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).

Ride into the danger zone with this classic Top Gun LEGO fighter jet

Do you feel the need…the need for speed? Robert Lundmark has felt it by building this fantastic LEGO model of the F-14 Tomcat from the original Top Gun movie. Curved slope pieces are placed along the wings and around the cockpit, recreating the sleek look of the jet. The windscreens of the cockpit are formed from one large bubble canopy and two angled sections at either end. There is even a custom made “decal” on one of the wings, built out of bricks instead of using a sticker.

LEGO F-14 Tomcat

The wings can be folded out, which is a great option if you want to store the fighter away. It’s an awesome model that really captures the essence of the original design.

F-14 Tomcat

When the diner comes to you!

This lovely LEGO diner on wheels comes from the mind of builder 1saac W. Known for their signature scrambled eggs, Moe’s Mobile Diner saves you the trouble of traveling all the way to the diner. Instead, the diner comes to you with those classic curves and stylings of 1960’s diners. The teal blue of the lower section of the mobile diner hearkens to the old upholstery of those diners. The silver grille parts in the front are nice touches for that more chrome, shiny looks of the utensils. The counter space has lovely rounded edges where you can sit and have your eggs while you chat with Moe. The slope pieces framing the kitchen window are slick, and so are those stools in front. And can you spot the cool use of the silver minifig roller-skate acting as a door handle? I think Moe is on to something with his mobile diner.

Moe's Mobile Diner

What the world needs is a shiny, green COE

You may look at that title and think; well that’s just stupid. And believe you me, this wouldn’t be the first time I drop a rock stupid article on y’all. But then when you check out this sick slammed LEGO 1948 COE (Cab Over Engine) Car Hauler built by Sérgio Batista you’re like; OK, that’s pretty dope! Right? At least that’s how it all goes down in my mind, anyway. But seriously, with copious chrome, dropped stance, mean green color, and sexy curves, this COE has probably earned a dope status from you the readers. And that rat rod you see it hauling? It turns out we featured it before as that one was penned by yours truly. I guess I’m just into rat rods and COE haulers. Check it out and another creation by this same builder in our dope archives.

1948 COE Car Hauler truck

You can’t hold this little ship down!

The winds must be really strong on this world as First Order Lego has created a mysterious landscape featuring a small floating ship. The miniature vehicle uses teeth pieces for its sails and a minifigure hand as a bowsprit at the front. Large links of chains descend from the sky which are possibly attached to the anchors of an even larger construction. In the background, the clouds are beautifully formed using a variety of angled slopes and rounded bricks. The lush green forest is made up of spikes representing sharp-looking trees. We’d love to see more from this alluring realm and find out what those chains are connected to.

Setting sail

If a Deere dumps in the woods

I don’t know why but I’m way into agricultural equipment. But seriously, I don’t know why. I didn’t grow up on a farm, most of my life has been spent in cities or suburbs so I have no farming background to speak of. Perhaps it’s the exotic-ness of farming that really plows my harvest. So you can imagine, I was pretty thrilled to see this LEGO John Deere tractor and Joskin tipping trailer built by Damian Z. The model is not overly large but it’s a solid construct and well detailed for its size. I can just smell the diesel fumes now. Or is that manure? This city slicker doesn’t seem to know one from another! Still, I get a kick out of this stuff. Check out our farming archives to see what I mean. While you’re at it, take a gander at our other John Deere builds including a twelve-year-old entry by yours truly.

JohnDeere&Joskin.05

Rusty rat rod ready to rumble

Are six-stud-wide LEGO cars considered historical vehicles yet? Builder Isaac Wilder. may find it hard to step away from this style but his execution definitely sets him apart from older Speed Champion sets. What the builder gives up in space for minifigures, he makes up in shaping and scale. Fantastic building techniques balanced through nice parts usage gives us a greebly, exposed engine suitable for such a reinvention of a hot rod. Its worn-down, rusty body is an aesthetic choice classifying it as a “rat rod” which is meant to show off the builder’s personality through the worn-down, rusty parts. The nicely executed transition to five-studs wide near the engine also helps give the hoses (used as the exhaust) a nice angle away from the body.

Rusty

The main thing I’m unsure of is the tires. There aren’t many examples of actual white-walled LEGO tires so most builders usually make their own by wedging parts together or pairing white wheels with black tires. Though it’s possible 1saac made his own, or that I couldn’t find these exact parts while writing, it is also possible these are from a diecast model that just happened to have tires that fit around the silver discs. Even if it isn’t a “purest” model, this is still quite a satisfying example of proper six-stud LEGO cars.

If Tatooine was in 30’s era Detroit

I used to think I was the only one who did this; you look at a Star Wars vehicle and imagine its Earthly counterpart. For example, the Millenium Falcon could be a Ford Falcon, Obi-Wan’s Jedi Starfighter could be a Jedi Starliner and Darth Vader’s TIE-Fighter could be a bitchin’ 70’s era Econoline with shag carpeting, beef jerky dispenser, lava lamps and a Boris Valejo space-wizard airbrushed on the side. Right? Well, it worked better before I put it to writing. Anyway, LEGO car guru and real-life car guru Peter Blackert clearly thinks of this stuff too as evidenced by this terrestrial 1939 Buick Y-Job concept made into Luke’s Landspeeder. There aren’t a lot of these lying around so I had to Google the vehicle but once I did, I can see how Peter saw the retro-futuristic shape of the Landspeeder. This computer render, in my opinion, perfectly melds the swooping curves of both designs.

