This tranquil LEGO scene from Damian Z. is a great way to highlight the real star, the tractor. The Polish Ursus C330 is a wonderful piece of work with lots of detail despite its small minifigure-scale size. A handful of common clips and other bits stand in for the engine details, while Technic pulley wheels work as the hubs to make tractor-like tires out of larger-scale racing tires.
Ready for some Disney racing action? You’d better be, because here come Mickey and the Roadster Racers, depicted in LEGO bricks by Ian Ying. This super-cute trio of racing vehicles are nicely matched to their counterparts in the cartoon series — Mickey’s Hot Doggin’ Hot Rod is particularly good, with its twin-ear spoiler at the rear. The purist builders out there might have palpitations about it, but I think removing the arms from the minifigures was a smart choice. It allows the hot rods to have tighter proportions than if they’d have to accommodate the limbs, and it gives the characters’ heads an oversized chibi appearance which enhances the cartoon-style appeal. Seeing these, I demand Disney introduce an instant rebranding of the rather tired Magic Kingdom “classic,” Tomorrowland Speedway — I’d queue for hours to race one of these babies!
I have a guilty pleasure: I like watching TV shows such as Fast N’ Loud or Bitchin’ Rides, in which cars that are typically American and rusty are transformed into mean street machines (usually along with plenty of scripted drama). I’ve been using my LEGO bricks to build classic American cars for years. Inspired by these shows, I finally built a classic car garage last year to accompany my car collection. While the cars I already had were pretty cool, I couldn’t help but feel there was something lacking: they simply weren’t all that Fast N’ Loud nor particularly Bitchin’.
That had to be rectified. I started leafing through one of my classic car books, picked two American muscle cars and built them in bright and obnoxious colors. The cars in question are a 1971 Buick GSX, in “Limemist Green” and a 1969 Ford Mustang Boss 302 in “Grabber Orange.”
There are subtleties to the real cars’ shapes that are hard to capture on this relatively small scale, but I got pretty close using sloped elements angled in different directions. When combined with the slightly larger tires I use on my cars, the wheel covers LEGO introduced for their Speed Champions sets mimic the rims. Black accents, such as the side striping and hood stripes, contrast nicely with the bright body colors. Front and rear spoilers finish the distinctive look. I didn’t go down the custom car route with these builds; most of the features on these cars were factory options. However, they will certainly brighten up my garage showroom. I’ll be taking them and the garage to the Great Western Brick Show in the UK this coming weekend.
Today, LEGO has joined with BBC Studios to create a new set based on the hit TV show Top Gear, according to a new report by industry magazine License Global. The current iteration of the long-running show will be entering its 28th season next year, continuing to bring its peculiar blend of automotive news and creative hijinks to audiences around the world. The new set will be a LEGO Technic model and will presumably be a vehicle of some sort, and we’ll be sure to bring our readers an update once more is known about the set. For now, let us know in the comments what you think of this new license.
And here at turn 16, space-racing fans we have Brendan Mauro taking the lead! Mauro followed by Nice Part Usage! Coming up in third by a narrow margin we have Classic Space Nerd followed closely by Train Guys Are Jerks, A Wee Nip of the Good Stuff and Vintage 1×5! Why Is My Mom Using The Eggplant Emoji? is coming up in seventh place followed closely by Dad Probably Doesn’t Read This Stuff Anyway! This could still be anyone’s race, ladies and gents! What an exciting day at the races!
This charming little cargo hauler by Inthert has so many great parts I’m not sure where to start. Actually, I know exactly where to start. Take a look at the pilot, sitting in the perfect cradle made from two of these shoulder pieces from LEGO 75973 D.Va & Reinhardt from the Overwatch theme put together. Genius! There are also a few of these Technic hinge parts, used on either side of the thruster intakes. Now, moving to the back, the black cargo rig makes perfect use of the little holes at the center of the red turntable bases to secure your deliveries.
It’s the most expensive car ever made, and although four models were manufactured originally, only one remains on the planet. Three Lunar Roving Vehicles were carried to the Moon on Apollo missions 15, 16, and 17, with one spare kept behind on Earth. Those four aluminium-framed buggies cost a grand total of $38m back in 1971, making each of the four worth nearly $10m back then. You have to imagine if someone were to salvage the buggies from the lunar surface now, these things would be priceless. If you fancy a Lunar Vehicle of your own, it’s probably not worth saving up, and consider rather taking a leaf out of Robson M‘s book and building a LEGO version.
