Robotic Dancing Cheerleaders! What’s not to like ? Distinctly non-car for The Lego Car Blog, but they do have wheels – only 2 on each robot and they’re balanced by gyro sensors. These are full of Mindstorms trickery to make them move and wave their arms to a beat. Whatever it is they smoke in the Family Vuurzoon household, we’d like some…
Enjoy the video. We did.
What with it being Hump Day (Wednesday is the ‘hump’ of the week) we thought we’d find a tenuous link to vehicles good over humps, and nothing is better than a rally car when things get humpy.
Both today’s rally cars use LEGO’s excellent RC components to give them drive and steering, both are legends in their own right, but they come from very different rallying eras.
First up (above) is a breathtakingly brilliant Lancia Delta Integrale by Tiago C on Brickshelf. The Delta won an astonishing 46 World Rallies, taking Lancia to six consecutive World Championships and a record which remains to this day.
Next we have one of the new stars of the World Rally and Rally-Cross Championships, Ford’s monster Fiesta, in -as it happens- Monster energy drink livery. The work of Piterx, you can see more photos and join the discussion on Eurobricks.
And finally, the only thing that gets close to a rally car over the rough stuff is a trial truck. They may be slow, but the humps they can clear are truly enormous. So as a Hump Day bonus here’s Jorge Garcia‘s Tatra Kolos 8×8, also featuring remote control, clearing two humps. You can see the full gallery of the 8×8 in action on MOCpages.
It’s been a while since we featured a purely Technic car here at The Lego Car Blog, and even longer since we featured one in such a classic style – they’re getting hard to find these days. szecs aka lipko takes us back to 1999 with a beam-and-pin Rally Car suggested to us via the Feedback page. You can see the full gallery on Brickshelf via the link above.
The supporting actor of track sides, the B-Side is there only to fill the blank space on the back of the record. But sometimes the B-Side turns out to be better than than the A.
B-Sides famous for being more famous than their A-Side compatriots are rare things, but U2′s ‘Sweetest Thing’, The Smiths’ ‘How Soon is Now’ and er… The Righteous Brothers’ ‘Unchained Melody’ are today joined by Nathanael Kuipers’ 42000 Hot Rod, which is, somewhat remarkably, a more appealing model than the one upon which it’s based.
And the best thing about Nathanael’s work is you can build one too! Just buy LEGO’s 42000 Technic F1 Racer set and you’ll have all the parts you need. See how Nathanael’s done it on MOCpages or Flickr.
The Lego Car Blog Elves continue their never-ending* search for the web’s best Lego vehicles, and today it was Brickshelf‘s turn to yield a model worth publicising.
This marvellous Technic Land Rover Series 1 is the work of Tamas Juhasz aka mbmc137, who has recreated the world-famous 4×4 from a mix of LEGO plates and Technic beams.
Under the lightweight bodywork is a LEGO RC Buggy Motor and a 4-speed gearbox of Tamas’ own design, giving his Land Rover some pretty decent off-road abilities. See the Series 1 in action on YouTube, and check out the full Brickshelf gallery via the link above.
*Unless we get bored of blogging and stop feeding them.
Honda’s Marc Marquez claimed victory at the German MotoGP over the weekend, so we’ve decided to take TLCB on two wheels for this post with a Honda from a different era (and budget!). The excellent Honda CB400 motorbike above comes courtesy of OzBen on Brickshelf. Check it out at the link and join the discussion on Eurobricks.
OK, OK, if you’ve been reading all today’s posts and have spotted a theme, it’s because the guy that writes our titles is on holiday. So, in light of this we bring you our third and final ‘T is for Tuesday’ MOC; PiterX’s monster Polaris 4×4 Trial Truck!
Featuring all-wheel-drive, fully independent suspension and power functions remote control Piter’s creation sure looks like it can handle the rough stuff. See more and join in the discussion at the Eurobricks forum.
After the success of Tuesday’s titles, we couldn’t think of a better name for this post featuring Gabor Horvath’s “Tow Truck from Johnny English”. As well as being a good representation of a Metropolitan Police Vehicle Removal Unit lorry, this build has a high degree of “workingness”. Everything is remote controlled, including the speed, steering and outrigger legs. Once you’re in position, you can rotate and extend the crane’s arm to hook up that illegally parked car. You can see more photos and technical design details on Gabor’s MOCpages page or his Flickr photostream. Gabor shows off his truck’s functions in this nicely humourous video, complete with some custom built figures.
This jaw-dropping Pagani Huayra was discovered on Brickshelf. Featuring a seven speed gearbox, remote control and a name we can’t pronounce it’s a true Lego Technic Supercar in every sense. Jorgeopesi is the builder and you can see the full gallery here.
We’re coming to the end of a ridiculously busy week here at TLCB. Originally when we started this humble website we envisaged an average of a post a day, but the last week has seen so many brilliant models uploaded that we’ve been publishing around three times this. Some of the more successful Elves are even starting to look a bit portly…
So, before we slow it down a bit next week we thought we’d wrap up our busiest week so far with something a bit special; VFracingteams‘ astonishing Technic ship, the SL Gabon.
