MOCpages’ Yann (XY EZ) has been hard at work recreating some of Volkswagen’s classic printed marketing, using the official LEGO camper set as a base. You can see all of Yann’s brilliant brick-built versions of the 1960s advertisements via the link above, including comparisons with the lovely original artwork.
This refrigerated box-van was discovered by a member of our Elvish workforce today. Tromas is the builder and you can see more of his Town-style truck on Flickr.
One of The Lego Car Blog’s very favourite builders has taken the brave – and often envied – step into the world of professional Lego model making. Certified LEGO Professionals Bright Bricks can now count the ridiculously talented Nick Barrett amongst their building staff. Nick joined the Bright Bricks team bringing a wealth of vehicular knowledge, which they’ve put to excellent use in their latest commissioned project, ‘Bricks in Motion’.
Bricks in Motion is taking place at the Milestones Museum in Hampshire, UK until the end of April 2015, featuring many creations by Nick, as well as few other builders including regular bloggee Ralph Savelsberg.
Nick’s creations include working vehicles commonly seen in the UK, such as this Mercedes ambulance (above), and JCB (below)…
…as well as themed creations from around the world, like these brilliant Lego taxis.
There are also a few nods to some of the most important vehicles of history, including famous ships and trains, such as the widely recognised pioneer of steam travel, Stephenson’s Rocket.
There’s lots more to see at Nick’s MOCpages account and you can see what’s on at the Bricks in Motion exhibition – including their children’s building activities and Mindstorms robotic workshops – via the link in the text above.
If you think that becoming a professional Lego model maker might be for you, then you can read our interviews with some of those who have gone pro by clicking this link to our Interviews page.
The diesel car market is a curious thing. It’s been around for ages, was relentlessly mocked by Top Gear and their like until a decade ago, yet now in Europe over half of all cars sold are fuelled from the black pump (and almost every luxury car, SUV or rep-mobile saloon is diesel powered). Even Top Gear now approves.
Currently though, diesel is rapidly falling out of favour for being nowhere near as clean in the real world as the official EU tests suggest, and it’s petrol-hybrid that is seen as the immediate solution to our urban air quality problems. But as hybrid technology is relatively new it’s being relentlessly mocked by Top Gear and their like… Hmm, where have we seen this before?
Anyway, because America is automotively about a decade behind Europe car manufacturers are now shifting their diesel wares stateside – probably in anticipation of the bottom falling out of the EU market at anytime soon. This new wave of diesels is being largely marketed as ‘Clean Diesel’ (because that way no-one will ask any searching questions), and Lino Martins has put this magic new fuel to good use in his wonderful diesel-powered Volksrod rat rod. It looks clean to us!
You can see more of Lino’s diesel monster on Flickr – click the link above to make the trip.
There’s a very fat Elf somewhere in the office today. Fat because it legitimately earned – and spent – three meal tokens in one go.
Flickr’s Barry Bosman aka Barman76 has caused the temporary obesity through his wonderful trio of complimenting creations; a huge Mercedes-Benz heavy haulage truck, its mobile crane load and, our favourite, a simply brilliant Volkswagen Transporter escort vehicle. Each is a work of art and all are available to view via the link to Flickr above.
The Elves, forced into action by hunger, are back on the hunt for the best Lego creations the web has to offer. Today’s find comes from Flickr’s Peteris Sprogis, who has created this charming Model Team style classic Volkswagen Beetle. There’s more to see of Peteris’ Bug at his photostream – click the link above to make the jump.
It’s not often that we see a Lego recreation of a vehicle in any state other than pristine condition. TLCB regular Norton74 has bucked this trend with a new addition to his brilliant previously blogged workshop – a fantastic bare metal Volkswagen Transporter shell. The shell itself is a neat idea, but it’s Norton’s superb garage tools which steal the show. You can see the image above – suggested to us by a reader – in full size on Flickr.
Lego models photographed on location look the business. This stunning Mercedes-Benz Actros with Nooteboom trailer and its Volkswagen Transporter escort vehicle have appeared here previously as part of a builder collaboration.
Flickr’s JaapTechnic has since completed his elements of that original set-up by adding fully working lights and high-quality decals to his models. The latest images place the convoy into a real world setting, and the results are spectacular. Click here to see all of the new images at Jaap’s photostream.
We’re basically larger, hairier children here at TLCB Towers, and as such we usually post vehicles with a million horsepower, or guns, or racing stripes. And if possible with all three. Today though we’re posting something surprisingly small*, and possibly even a little elegant – the infamous classic Vespa scooter.
Flickr’s Norton74 has appeared here several times before, more recently with his beautiful Volkswagen garage. He’s now re-purposed this previous build to replicate his own Officina Super Sprint Vespa Workshop that he owns in real-life, and it’s possibly even more lovely than before. One of his Volkswagen Transporters even makes a re-appearance too.
There’s a whole gallery to enjoy on at Norton74’s photostream, click the link above to take the trip.
*That’s what she said.
We’d steer clear of this flower-laced Volkswagen T2 camper – it’s most likely filled with smelly hippies and dirty bong water. But it does make for a neat Lego model. Filip Gabryel is the builder and there’s more to see here.
Wise if slightly ironic words from the late King of Pop. Today’s two opposingly-hued Town creations show that even the trickiest of colours can be photographed beautifully.
