorgeous Lego recreation of the championship-winning Mercedes-Benz W196 from ’54-’55 comes from Flickr’s Pixel Junkie, part of a wider classic racing build featured here previously, and there’s more to see of his stunning silver model via the link above.
We’re not really sure of the backstory of this ‘MOTH’ spaceship by Flickr’s Oscar Cederwall. It has something to do with lunar motorsport (which you can read via the link above), but what we do know is that BMW’s M-Sport racing colours look awesome even in space. Race to the moon (possibly) via the link above.
This TLCB writer was not impressed by the Ford Crown Victoria taxi he experienced in New York. Bumpy, not actually that big inside, and probably getting around 8mpg, it seemed a bizarre choice for the congested and awful roads of NYC.
More recently most New York cabs are Toyota hybrids, which seem a far more sensible choice, but we’d still pick this over both the Crown Vic and an anonymous modern appliance.
Based on no one particular classic cab but taking design cues from all of them, Flickr’s Redfern1950s has created a stunning looking ’50s taxi complete with suicide doors, bench seating, and a huge trunk for some old-timey suitcases.
Stick your hand out and hope this picks you up rather than a ratty old Crown Vic via the link above.
After berating old fat Fords yesterday, here’s, er… an old fat Ford. And we absolutely love it. This is a Ford Granada, a hugely successful car for Ford of Europe in the 1970s and ’80s. Built in Germany and the UK the Granada sold in the hundreds of thousands in a bewildering variety of engines, trim levels and body styles across three generations.
However as Granadas got older (and rustier) they, like all things, became near worthless. This meant they found a new calling on the banger track, where they were (and still are) highly prized for their speed and strength, and thus have been obliterated in terrifyingly vast numbers. When the handful left are worth a fortune in a few years time we’ll look back and wonder how we let it happen…
Here’s one Granada that won’t end its days on the track, a gloriously brown Mark 1 estate complete with a seventies beige interior and a roof-rack for family holidays to the seaside. It’s the work of Mateusz Waldowski of Flickr and there’s much more to see of this superb creation at his photostream via the link above.
Race transporters used to be much more interesting than a DAF with a huge box trailer on the back…
This is the Mercdes-Benz ‘Blue Wonder’, built in the mid-1950s to transport the team’s racing cars (plus a few customer cars too). Based on a lengthened Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing chassis, and powered by the same engine, the Blue Wonder was billed as the fastest transporter in the world.
Sadly the original vehicle was scrapped in ’67, although Mercedes have since built a replica, and so has previous bloggee pixeljunkie of Flickr, whose Mercedes-Benz W196 Formula 1 car appeared here earlier in the week and now resides on the deck of the truck.
There’s more to see of Pixel’s fantastic model at his photostream – click the link above to transport yourself back to 1955.
This TLCB writer is not familiar with the 1990s IMSA Championship. He was watching the brilliant BTCC at the time, being a) 7, and b) the wrong side of an ocean. However by all accounts it looked like an awesome race series. Prototypes were run by privateer and manufacturer teams with variety of engines, including BMW, Chevrolet, Ford, Jaguar, Mazda, Nissan, Porsche, and Toyota, and they were exceedingly fast machines.
This is one such car, the 1991-’93 Toyota Eagle MKIII, powered by a tiny yet mighty 2.1litre 4-cylinder turbocharged engine, it won 21 of the 27 races it entered, utterly dominating the series.
Such dominance and a financial crisis led to the the end of the IMSA GT Championship in the mid-’90s, but not before Dan Gurney’s Toyota team racked up two Championships.
This incredible replica of the Toyota Eagle MKIII is the work of previous bloggee PROTOTYP. and he’s recreated the championship-winning racing car brilliantly. Built from around 1,000 pieces the engine, suspension, and chassis have all been accurately constructed, whilst the bodywork includes some superbly authentic decals to create the famous livery.
There’s a whole lot more to see, including some stunning photographs of the chassis, suspension and engine detailing, at PROTOTYP.’s Flickr photostream and via the Eurobricks discussion.