Buick Space-Job Y-34 Landspeeder

Doing this sort of thing is a fun and imaginative exercise but if you prefer to keep your Landspeeder designs true to the movie, then try your hand at building the official UCS Luke’s Landspeeder LEGO set that has come out recently. Installing a beef jerky dispenser in the dash would only sweeten the deal.

Did your Land Rover break down? Call the AA

Of course, I don’t mean to imply that Land Rovers are unreliable vehicles. However, if you were in the UK, were to own a classic Land Rover and, God forbid, it would break down on you, what would you do? One of your options could be to call the AA. That is the organisation formerly known as The Automobile Association. Not the other famous organisation with the same initials that helps people overcome another expensive and destructive habit.

The AA operates a roadside assistance service, with mechanics crisscrossing the country in vans. However, if one of their mechanics can’t fix the problem, because it is actually pretty major, they also operate a fleet of recovery vehicles. A lot of those are German-built MAN TGL flatbed trucks, one of which I have now built in LEGO. Like the AA vans, these are a common sight on British roads, also quite commonly seen carrying Land Rovers. I’m still not saying those are unreliable, mind you. I actually like Land Rovers. My LEGO Land Rover model is something of a classic in its own right; I originally built it more than ten years ago and it has never broken down, except for when one of the wheels fell off as I was taking pictures of the truck. Since I’m a stickler for scale and I have not changed the style of my building for this, these two vehicles fit together really nicely.
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Not ‘alf bad for an Alfa

It can be a challenge to recreate the curvaceous, flowing lines of modern cars in LEGO’s angular format. The G Brix clearly enjoys a challenge, and if that wasn’t enough he’s chosen one of the prettiest cars to come out in recent years. No pressure, then! Luckily for us, they are a very talented builder, as evidenced by this Alfa Romeo Giulia GTAm. The car is built to the same 8-wide standard as current Speed Champions sets, although with slightly more detail than might be expected from the official LEGO kits. Before we get to that, though… Let’s appreciate just how gorgeous this car is:

Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio and GTAm Update

Lovely, isn’t it? Let’s take a look under the bonnet…

The origin story of Czech motoring

LEGO’s Speed Champions line has done a pretty good job of covering cars from a diverse range of eras, but they’re yet to represent the really early days of the automobile. In truth it’s unlikely they ever will, but thankfully we have builders like Pixeljunkie to scratch that particular itch! Pixeljunkie is no stranger to vintage automotive builds, and his latest creation is a doozy all the way from 1905. The car in question is the Laurin & Klement (L&K) company’s first motor car, the Voiturette A, which is where the firm now known as Skoda can trace its origins to. The company originally made bicycles, which makes the use of bicycle wheels for the car’s spindly wheels rather appropriate! Nougat and .dark red pieces are good approximations of the wooden body. The lamp on the right hand side of the car is worthy of further inspection, as well. It’s very simple: two gold chrome pieces, including the One Ring, on a headlight brick. The fact this headlight brick is transparent, though, makes the gold pieces stand out, and makes the lamp seem smaller and daintier than if a solid colour had been used. Finally, take note of the umbrella used as detailing on the footplate… There’s no roof on this puppy, so if it rains, you may need it!

1905 Skoda L&K Voiturette

Italian craftsmanship, German engineering, and Danish bricks

When thinking of the early development of the supercar in the 1980s, most people will probably think of the Lamborghini Countach or the Ferrari Testarossa as the poster boys of that era. One that sometimes gets overlooked — unfairly, if you ask me — is the BMW M1. It mixes the craziness of the Italian-born wedge-shape with some classic German refinement and engineering. LEGO builder Leo 1 has perfectly captured the first German supercar (I count the original Porsche 911 as a grand tourer, before you ask!) in all its orange glory. A pair of headlight bricks are the perfect choice for the BMW snout nose, as are the circular tiles for the rims.

BMW M1

The exquisite shaping continues around the rear of the car. Slopes and tiles at subtle angles abound to capture the sharp shape of this Bimmer, which is not easy in bright orange as the parts palette is still fairly limited. The little details, like the interior or wing mirrors, are the cherry on the cake. And we can all agree that twin-pipe exhausts just make a car look cooler, can’t we…?

BMW M1

A sick slammed cambered Beetle

In my neighborhood, you can measure douchiness by the angle of the cambered tires. You tilt those puppies more than fifteen degrees and you know that driver has a flat-brimmed ball cap, smells of Axe bodyspray, and never uses their blinkers. But as a car enthusiast, I think I can cool my judgemental jets for this amazing slammed cambered LEGO Beetle built by Hagen Oscarson. With its black and red color scheme, flashy rims and classic air-cooled Beetle shape, this slammed bug has all the makings of something that makes my heart go pitter-patter. It seems that this may be the first time we’ve featured Hagen’s work but with LEGO automotive styling this good, I think we’ll be keeping an eye out for whatever else he might do. And Hagen, this juuuust might inspire me to camber my own snazzy Bug. But then again, maybe I won’t. My blinkers get a lot of use.