After revealing the brand new LEGO 42115 Technic Lamborghini Sian FKP 37 (what?) set yesterday, and wishing it was a Lamborghini we’d actually heard of – like a Miura – Flickr’s James Tillson has risen to the challenge with extraordinary timing by uploading his entry into TLCB’s Lock-Down B-Model Competition which is… a Lamborghini Miura. And it’s orange!

Thanks to the 42056 Porcshe 911 GT3 RS brick source, James’ Lamborghini B-Model is as searingly orange as one of the Miura’s actual paint options, and it manages to replicate the real car’s swoopy bodywork rather well too. The model also includes working suspension, functioning steering, opening doors, engine cover and front clamshell, and there’s more to see of James’ excellent alternate on Flickr. Click here to head to James’ photostream, here to read how to enter your own B-Model into the competition, and here to see the prizes on offer!

War isn’t won just with planes, tanks and ships. Behind the scenes a huge machine needs to operate to keep the frontline moving, from medical care to mechanics and cookery to construction.

With shifting territory and short aircraft ranges in both world wars, runway and hangar building was as important to the war effort as the aircraft that used them. Often overlooked by Lego builders we have two builds today that recognise the behind-the-scenes heroes of the Allied victory in both wars.

First above (above) is Dread Pirate Wesley‘s superb First World War diorama, set somewhere in Northern France and featuring wonderful SE5a and Sopwith Camel biplanes alongside a brilliantly recreated canvas and wood hangar. It’s a stunning scene and one that you can see more of via the link to Wesley’s photostream above, where you can also find a trio of German Fokkers ready to meet the British fighters in the skies over France.

Today’s second wartime hangar (below) jumps forward around twenty-five years to the Second World War, with the canvas and wood replaced by concrete and tin, and the biplanes by the far more sophisticated Supermarine Spitfire, very probably the greatest fighter of the conflict. Builder Didier Burtin has curved LEGO’s grey baseplates under tension to create the impressive hangar, equipping with everything required to keep the pair of Spitfires airworthy.

There’s more to see of Didier’s beautiful Second World War diorama at his photostream via the link above, where you can also see what happens when a part fails on a 1940s fighter plane, and therefore why the heroes behind the scenes were as vital as those in the cockpits.

We’re nearly half way through TLCB Lock-Down B-Model Competition, where we’re looking for your awesome set alternates the could win you an incredible SBrick Pro Pack!

This is Tomik’s of Eurobricks entry, using the Technic 42075 First Responder set to create an alternate which unusually switches wheels for rotors, and includes one of the most ingenious hand-operated mechanisms we’ve seen yet!

Tomik’s ‘Pull-Back Helicopter’ uses the shock-absorber from 42075’s suspension to store energy from winding a gear, releasing it to simultaneously turn both the main and tail rotor. It’s a mighty clever use for the humble shock-absorber and it makes us think LEGO’s own Pull-Back efforts, derided upon their release here every year, are even weaker.

An opening cockpit is also included and there’s more to see of Tomik’s B-Model competition entry at the Eurobricks forum – click here link to see more – including a video of the ‘pull-back’ mechanism in action – and here to find out how to enter your own B-Model into the contest!

This neat vintage desert gas station and hot rod scene was discovered by one of our Elves on Flickr today. It comes from previous bloggee Faber Madragore and there’s more to see of his ‘Supercharge Model B’ (not to be confused with ‘B-Model‘) at his photostream.

This is a Tatra T87, and it was one of the fastest and yet most fuel efficient cars of the era. Built from the mid-’30s to early-’50s the T87 was powered by rear-mounted air-cooled 2.9 litre V8 engine which was about half the size of its competitors, yet – thanks to its streamlined shape – it could reach almost 100mph whilst using nearly half the fuel.

The occupying Nazis loved it, calling it ‘the autobahn car’, but so many German officers were killed trying to reach 100mph that the T87 was dubbed ‘the Czech secret weapon’, and they were subsequently banned from driving it.