Take that Audi Q7! We hate the Audi Q7, and the other pointlessly-enormous, overly-aggressive, status-symbols-on-wheels in the segment in which it occupies. We’ll happily take one of these though, as if you’re going to have a vehicle that’s impossible to park, won’t fit down a country lane, and drinks fuel, it may as well do all of those things to absolute excess!
This is an articulated 8×8 off-road truck, loosely based on those by companies such as Foremost, and resembling some of the Soviet Union’s more impressively weird machinery. It’s been built by previous bloggee and Technic-building genius Nico71, and it’s an astonishing piece of engineering.
Using eight wheels and tyres from the brilliant LEGO Technic Claas Xerion 5000 set, Nico’s truck features all-wheel-drive, with one XL Motor driving the front two axles, and another the rear. None of the axles are steered as the entire truck articulates in the middle thanks to an L Motor and a pair of linear actuators.
Each axle is suspended by an ingenious leaf-spring system, there’s an inline-6 engine next to the asymmetrical cab, and a set of four outriggers stabilise the truck for when it’s using the neat folding crane mounted over the articulation point. Powered by another two Power Functions motors this can extend, rotate and winch (see the image below), and like the drive and steering is operable remotely via bluetooth thanks to two third-party SBrick bluetooth bricks.
There’s loads more to see of Nico’s ridiculously impressive build at his website, where full technical details and instructions (yes really, so please don’t message us!) are available, plus the complete gallery of images is available to view via Brickshelf.
Nico has also become the sixteenth Master MOCer to be awarded such status here at The Lego Car Blog, joining an impressive roster of builders including Sariel, Crowkillers, Bricksonwheels and Firas Abu Jaber amongst others.
Read Nico’s Lego-building story and and find out how he created his amazing Technic vehicles such as this one via the link to his Master MOCers interview below!
This magnificent aircraft is a World War II Vought F4U-1A Corsair, pictured at Ondonga Airfield in the Solomon Islands in February 1944. It comes from crash_cramer of Flickr who has built this spectacular scene for the upcoming Great Western Brick Show. The fighter itself is one of the finest Lego aircraft that we’ve ever featured and there are loads more images to see at crash_cramer’s photostream. Head to the island via the link above.
Good things come in the options of red or white. Meat. Wine. And now classic Porsches. These two brilliant Porsche 911 RWB wide-bodies are the work of Simon Przepiorka. Each captures the Japanese-tuned 911 perfectly in miniature and includes opening doors, engine cover, and even a tiny brick-built flat-6. See more at Simon’s photostream – click the link above to make the jump.
First shown here in 2015, Jarda’s gorgeous Tatra 815 has been updated in red for an upcoming Lego exhibition in Denmark. With Power Functions remote control drive and steering and beautifully replicated detailing Jarda’s Tatra is amongst the very best Lego trucks on the ‘net.
Jarda’s update also allows us to showcase something that we overlooked previously; this 815 can tip in two directions. How this works is beyond the collective mind of TLCB staff but it appears to do so brilliantly. Click here to head to Brickshelf for the complete gallery of superb images.
It’s been a while since the last Mad Max post here at TLCB, but today one of the Elves returned a hero and our smelly little workers are all now crowded around the old TV/VHS combo in their cage room watching Mel Gibson smash stuff up.
We have previous bloggee crash_cramer of Flickr to thank for the relative peace this has brought, and his huge 1:10 recreation of the V8 Interceptor from 1981’s Mad Max II – The Road Warrior.
Underneath the superbly accurate exterior is a working V8 (with supercharger), functioning steering and live axle suspension, courtesy of some custom curved lift-arms.
There’s more to see of crash-cramer’s epic build at his photostream, and if you’d like your own Mad Max Interceptor (albeit rather smaller) then check out the excellent custom kit from Manner-Spielzeug here.
This is not a car. Not even close. But it is really cool and we like Classic Space, so here it is. Built by Flickr’s Kloou in collaboration with two other builders, this 1.2metre tall tower finally gives the humble Classic Spacemen a base of their very own.