‘SHIP’ is slang in the LEGO Community for a ‘Seriously Huge Investment in Parts’, and it’s safe to say the SL Gabon fulfils this, being one of the largest models we’ve ever publicised.
VFracingteam also very kindly agreed to an interview by TLCB, and he becomes the third builder to feature in our ‘Master MOCer’ series. You can read all about his Lego journey and the amazing SL Gabon ship in his interview here, or by hovering over the ‘Interviews’ tab of the main menu.
Besides being a CBC television programme containing quite a lot of sex (and also quite a lot of historical inaccuracy), ‘Tudors’ can also refer to buildings of a certain style and, perhaps more strangely, Hot Rods.
We have no idea how a car can be a ‘Tudor’ (can anyone help?), but looking at Doc Brown‘s ’32 Ford Tudor we do quite like the results. As is commonplace in recent Technic creations Doc’s Ford is remote controlled via LEGO’s Power Functions system and he’s produced a video to show it in action that’s nearly as slick as the model itself. Check it out below, and see the Ford’s full gallery on Flickr via the link above, or on Eurobricks here.
YouTube Video:
Time for a confusing array of letters! PF RC AWD SUV. Points* to those of you who can decode that lot! If you’d like a hand, check out Madoca’s superb 4×4 on Eurobricks, or see it in action in the video below.
*Redeemable for Elf treats.
YouTube Video:
We fully expect to receive a lot of spam comments for home whitening kits following this title, but we couldn’t resist. Crowkillers’ spectacular Vampire GT Technic Supercar has undergone a colour change, swapping its previous midnight hue for something a whole lot more Apple. Normally this wouldn’t be worthy of another post, but when it looks this good we couldn’t let it go unnoticed. See more of the new Vampire on Brickshelf or at crowkillers.com.
And points to us today for keeping this post free from Michael Jackson jokes.
One of our Brickshelf-based Elves returned with this today, a beautiful fully-studless RC car in an eye-popping paint scheme. Underneath that bright bodywork is a Power Functions RC system including an ‘L’ drive motor and return-to-centre steering. VKyppwnsall is the builder behind it and you can see all the details, including the RC chassis design, on Brickshelf.
…”This isn’t a car”. We continue our run of movie vehicles with this; the superb ‘Bat’ from The Dark Knight Rises, built by LEGO genius Sariel on MOCpages.
Powered by LEGO’s Power Functions motors and LED lights it’s probably the coolest creation we’ve featured this month. It’s not the first Bat Wing built from little plastic bricks though as that accolade goes to the equally brilliant Mahjqa. Both builders have devised ways for their creations to ‘fly’, but they take rather different approaches. See how Sariel achieved it in his video via the first link, and watch Mahjqa’s film in the second. Neither fixed the autopilot though.
Paul Boratko (aka Crowkillers) is one of our favourite builders here at The Lego Car Blog. His models look and function brilliantly, but it’s they way they’re built which sets them apart; they’re as easy to build as a LEGO set. His latest, entitled ‘Some kind of monster’ is another beautifully engineered modular build, and one that can be easily modified with Power Functions motors. See the gallery and be inspired on MOCpages.
No, not a roadtrip by Snoop Dogg, but Google’s (incorrect) French for ‘Off Road’. This awesome Power Functions controlled Technic buggy is the work of Charbel, who has his own website showing how it’s built and with videos of it in action. His site is in French though, so if your grasp of the language is a bit merde you can check it out in English via the Eurobricks forum.
Our American readers may laugh at Fiat’s tiny off-roader, but mock at your peril; the original Panda 4×4 will beat a Hummer off-road on a typical snowy European farm-track. Piterx’s Technic version of the little Fiat is remotely controlled and includes all-wheel-drive. See it in action at his blog, or join in the discussion on Eurobricks.
LEGO’s Technic mobile cranes have always been firm favourites with builders (read TLCB’s reviews of the official sets here), but are less common as MOCs. When done well though, crane MOCs can be more than a match for LEGO’s own efforts. Today’s comes from TLCB veteran mbmc137 on Brickshelf. His Liebherr LTM 1090 features a huge array of remote control functions including drive, steering, boom raising/lowering, rotation and extension, winch and outriggers. Even LEGO’s own sets don’t fit all that in! See more at the link above or join in the discussion on Eurobricks.
This Lamborghini SV by Brickshelf’s Spiderbrick features all the usual Technic goodies (suspension, all-wheel-drive etc.), but it also features something we’ve never seen before; working airbags. Yes, this car really will deploy both driver and passenger airbags in the event of a frontal collision. Controlled by a Mindstorms NXT and pneumatic system, we’re not sure whether the ‘bags inflate suddenly via stored pressure, or whether the driver will knock themselves out on the steering wheel and awake to find a gradually inflating balloon pressing against their gentleman’s area, but either way it’s one of the most innovative ideas we’ve seen in Lego form. Check out the system and the vehicle it’s fitted to at the link above.