This brilliant Technic recreation of the Tatra T87 comes from Horcik Designs who has replicated the car’s streamlined shape beautifully from Technic panels. Underneath the aerodynamic body is functioning swing-arm suspension, working steering, and a detailed engine under an opening cover, and there’s more to see of all of that at the Eurobricks discussion forum and at Horcik’s Bricksafe folder.

Click the links above to ty to reach 100mph on the autobahn c1940. Unless you’re a German Army officer.

The officially-licensed 10265 Ford Mustang set is one of the coolest products to come from LEGO’s burgeoning partnership with real-world auto makers. We think there’s room from a Ford Technic set too (Raptor or GT anyone?!), but until then it’s up to the Lego Community to fill the void.

Cue Bartonius of Eurobricks and his excellent Technic recreation of the first generation Mustang that LEGO chose for their Creator set; arguably the most iconic and famous iteration of Ford’s evergreen pony car.

Bartonius’ Technic version captures the mid-’60s Mustang superbly, and adds in a working (and beautifully detailed) engine, functional steering, and opening doors, hood and trunk.

There’s more to see of Bartonius’ ’64 Ford Mustang at the Eurobricks forum – click the link to see all of the images and tell Bartonius to iron his sheets…

We’re half way through TLCB Lock-Down B-Model Competition!

Whether you’re stuck inside due to that pesky virus thingy, because your streets are burning after another senseless killing of an unarmed black man by a white police officer, or even if you’re not locked-down at all, we want you to build something new from what you already have.

That’s the joy of LEGO, and it also rails against the consumerist throw-away nature of society. Oh, and you can win an awesome SBrick Plus Pro pack and bring programmable bluetooth remote control to your creations!

We have three more blog-worthy competition entrants to share today, so without further pre-amble, on to the contestants…

First up is Pauls Technic‘s ‘concept racer’, constructed only from the parts found within the 42022 Technic Hot Rod set. Looking like a cross between a sand rail, short track racer, and an Indy car, Paul’s alternate includes working steering, a mid-mounted V4 engine, opening cabin roll cage, and an adjustable rear wing. Head to Eurobricks via the link above to check it out!

Next we have Jan Geurts‘ 31046 B-Model, the ‘Jeebuggy’; a mix of… you guessed it, a Jeep and a buggy. Which looks rather fun. You don’t need a giant set with which to create your B-Model (although you certainly can use one of LEGO’s most enormous sets should you wish), and Jan’s model gets right to the heart of the competition by creating something new out of a standard and unremarkable LEGO set. See more on Flickr.

Our third mid-point entry comes from previous bloggee (and a previous entrant into TLCB Lock-Down Competition) Serge S, who has redeployed the pieces found within the 10252 Creator Volkswagen Beetle set to create this beautifully presented muscle car. Opening doors, hood and trunk all feature, as does a detailed interior and engine bay, and there’s more to see of Serge’s excellent alternate at his photostream via the link above.

If you’d like to enter your own alternate and be in with a chance of winning an SBrick Plus Pro Pack take a look at the competition details by clicking the link below, familiarise yourself with our Submission Guidelines, and submit your B-Model before the end of June!

TLCB Lock-Down B-Model Competition Details

There’s clearly one vehicle that’s the most famous from the ‘Back to the Future’ movie franchise, even though it was actually a fairly poor car and one mired in one of the greatest auto industry scandals of all time.

Far less famous, but a far better car, was Marty McFly’s Toyota Pick-Up (that’s all they called it) SR5 in ‘Back to the Future – Part III’, which Eurobricks’ RM8 has recreated brilliantly in Technic form using his previously blogged Toyota Hilux as a base.

An XL motor powers all four wheels whilst a Servo controls the steering, with a third-party SBrick allowing the model to be controlled remotely via bluetooth. Solid axle suspension features front and rear, as do opening doors, hood and tailgate, working LED headlights, plus the model features a removable body and cargo bed.

There’s more to see of RM8’s superb SR5 at the Eurobricks forum by clicking here, and the obligator title reface can be found by clicking these words!

MOCpages is dead. The largest and most vibrant online Lego community for much of the past decade, the site slowly slipped into a coma over the last few years and it seems its founder, Lego artist Sean Kenney, has this week switched off the life support. And that’s really rather sad.