Constructed using the baseplates from LEGO’s long-forgotten Soccer range, Kloou’s monument to classic space is an impressive feat of engineering featuring a variety of spacecraft and other vehicles, and is also packed with easter eggs.
Head over to Flickr via the link above to climb the tower, and see if you can spot Darth Vader and Luke’s famous scene, the three-eyed alien from Toy Story, and Batman amongst the classic spacemen.
Truck racing is one of motorsport’s weirder classes, taking vehicles that are the least suitable for any form of speed and cornering, and making them corner at speed. Mostly.
Still, the resultant vehicles are immensely impressive, and it’s one of these, the Mercedes-Benz Tankpool racing truck, that Technic-building legend Sariel has chosen to recreate in his latest model.
Driven by four LEGO Buggy Motors, Sariel’s racing truck harnesses the power of two BuWizz bluetooth bricks, delivering up to eight times the power of LEGO’s own Power Functions battery. That gives Sariel’s 1.5kg model a top speed approaching 20km/h, and makes it massive fun to pilot down the halls of TLCB Towers.
Besides BuWizz power, RC tyres and custom stickers, Sariel’s creation is all LEGO, and really showcases how far the little Danish bricks can be pushed. Watch the video below to see Sariel’s Mercedes-Benz Tankpool truck in action, and you can read all the details on Flickr, the Eurobricks forum, and at Sariel’s website.
YouTube Video
It’s Review Time here at The Lego Car Blog, and for those of you who’ve been reading reviews of LEGO’s large expensive sets and wondering ‘But what about something I can afford?’, this one is for you!
75887 is another result of LEGO’s tie-up with Porsche, which most famously brought us the 42056 Technic 911 GT3 RS set. Aimed at ages 7+, measuring just 6-studs wide, and costing around $15/£12, 75887 is a very different offering to the enormous 911, but it’s no less authentic.
Based upon Porsche’s Le Mans winning 919 Hybrid racing car, 75887 is a mini-figure scale homage to the race-winner, complete with an accurately printed mini-figure driver, a traffic light pole, a laptop piece, and a lot of stickers. We’ll come on to those in a bit…
The build itself takes only around 20 minutes, and includes some lovely SNOT techniques to create the smooth, almost studless aesthetic. As always the instructions are beautifully clear, if a bit over-simplified as has become the way with them these days, and they utilise a few odd-coloured pieces in hidden places, presumably to make the images easier to follow. There’s nothing wrong with that of course, as it possibly means builders will acquire a wider range of parts in their collection quicker, but was it really that taxing when everything was black or grey in the old days?
The resultant shape is pretty good, with any strange colours perfectly hidden from view, and a wide array of curves, bows and tiles used to recreate the 919’s bodywork with reasonable accuracy. The authenticity is further enhanced by no less than twenty-four separate stickers, some of which are no bigger than a stud, and the placement of which takes up around half of the 20 minute build-time.
Applying these may be a little tricky for those at the younger end of 75887’s age range, and to be honest the set probably doesn’t need all of them, but it’s nice that LEGO went all-in!
After much peeling, placing and sticking you’ll have really rather lovely replica of the Porsche 919 Hybrid, (even if it’s a bit stumpy when compared to the real car), that can be zoomed beautifully across a desk and will survive the inevitable plummet to the floor intact to boot.
75887 is probably not the most accurate officially-licensed vehicle in the Speed Champions range, but it’ll be good enough for the target audience, it’s a fun (and reasonably technical) build, and if you like stickers (and what 7 year old doesn’t?) it has them in abundance! A worthwhile starter set, 7/10.
‘Supercar’ is something of a blurry definition in the real world. With cars becoming ever quicker, what was once supercar-performance can now be had in a hatchback. And then there are hypercars, which make supercar-performance look like it belongs in a hatchback anyway.
In the LEGO Technic world things are simpler. Here a ‘supercar’ can be any car, fast or slow, provided it has a minimum set of features. These models can of course be, er… supercars, like the Technic sets 8880, 8448, or the latest Porsche and Bugatti licensed models, but they could also be far more humdrum.
