Tag Archives: Vehicles

LEGO planes, trains, and automobiles! Well, maybe not trains, since they don’t like to play with the other LEGO themes, but here you’ll find all our favorite cars, buses, boats, ships, helicopters, and anything else with an engine (and some without).

Fill her up in style

In the world of gas/ petrol stations, corporate blandness rules. If it weren’t for the scenery, just looking at the building and the forecourt doesn’t really tell you whether you’re at a petrol station next to, say, the M3 in the UK heading towards Southampton, the A2 between Utrecht and Amsterdam or even I-70 through the Rocky mountains. Back in the thirties, there was still something glamorous about owning a car and it showed in the architecture. The stylish gas station built by Marcus Paul (ER0L) looks like a work of art.

I know ER0L mainly from the cars he builds, but even though I prefer my own minifig scale cars to be a bit smaller, his vintage truck doesn’t look out of place.

The proportions, clever build techniques and all the small details really appeal to me. The building also has an interior and I encourage you to take it all in by looking at the other photographs.

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Highway maintenance truck -redux

We have previously blogged a brilliant updated version of an old set built by Moritz Nolting (Nolnet) and he has built one again. This time he has turned his attention to the Highway maintenance truck, a classic city set from the Eighties, which I too used to own and love.

That’s already a good thing in my book, but furthermore he has rebuilt it in the style of a Unimog 406; a vehicle that actually was used for maintaining the German Autobahn. It reminds me very much of a similar die-cast truck by Siku that my cousin used to own (and that I craved) and that is a good thing too. Red rims may not be the most realistic choice for such a vehicle, but they are an excellent reference to the original set.

Community, Inspiration, Kids & Delivery Vans

Disclaimer – This post is more about why I love the online community than it is about the model itself…that being said I do think the model was cool enough to share :)

I think the online LEGO community influences and affects people differently. For me it means a great deal and is on par with sitting at a pub with a group of friends discussing general geekery. The interaction with people from all across the globe has a major influence on how and what I build. I am constantly being inspired by other’s work and by the discussions I take part in.

A perfect example of this, is the cyberpunk Nissan Transporter that I just built with my son Tate. It all started a few days ago while geeking out with Carter Baldwin (& others) about the vehicle design within Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. I was just finishing up the series, so as a result was/am in a huge cyberpunk kick. That night I was playing LEGO with my sons and Tate asked if we could build a police van. I told him we could, but asked if he would be ok to make it an undercover van with a deployable minigun…he said that would be fine as long as we also included flip up police lights. Have to say I am proud the little geek’s creativity! Two evenings of building with him resulted in this van.

Some people say that the internet and technology takes parents away from their kids. I am happy to say that in my case it has introduced me to countless friends around the world, inspired me creatively, and gave me more excuses to play with my boys!

Hoorah for upgrades.

Stijn (Red Spacecat) takes his MATSF-5000E Super Banshee (one of his oldest models on flickr) and gives it a fresh spin by adding mission specific equipment packs. I am a HUGE fan of modular equipment/weapon systems so these latest upgrades are right up my alley. But whether it be weapons packs or colour variations, it is always neat to see builders continue to tinker with older models.

Be sure to take an extra second to peruse the larger images linked above…the subtle variations are too great to miss

I’ve been mind melded!

Seeing Rodney Bistline’s (Buster) Falcon-Hawk Strike Eagle was like seeing a snap shot of a starfighter that I have dreamt of building for ages. It is literally a carbon copy of a fighter I have pictured in my head countless times. The textural details, bright colour blocks, and 80’s sci-fi charm, makes for a quirky little fighter that just screams to be swooshed.

Rodney explains that he took inspriration from iconic starfighters such as the X-Wing & Colonial Viper…I also see a little bit of FF-S3 Saberfish in there.