The Rise

Launched back in 2003, before YouTube, Instagram and Tinder, MOCpages was the place to share Lego creations, being free, open to all, and with no limitations on storage. Creations could be rated out of five (and were ranked accordingly), and comments left for the builder, sometimes even by Sean himself.

An update a decade later brought groups, conversations, and a fancier image uploader, with the site becoming so popular it began to become unstable. New servers restored order, and saw many now famous Lego model makers begin their careers, with Firas Abu-Jaber, Nick Barrett, Ralph Savelsberg and many more counted as MOCpages alumni. Including this TLCB writer.

Sadly this success also brought a fair amount of drama, with in-fighting in particular between younger members becoming a bit of a drag on the community, but that wasn’t exactly the fault of the site. A switch from creations being ranked by their average score to ‘Likes’ (a la Facebook) helped ease the tension, and MOCpages continued to grow, with at least two hundred ‘Halo Master Chief!!’ creations added every day alone.

The Fall

However the site’s unreliability gradually returned. With Sean seemingly less and less interested in resolving the uploader issues and – at times – complete server outages, many in the community turned to Flickr as an alternative, and MOCpages’ glory days began to fade.

There were still gems to be found though, and as such our Elves continued to frequent the site (when it was operable) to ensure that TLCB continued to represent all areas of the online Lego community. But it became increasingly difficult…

With MOCpages ‘down’ more than it was ‘up’ its users became frustrated and moved on, and whilst some reached out to Sean offering to take on the site or volunteer to assist with its maintenance, they were met with a deafening wall of silence from the site’s creator.

Now we can’t begrudge Sean too much; he created the site, users could share their models for free, and some now even have careers in model making as a result of the skills they learned. However ignoring the community entirely (and the huge amount of work many had put into creating their pages, groups, contests, and creations) seems to us to be a fairly crappy thing to do. But worse was to come.

The Death

A shadow of its former self, MOCpages was nevertheless remembered fondly by many of its users, and a band of its more notable alumni endeavoured to restart the community by resurrecting one of MOCpages’ most revered contests. Interest was gained, users returned, creations were posted, and then the site crashed. Again.

And with that, the last hope for a proper MOCpages’ resurgence died.

The site limped along for another year or so with frequent outages, until this month the error message changed, from… well, there being one, to nothing at all. MOCpages had been deleted.

No warning was given for users to retrieve their photos or save their text, and there was no alert for us to get our Elves out, meaning the few that were still there have inevitably died with the site.

The Aftermath

We have now removed MOCpages from our list of sources, but the thousands of links from posts here at TLCB to the site will no longer work. Sorry about that. However if you find a creation publicised here that you like – with a dead link to MOCpages – there’s a good chance the builder will have relocated to Flickr, so it’s worth taking the time to search for them there.

We’re here to keep blogging Lego creations uploaded elsewhere, and whilst we’ll remember MOCpages fondly, if ever we decide to call it a day we’ll try to wind things up via a method that’s not an astoundingly poor way to treat the Lego community.

Should you wish to contact Sean Kenney – regarding MOCpages or anything else – you can do so at his website by clicking here.

We’re just over half way through TLCB’s Lock-Down B-Model Competition, and choosing the winners who will receive an awesome SBrick Plus Pro Pack just got harder! This is Nathanael Kuipers’ entry, a simply brilliant AC Cobra built purely from the parts found within the excellent (and very B-Model-suitable) 10265 Creator Ford Mustang set.

Capturing the look of the ’60s Anglo-American sports car brilliantly, Nathanael’s alternate includes opening doors, hood and trunk, a wonderfully lifelike interior, and a detailed engine too. The Elves are also happy because it two giant racing stripes down the middle of it.

Not only that, Nathanael has made instructions available should you wish to build his Cobra for yourself, earning him extra TLCB points. You can see more of Nathanael’s brilliant 10265 B-Model at his photostream by clicking here, plus you can read a round-up of some of the other alternative builds that the 10265 Ford Mustang set has generated (including a few other designs by Nathanael), by clicking these words.