Previous bloggee Thirdwigg (aka Wigboldy) has pitched his Technic Supercar somewhere in the middle, being a 6-cylinder sports sedan. Thirdwigg’s creation meets all of the Technic Supercar pre-requisites, with a complete drivetrain made up of a 6-cylinder boxer engine, a working gearbox and rear wheel drive, plus fully independent suspension on all wheels and working steering.
There’s much more to see of Thirdwigg’s Technic Sports Sedan on Brickshelf, Flickr, and at his website, where there are instructions available too. Take a look via the links.
Steyr trucks are relatively unknown in TLCB’s home nation, but the huge Austrian manufacturing conglomerate built them from the mid-1960s, and made all sorts of things as far back as the mid-1860s.
The business has since been split up and is today owned by a variety of different companies making an assortment of different products, however back when it was one entity it dominated the Austrian truck market with vehicles such as this one, the 26s37 6×2 truck.
This brilliant recreation of said hauler comers from previous bloggee Arian Janssens, and not only has he recreated the 26s37 beautifully, and added a curtain-sided trailer, he’s absolutely nailed the intricate ‘Nabek’ logos donating the company that ran it.
There’s much more to see of Arian’s superb brick-built lettering and the truck on which it’s written at his photostream. Click the link above to make the jump.
Much has been written in the nerdier corners of the online Lego Community about keeping your Lego bricks in the best condition. Put them in the dishwasher. Use baking soda on yellowed white pieces. Keep them away from sunlight. Don’t open the box…
We’re don’t exactly share this school of thought here at The Lego Car Blog, preferring to, you know, use our bricks. Flickr’s PixelJunkie has gone one step further though, and deliberately dirtied his Danish plastic.* We can hear the tutting from the aforementioned nerds from here… Good.
The creation resulting from Pixel’s liberal application of grime is gloriously realistic, with a ’50s Chevrolet/Frazer-Nash-ish type vehicle suspended above its chassis during restoration inside a wonderfully real-looking workshop, complete with hoist, tools, pallets and lots of dirt!
Click the link above to put on your overalls and get dirty with PixelJunkie on Flickr.
*It might be digital dirt – we’re not sure – but our statement still stands. Get your bricks dirty; it’s more fun that way.
The internet’s answer to literally any engine-related question, ‘Put an LS in it‘ seems to be the default setting for most YouTube commenters, and – although it pains us to say it – not without good reason.
Compact, plentiful, powerful, and even available off-the-shelf new in ‘crate’ form, General Motors’ iconic V8 has been in use since 1996, powering everything in their line-up from sports cars to trucks.
The LS has since found its way into a myriad of other vehicles, often thanks to the fact that whilst the engine was good many of the cars in which it was originally fitted were complete crap, making it readily available for pocket-money in breakers yards.
Previous bloggee Simon Przepiorka has built a car that could be based on any number from the depths of YouTube, and it looks – well – awesome! Simon’s classic ’70s Datsun 240Z features a wide-arch kit, custom aero, and – of course – the obligatory LS V8-swap under the hood.
There’s much more to see of Simon’s transplanted 240Z on Flickr – click the link above to put an LS in it…
A question we’ve all been asked by those who always seem to be just a little shiftier than ourselves. Flickr’s Dennis Glaasker, aka Brickonwheels, does have a light though. In fact he’s got fifty-two of them!
Thanks to third-party custom lighting specialists Brickstuff, Dennis’s beautiful 1:16 scale Peterbilt 379 features a spectacularly realistic lighting set-up to match the brilliance of the build. Fifty-two LEDs are placed throughout the model with power coming from a battery box hidden within the sleeper portion of the cab.
Dennis hasn’t stopped there either, as whilst the bricks are 100% LEGO many have been chromed for added realism, whilst a third-party SBrick brings programmable bluetooth control to the three Power Functions motors that power the truck.
Built for the Legoworld 2018 event in the Netherlands there’s more to see of Dennis’s 3,000-piece masterpiece at his photostream – Click this link to light up.
