At last, The Lego Car Blog has a proper car to bring you! And quite a legendary one at that. This marvellous Model Team model is a Datsun 510 as raced by BRE during the early-seventies. Underneath the perfectly replicated body-work (complete with accurate custom decals) is a fully remote control Power Functions chassis. It might be Model Team but this creation has a Technic heart. Infraredbrick’s Dastun has appeared on TLCB before in a previous form, but a racing version is always better! See more – including construction photographs – on Infraredbrick’s Flickr photo stream here.

Long before this Lego Car Blogger was born there was a time known as ‘The ’70s’. The ’70s were a weird and wonderful era, where Radio 1 DJs roamed the earth and everyone was forced to wear massive trousers or brown, and listen to disco-funk continuously. LEGO were just starting to hit the stratosphere during this period, and their pre-curser to Model Team was beginning to produce some excellent large-scale vehicles.

One of these was the 392 F1 car from 1975, a marvellous primary-coloured affair complete with genuine sponsorship decals. Jens M. - one half of the building duo ‘LegoExotics’ – has reimagined the original, retaining the ace look and colouring whilst bringing it up-to-date by incorporating today’s modern smooth pieces. See all the photos on Flickr at the link above.

Our second ’70s redux comes from Bobofrutx, who’s taken the 855 mobile crane set from 1978 and given it a similar facelift. His version of the ’70s classic includes the features that showed the beginnings of Technic, including working 4-wheel steering, a rotating and extending boom and a working winch.

You can see all the photos at Bobofrutx’s photostream via the link above, and you can read The Lego Car Blog’s reviews of some of the classic 1970′s sets by clicking on the ‘Reviews’ tab in the main menu.

One of our Brickshelf-based Elves returned to the office today. It was pretty hungry as it hadn’t found anything on the site for ages, but it’s now eaten for the first time in weeks and we’ve sent it back out the door again. We’re nice like that. Anyhow, it’s find is this; a fantastic Eurocopter X3 helicopter by arththra08. Arththra’s version of the famous tri-rotor aircraft features functional landing-gear, working rotors, and it utilises the latest smooth studless pieces to recreate a model that wouldn’t look out of place in an official LEGO box. You can see all the photos of the X3 on Brickshelf at the link above.

LEGO’s Technic Tow Truck 42008 hit the shelves this year, and a very nice model it is too. But what if your mini-figures want to have a go? MOCpages’ Andy L re-imagines what what 42008 would look like if it were about four times smaller (*hence the title – we’re teaching the Elves maths).

With room for two mini-figures up front, Andy’s 7-wide version of the official Technic set looks the bomb-diggidy, and it even includes some of the real set’s Technic functions, including 4-wheel steering, a raising and lowering boom and a working winch.

Come on LEGO, we’d love to see some Town sets with these playable functions! Until LEGO oblige us, check out Andy’s brilliant 42008 redux on MOCpages at the link above.

This mean-looking remote control Trophy Truck is the work of Brickshelf’s pipasseyoyo, and it looks an absolute riot to drive. Powered by LEGO’s mighty Buggy Motor, with a Servo Motor controlling steering and two Power Functions IR Receivers managing the signal it’s as quick as its Monster bodywork suggests. Check out the full gallery, including detailed photos of the chassis, on Brickshelf via the link above, and/or enjoy pipasseyoyo’s excellent accompanying video below.

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This mean looking VeeDub Volksrod was suggested to us via the Feedback and Submission Suggestions page. Built by MOCpager sm 01 it features Power Functions remote control, opening doors, and the most important feature of all – an opening glovebox. See all the photos and a video of it in action at the link above.

The Elves are feeling a bit peculiar this weekend, and thus they’ve found some pretty weird creations today. Not all were suitable for public viewing, but these two definitely are. First up (above) is the latest creation by TLCB favourite VolumeX, who has expanded on the Star Wars ship naming rules and designed a ‘D-Wing’ fighter. You can see all the details at VolumeX’s photostream above.

Today’s second spacey MOC comes from Technic builder Vimal Patel, better known as vmln8r, who also builds something that bears a close resemblance to George Lucas’ finest work. Vimal’s Technic droid features remote control, including a handy grabbing arm that looks great for fetching sweets and the TV remote. See it in action below, or on Vimal’s photostream via the link above.

This mean looking Technic supercar found it’s way to TLCB Towers via the Feedback and Submission Suggestions page, having generated a very positive response over on MOCpages. Relative newcomer Ryan Evens‘ ‘Road Warrior’ features all of the usual Technic supercar toys, including a working engine, gearbox, steering and Power Functions remote control, and also a few extras you wouldn’t normally expect to find. We’ll let you head over to his MOCpage to uncover what they are. The nosiest of our Elves got a surprise when they snuck out to investigate…

Another day, another Elf returns to the office, another meal token is distributed, and another creation is featured. The system works! This find comes from Eurobricks, where Piterx has built a very cool looking Technic Trophy Truck, complete with Power Functions RC and some beautifully bouncy suspension. See all the photos and a video of it in action here.