This is a cracking little LEGO model — relatively simple construction, but immediately recognisable with just enough detail to capture its inspiration. And the presentation is top-notch, perfectly echoing the high-contrast photos of the Apollo missions. My only gripe? Those rubber tyres. The real LRV had aluminium mesh wheels to cope with the extremes of temperature and to throw off the lunar dust. But tyres aside, I still want one of these to go with my 10266 Lunar Lander set — turning it from a depiction of the first manned landing, into one of those last trips (for now) which we took to our nearest celestial neighbour.
Can there ever be enough dinosaurs in the world? Well, in a world without any living dinosaurs, I would have to say no. Where’s the Deinonychus with a saddle to take me for a ride, or the Quetzalcoatlus flying service I dreamed of as a kid? Nowhere, since places like Dinotopia and Jurassic Park only existed in science fiction. Jonas Kramm tries to fill some of the void inside me with his awesome vignettes from the first movie of the Jurassic franchise, which is appreciated but never enough.
Speaking of voids, that is just what Jonas fills in this next set of builds, with both the Ford Explorer and Jeep Wrangler many fans of the film complained were absent from any of the official LEGO sets so far (especially the huge 75936). The Jeep stolen by Dennis Nedry is stuck in the mud and high pointed on a log, and the hapless tech wizard has been blinded by the toxic spit of the Dilophosaurus. A stud shooter is cleverly used as the log under the Jeep, and the crowbars make a great frame for the windshield as they did in LEGO set 75916‘s Jeep).
Click to see the rest of these dino-riffic vignettes
Have you heard the urban legend about the JATO rocket car? If you’re unfamiliar, it’s the story of a man who straps a rocket engine to his Chevy and ends up embedded in the side of a cliff. As cautionary tales go, it’s a pretty straightforward one: Don’t strap a jet engine to your vehicle. Pasq67 thinks otherwise, at least when it comes to the world of LEGO. Benny and Lenny are going for the ride of their lives in a 1970 Chevrolet C10 Pickup with a serious need for speed. The base vehicle has all the clasic lines you’d expect, and the rocket is a well constructed nightmare of high speed bad decisions waiting to happen.
The multiple air intakes fit well with the mix of Technic and system parts, and the trans-orange discs make for an excellent hit of explosive force just starting to push the car forward. Lenny had better hold on to that pretzel…
The retro future of LEGO transport has a lot of options available to experience, including this cloud skimming, Dieselpunk Boat by builder Mark van der Maarel. His use of curved slopes and modified plates to form the smooth shaping of the hull is simple but exemplary, as is the chosen colour scheme. The rusted and worn look of such a craft, along with the eccentric crew, screams of adventures aplenty.
The deck crane brings the functionality needed for this sky trawler, though the highlight for me is another simple addition for the sake of detail: the boat hook. This necessary piece of equipment adds a nice touch of realism despite only being constructed from two pieces, a pirate hook hand and a rigid hose. It makes me kind of curious to know what he is puling in at such a height.
To be sure, there is a motorcycle culture and as anti-establishment as they seem to be, they follow a certain set of rules. The trike is sort of a fringe entity, a head-scratcher, among a group who are already on the fringes themselves. Similarly, there is also a car culture. They may appear to be counterculture but a car enthusiast putting boatloads of time and money into a showstopping “trailer queen” has sort of become “The Establishment.” Enter the rat rod. This is a growling, filthy punk of a car born to flip the proverbial bird at the established norms. You’d want a tetanus shot just to look at one in person, let alone sit in one. What’s great is, with very little money and found parts, they also steal attention, and often top prizes away from the expensive showstoppers. With this in mind, here’s Pat Lacroix’s Rat Trike.
See more of this gnarly rat rod.
1967 was the year Formula 1 changed forever, as the birth of the Lotus 49 set the bar not only as the car to beat, but also to replicate. Fifty-two years on, Pixeljunkie has presented us with a gorgeous homage to this feat of engineering mastery. Sporting the classic colour scheme and markings of driver Jim Clark, this brick rendition has some stunning custom chrome pins as well as some nicely employed stickers to really bring the realism to the fore. Working within the Minifig scale can be an obscure challenge that restricts an amount of detail. I feel Pixeljunkie has made some excellent compromises without straying too far from the source material.
Looking at the rear of this beautiful build, we find a minifig hammer head used ingeniously as the gearbox. I’m not sure another piece could have been used so well in this application. I’m also a massive fan of the many uses builders find for the rubber tread attachments. Using them as wheel hubs on top those metallic silver dish rims, has really captured the era well.
If this open-wheel beast inspires you, check out another of Pixeljunkie’s classic race machines, the Alfa Romeo P3.
