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).

A tiny tanker tickles our fancy

LEGO builder František Hajdekr specializes in the little things. Take this tiny tanker truck on for size. It just shows you don’t need a truckload of LEGO bricks to build something that really packs in the details. What a great color scheme, too! If you squint, it just about looks like a real truck. This might be the best thing I’ve seen all day, and I’ve seen what happens when someone consumes bananas and Sprite. If you’d rather not Google that then I’d suggest checking out some other awesome vehicles built by a truckload of talented builders around the globe.

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The wheels on the bus go ’round and ’round

I don’t know about you, but I have many memories of a bus very similar to this, taking me to and from school. Not all the memories are good, but, despite that, seeing the bus in LEGO form is pretty darn cool. Allen Smith recreates the classic school bus at almost a 1:43 scale, down to the last iconic detail. The 1995, Thomas built Saf-T-Liner MVP school bus serves as the base of Allen’s model. The most recognizable detail, at least for me, is the front of the bus. The particular way the flat face is interrupted by the slight curve of the windshield is crisp. I love the use of wands for the windshield wipers! It gives them just the right angling for the look. Something my school buses never had is that nice crossing arm. They added it for safety to keep kids from running out into the road before the driver gives the all-clear.

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Time to move over, McQueen!

I don’t know how he does it, but builder Djokson has managed to breathe life into yet another extinct LEGO Racer with his tribute to 4573 Lightor. We’ve seen prior successes from this builder in the past, but I’m particularly drawn to this one. Maybe it’s that color scheme, all ROY and no GBIV. Maybe it’s the outstanding parts usage, what with these windscreens in orange nested within a dump truck bed for the air intakes on the sides. I mean, those are some awesome side panels! No, I’d say it’s probably the driver. The engineering the make a figure with such character and yet such a skinny cross-section is like catching lightning in a bottle.

I’ve got a brand new combine harvester and I’ll give you the key

Well, it’s not exactly mine but if you ask the vehicle’s creator, Kris Kelvin, he might provide you with the key. This impressive LEGO build of a combine harvester perfectly recreates the details of the real-life farm vehicle. At the front, spikes are used as the forward prongs and red wagon wheels form part of the threshing drum with clip pieces attached to them. Minfigure neck brackets portray the headlights on the roof. The chute, sticking off the side, uses a red bucket to represent the tip of the funnel where the grain would be offloaded onto a trailer. The model appears to be in scale with minifigures and would be an ideal addition to any farm diorama.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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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