It’s a FROG, but not as you know it

The Soviet BAZ 135 Transporter-Erector-Launcher built by Marcin Witkiewicz (Nexus 7.1) ticks many boxes I like: it’s a truck, it’s military and it carries a ballistic missile on its back. The missile, coincidently, appears to be the type known to NATO as the FROG-7, for Free Rocket Over Ground. It was exported to dictatorships all over the world.

There may be a few modified parts on the front, but don’t let that distract you. The chunky tyres are a nice match for the ones on the real vehicle, the detail is excellent and, most impressively, Marcin has managed to capture the slightly oddball styling typical of Soviet military trucks.

School’s Out!

Legohippie has made this terrific replica of the quintessential emblem of American schools, the Bluebird International school bus. This iconic yellow behemoth is the method of transportation for millions of children every day, and I’ve not seen a better LEGO version than this one.

Protractors Required

Adrian Florea clearly wields a protractor like a geometric Jedi. The varying angles and protruding shapes, coupled with the masterfully complex colour blocking, make his GARC – CopII a very interesting ship to look at. The background story is also good for a chuckle…

Dutch truck builders united

Last weekend a number of Dutch truck building enthusiasts, including yours truly, met up to display our models at Model Show Europe, as I mentioned in my introductory post a few days ago.

The show is for scale models of heavy haulage and earth-moving equipment and, perhaps surprisingly for such a niche interest, it’s big with a few thousand visitors on a single day and exhibitors from several countries, including Germany, the UK and Denmark. Most of the models on display were plastic kit models and die-cast models, but, because of their high quality, the LEGO models on display didn’t look out of place at all.

TBB favourite Dennis Glaasker (Bricksonwheels) showed off his love for chrome with his latest Peterbilt and trailer.

Ingmar van Speijkhoven (2LegoOrNot2Lego) unveiled his new Western Star.

Dennis Bosman (legotrucks), whose Kenworth wrecker truck was featured here a few weeks ago, also brought his impressive model of a Scania R500 with a low-loader and drag-line.

Built on a slightly smaller scale but in a similar colour scheme, the classic Scania dump truck built by Nanko Klein Paste (nkle) stole people’s hearts.

The biggest crowd pleaser, however, was a massive Liebherr mobile crane by Huib van der Hart (haRtV70R).

It’s still a work in progress, in the sense that it cannot yet be raised, but already looks impressive.

For more pictures taken during the event, including more trucks by Daniël Dil (Legorigs), Barry Bosman (Barman76), Ron Jansen and myself, check out the other pictures in Barry’s photo set. As George Panteleon (ZetoVince) put it in a comment on a picture of part of the display put it: “Lucky guyz! So many fantastic lego car builders in one country! I’m jealous..”

LEGO Bicycle

Flickr user Silva Vasil (Silvavasil_LEGO) takes a different approach than Chris did on the subject matter of bicycles. He has created a delicate and extremely elegant road bike where the vivid colours combined with the creative parts usage makes for a very pleasing model to view.

There are a few other views in the photoset on flickr

Helium Transport Rover

We may be well into March now, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t still in love with fantastic rovers. Case in point, here’s one we missed previously: Robert H’s (Robiwan Kenobi) Helium Transport Rover. Like all the best microscale models, it belies its size, and abounds with ingenious techniques. The micro-mech that accompanies it is also a marvel of miniature engineering, employing some cool joint techniques that even I haven’t seen before.

EDIT: Oops, looks like we didn’t actually miss this one the first time around. We blogged its differently-colored twin here.

Delivering LEGO goodness since 2005

Justin Pratt (legotanks) makes excellent little delivery trucks as well as tanks. At BrickCon last year, I gave him a couple of engraved “The Brothers Brick” bricks on condition that he build us a delivery van. Justin recently finished it, and posted it online last night (after displaying it at Emerald City Comicon this weekend).

That’s “me” behind the wheel, but you may see someone I’m hauling along behind. Per his request, my co-founder Josh is along for the ride in a little red wagon.

Justin’s truck joins what’s turning out to be our delivery fleet, led by the truck Nathan Proudlove brought to BrickCon 2009 (where we successfully fought off a zombie horde).