It seems a slice of the online Lego community is feeling rather blue right now. On top of Coronavirus, rioting in America, another example of systematic racism and police brutality, and a rising mass of unemployment, the place where it all started for many – MOCpages – has been expunged from the internet. Which is quite remarkable really, as very few things ever leave the internet for good. Just ask your Mom. Anyway, here’s a deeply blue hot rod by Flickr’s Jonathan Elliott to sum up how we’re all feeling in a model, and there’s more to see on Flickr via the link.

In all seriousness, if you’re reading this and struggling with any of the above or anything else, things will get better. Talk to someone in confidence here (US) or search ‘Samaritans’ in your home nation for support.

This is the Benz Patent-Motorwagen, first produced in 1886 and widely considered to be the first production motor car. Designed by Karl Benz (and financed by his wife Bertha, what a woman!), the Patent-Motorwagen was powered by a 1 litre single-cylinder engine producing around 3hp. That might not sound much but of course the Patent-Motorwagen was once the world’s fastest production car. And simultaneously the slowest…

Around 25 units were built between 1886 and the early 1890s, and newcomer Jacob Anderson has added one more, with his rather stylish Lego recreation of motoring’s genesis. A neat Victorian-era street completes the build and there’s more to see of his excellent Benz Patent-Motorwagen via the link above.

Lego don’t produce many teal coloured parts. However the range is increasing, and with a little ingenuity, and maybe a few custom pieces, a complex teal creation can be built, and the results can be – if this amazing Kobelco SK210 HLC excavator is an accurate reflection – pretty special.

Built by Maciej Szymańsk this fully remote controlled tracked excavator is all LEGO, apart from the pneumatic cylinders which are bespoke, matching LEGO’s teal colour and offering far greater reach than official components, and an 11V battery box.

In fact 5.5kgs of LEGO pieces have been used to recreate the Kobelco SK210 HLC, a Japanese excavator which – according to the decals at least – is a hybrid, although how a that works in practice we have no idea. We can’t see much regenerative braking going on and it would likely need about a month to charge up if it’s a PHEV.

Maciej’s creation carries its power on board, thanks to that custom battery, powering LEGO Power Functions motors and a suite of LED lights. The motors drive the tracks, superstructure rotation, and the compressor for the pneumatics, giving the model superbly accurate movements which you can view on YouTube here.

There’s much more to see of Maciej’s incredible build at his Kobelco SK210 HLC Flickr album, where you can find the full gallery of imagery including WIP shots, close-ups of the excellent brick-built tracks, and a version that switches the bucket shown here for a set of pincer-y jaw type things that we’re glad the Elves didn’t find. Click the link above to make the teal transition.

It might seem crazy what I’m ’bout to say
Sunshine she’s here, you can take a break
I’m a hot air balloon that could go to space
With the air, like I don’t care baby by the way

This happy hot air balloon comes from ExeSandbox who has built it for a sub 250-piece Lego Ideas competition. Head to the skies via Flickr at the link.

*Today’s title song.

Two Elves returned to TLCB Towers today, each with a red truck, and each hoping for a meal token as reward. Long-standing readers of this impoverished backwater of the internet will know that this usually only leads to one thing, and duly an Elf fight between the two applicants immediately erupted. Fortunately for them both finds are worthy of blogging, so both were patched up, awarded a meal token, and given a red Smartie. It’s nice to be nice sometimes. Anyway, the builds!

First (above) we have Lasse Delueran’s superbly rendered Renault Magnum. Named after a gun… or an ice cream… or a condom… the Magnum had the tallest cabin of any truck in production. We’re not sure why that matters but nevertheless the Magnum had it and it did look quite cool. Lasse’s version includes Power Functions remote control drive and steering, free instructions are available, and there’s more to see here.

Today’s second truck comes from Fuku Saku, and it too is a European ‘cab-over’, coming from rival truck manufacturer Mercedes-Benz. Fuku’s Arocs cab is mounted on an eight-wheel chassis with a tipping dump bucket behind it, and it includes one of the fiddliest, most fragile-looking, and most excellent grilles we’ve seen on model of this size. An extensive image gallery is available to view (demonstrating some really stunning photography too) and you can make the jump by clicking here.