Above is -derjoe-‘s wonderfully accurate Volkswagen Transporter, whilst below TLCB regular _Tiler is making another appearance, this time with a gorgeous classic Chevrolet Camaro.
There’s more to see of each 6-wide masterpiece via the links above, and if you’d like a few tips on how to take photos as good as these two, click this link.
With the news today that the Volkswagen Group has made a spectacular blunder the Elves were duly sent out to find a MOC that we could relate to the story. Unfortunately the Elves are idiots, so this 1970 Porsche 908/02 ‘Flunder’ is as close as they got. Still, it’s only one letter away and to be fair to them here at TLCB Towers they do hear a lot of words beginning with ‘F’…
Anyway, back to Volkswagen. Today’s news that the company have rigged the NOX emissions of their diesel vehicles in order to bypass air quality laws is one heck of a blunder. Actually, it’s not even a blunder. It’s a thoroughly despicable, bordering on evil, business decision to put profit ahead of peoples’ well-being. The NOX levels emitted by the affected Volkswagen Group vehicles are up to 40 times the legal limit, directly damaging the lung tissue of those that breathe it, and causing a variety of respiratory diseases and even biological mutations. Yup, we’re going to stick with ‘evil’.*
So far Porsche, a subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group, are unaffected by the scandal – although only because they don’t yet use the group’s 4-cylinder diesel engines.
The glorious 1970 Porsche 908/02 ‘Flunder’ pictured above comes from a time when emissions could legally be quietly ignored, being powered by a three-litre flat-8 engine making just under 400bhp (and it still emitted less NOX than a modern VW diesel). The 908 raced alongside the bigger 917, being favoured on twisty tracks where the 917 was too cumbersome, and the example above raced at Le Mans in 1970 in the hands of Rudi Lins and Helmut Marko.
Previous bloggee Greg 998 is the builder and you can see more of his beautiful 908 on both MOCpages and Flickr.
*TLCB – somewhat unbelievably – predicted this back in March(!). We’re still awaiting a call requesting our services from the investigators at the Environmental Protection Agency. We’re sure it’ll be any day now…
Volkswagen’s original Transporter is an undeniably cute vehicle, but it probably isn’t the best platform on which to build a fire engine. Still, despite it being their slowest response equipment since the horse, the T1 did indeed find use with fire departments. We hope the fires were small…
This neat recreation of the world’s most slovenly fire engine comes from previous bloggee sm01. As well as looking rather nice it’s also remote control, and you can see more on both Flickr and MOCpages.
Volkswagen’s Karmann-Ghia (named after the design studios that created it) may have simply been a Beetle in a pretty dress, but what a dress! The Karmann-Ghia is easily one of the most beautiful cars of the 1960s – itself one of the most beautiful eras of car design – and this gorgeous Model Team recreation of the classic coupe captures the Ghia’s curves superbly. Built by Vibor Cavor and suggested by a reader you can see more at both MOCpages and Flickr.
TLCB Elves love yellow. We’re not sure Smarties are identifiable by taste (apart from the orange ones of course) but our Elves seem to favour the citrous hue. This beautifully smooth Volksrod by Flickr’s _Tyler meets their colour preference, and it’s a cracking build too. There’s more to see on Flickr – click the link above to visit _Tyler’s photostream.
We’re pretty sure that over the years quite a few custodians of Volkswagen’s iconic Transporter have been on a trip to outta space. And then woken up spooning a stolen traffic cone and smelling of something foreign. Seriously kids, don’t do drugs. Anyway, back to the model; this neat VW Camper-esque creation comes from piratecox as part of the Febrovery fun over on Flickr, and we can only imagine what that mini-figure spaceman has got inside his ‘air’ tanks. See more via the link above.
Ralph Savelsberg aka Mad Physicist is living up to his name with his latest build. We’re not sure that the laws of physics allow for what’s going on with this Volkswagen Beetle ‘Zinger’, but whatever the practicalities it looks damn cool! There’s more to see at Ralph’s photostream – click the link above to make the jump.
It seems like only last week that we posted a Lego lunar dune buggy. Probably because it was. Anyway, here’s another – this time in Volkswagen flavour – and you can see more courtesy of Jonas on Flickr.
Like, totally. Dude. Right, enough non-sensical surf-talk, these neat Town-scale creations come from Flickr’s Johnni, and you can see more of his brilliant board-laden Mark 1 Ford Transit and classic VW Manx beach buggy at his photostream via the link above.
A staple fixture in ‘funny’ t-shirts, today’s blog title is probably a bit too close for comfort these days. Bomb disposal engineers have always done incredible work, but in Europe for the past few decades their main job has been to take unexploded World War 2 bombs down to the dump and claim the scrap metal value.
Not anymore though. Thanks to the utter shitbags in ISIS and their like, sadly it’s all getting a lot more serious. The heroes depicted in bricks above belong to the Dutch Ministry of Defence Bomb Disposal Division, and with their rather cute looking robot they’re ready to keep the streets of Holland shrapnel and body-part free.
TLCB regular Ralph Savelsberg aka Mad Physicist is the builder, and you can see more of his Bomb Disposal Team and their Volkswagen Crafter long-wheelbase van on Flickr – cut the blue wire at the link above.