Markus Ronge is back! Creator of the spell-binding Netbrix epic ‘Full Steam‘, Markus has returned bringing Mortal Engines into the brick. And the finest photo editing you will find anywhere in the Lego Community.

The ‘Jenny Haniver’ is a stunning demonstration of this; an enormous sky-fi airship packed with incredible building techniques and a phenomenal attention to detail, surpassed only by the way it is presented.

Sailing through the clouds Markus’s build looks as though Lego has come to life, and that surely is the definition of the art. An enormous gallery of images is available to view on Flickr, showing how this amazing model was constructed (very carefully we would think) and the details within it.

Head skywards via the link in the text above.

This is not a car, but it is beautiful. Modelled after a USS Brig, the ‘Europa’ features a beautifully constructed brick-built hull, complete rigging, a crimson deck (to hide the blood), a functioning capstan to raise the anchors, a working tiller-controlled rudder, and an unusual man-fornicating-with-bull figurehead design. Built by TLCB debutant TomSkippy there’s more to see at the Eurobricks ‘Pirate’ forum – click the link to set sail.

Lock-down is easing here in TLCB’s home nation, but for many of you it’s still very much in force. Plus it’s not like Coronavirus has gone away, so we fully expect it to return, with the world watching on in horror, like a second Trump presidency.

However you guys have been busy during your time indoors, utilising your existing LEGO sets to create new models and maybe bag yourselves an awesome SBrick Plus Pro Pack! We’ve got three blog-worthy competition entries for you today, starting with  David Bersia’s brilliant Formula E racing car, built only from the parts found within the 42093 Technic Chevrolet Corvette.

Being electric the Corvette’s V8 engine naturally makes no appearance here, but Davide’s model does include working steering and a properly good execution of Formula E’s Gen 2 bodywork. Click here to head to Flickr to see more of Davide’s creation, where building instructions and two other Lock-Down B-Model contest entries can also be found.

You don’t need a Technic set to enter TLCB’s Lock-Down B-Model competition though, as our next two entrants demonstrate. On the left newcomer 14sandee has redeployed the pieces from the excellent 75895 Speed Champions Porsche 911 Turbo set to create his neat single-seat racer, whilst on the right previous entrant Tomik has used the 40171 Friends Hedgehog to construct, er… a hedgecopter? Points for originality with that one!

There’s more to see of 14sandee’s Porsche 911 Turbo B-Model via the link above, and Tomik’s hedgecopter on Flickr and Eurobricks, where he has published some other ingenious B-Model contest entries too…

LEGO’s brilliant 10265 Ford Mustang set is one of the finest additions to the Creator line-up yet. That it has spawned so many B-Models too, is testament to how great a set it really is. In fact, it inspired this whole competition.

Joining a host of other builders to use 10265 as their chosen set in TLCB’s Lock-Down B-Model Competition, Flickr’s monstermatou has taken the Mustang in a very different direction, recreating one of the most technologically advanced and unusual cars of all time; the glorious Citroen DS19.

Despite using only the parts from the 10265 Ford Mustang set, monstermatou has replicated the DS19’s spaceship exterior absolutely beautifully, from the roof-mounted indicators to the hidden rear wheels. The superb realism doesn’t stop with the outside either, as behind the four opening doors is a brilliant interior with a working steering wheel, a detailed engine sits underneath the opening hood, and even the trunk opens too.

Things are getting tough at the top for the competition judges, and if you’d like to enter your own B-Model into the competition (where the winner and runner up will receive some awesome prizes) there’s still plenty of time; entries close on June 30th.

Until then you can see more of monstermatou’s stunning Citroen DS19 at his photostream by clicking here, where you will not only find a huge gallery of pristine images, there is also a link to building instructions so you can build it for yourself, plus monstermatou has a whole range of other incredible B-Models to view!

We’ve featured a few models here at TLCB that have brought an old set into the new age, however Flickr’s Thomas Selander has kinda done the opposite, taking the 60075 set from 2015 and making it rather more classic, at least in using a 1960s-’70s Volvo F88 truck as inspiration for his tipper. It’s an excellent Town build and considerably slicker than the official set it emulates, and there’s more to see at the link.