Following yesterday‘s RNLI Land Rover, previous TLCB bloggee pitrex contacted us with his own Technic life guard build. Featuring a host of Technic functions, piterx’s quad and jet-ski combo includes; Power Functions RC drive, working steering and suspension (quad), controllable impeller (jet-ski), and a working winch on the trailer. About as good as an official LEGO Technic set then! Join the discussion on Eurobricks via the link above.

As the icy finger of winter draws ever nearer to The Lego Car Blog Towers we’re beginning to post a little less often. Whilst the Elves, being elves, are used to Christmas working, most of the staff here will be drunk on a variety of festive beverages for the next few weeks and thus quality (never our strongpoint) is likely to take a turn for the worse.

It seems appropriate then to round off the last full week of (mostly) sobriety with a wintery model; something red, something good at ploughing through the snow, and something that’s able to carry a lot of presents in the back. No, not Santa’s sleigh, but a monster 8-wheel-drive Tatra T813 Kolos trial truck.

Built by gkurkowski, the T813 Kolos features all the usual Technic Truck Trial toys, and there’s a whole gallery to peruse on Brickshelf. Check it out at the link above.

The Elves are still hard at work, despite the miserable weather outside The Lego Car Blog Towers. Today’s find, by an Elf who’s now pegged up by the ears near a radiator to dry out, is an unusual model in Lego form.

We’re not really sure why Ford’s Model-T is overlooked by the Lego-building community, what with it being one of the most numerous (and famous) cars ever produced. Brickshelf’s solic helps to give the vintage vehicle some plastic recognition with his superb Technic Model-T truck. It comes compete with authentic leaf sprung suspension, Power Functions control and a working piston engine. See all the photos on Brickshelf at the link above.

Jennifer Clark’s Demag all-terrain crane was uncovered on MOCpages today, and it’s one of the best we’ve seen this year. Fully remote controlled and featuring a huge variety of functions, you can see more of this Technic masterpiece here where there’s also a link to Jennifer’s own website containing full details of all her builds.

This, Lego car fans, is a real, working, 100% LEGO, fully drivable car.

Snappily titled the ‘superawesomemicroproject’ it’s the product of two men, Australian marketer Steve Sammartino and 20 year-old Romanian engineer Raul Oaida, who built the life-size Lego hot rod using over half a million Blacktron-coloured LEGO pieces.

Their creation is powered by 256 LEGO pistons mounted within four enormous orbital engines fed by compressed air, with only the wheels and loaded components featuring non-LEGO construction.

Funded via crowdsourcing, the superawesomemicroproject has reached speeds of 30km/h with a driver on board and will probably go faster than that, all while built purely from little blocks of Danish plastic.

To read more about this amazing vehicle check out the superawesomemicroproject at Steve and Raul’s website, and watch the incredible video below. Thanks to Bricknerd who beat us to the punch.

Over to Eurobricks now, where TLCB favourite Piterx has built a most excellent winter toy. Fully remote control by way of LEGO’s Power Functions system, Piterx’s snowmobile is as capable on the white stuff as the real thing. There’s a video of it in action on YouTube, and you can join the discussion on Eurobricks here.

It’s that time of year again, when several lucky Elves ‘volunteer’ to get thrown over the perimeter fence of The LEGO Group’s development HQ. Weeks have passed since the office sling-shot fired the Elvish task-force into the Danish darkness, but today the final Elf returned and thus we now have the complete Technic line-up for the first half of 2014! Some of the stolen images have watermarks on, but hey – we’re not picky.

42025 – Lego Technic Cargo Plane

The main picture of this article is the main Technic set of 2014, and it marks a return to air-based Technic not seen for some time. The ‘feature’ model for the start of the year, LEGO’s new Cargo Plane features some rare Technic colours and a whole host of Power Functions and mechanical goodies, including; turning propellors, opening nose-cone, lowering ramp and adjustable flaps. Targeted at the upper end of the Technic age-range 42025 is aimed at builders aged 10+ and will likely sit at the top of 2014′s prices.

42021 – Lego Technic Snowmobile, 42022 – Lego Technic Hot Rod 

Next up are the two mid-range vehicles in the 2014 LEGO Technic line-up; 42021 and 42022, a snowmobile and hot rod respectively. Each is aimed at a slightly younger audience than 42025, but they still include a variety of proper Technic mechanical functions, including steering, suspension and piston engines. Each also continues LEGO’s expansion into brighter colours and decals, making them very visually appealing sets. Like all of the 2014 Technic range, instructions are provided for two possible models and these will also be available digitally via Lego.com.

42026 – Lego Technic Black Racing, 42027 – Lego Technic Desert Racer

Our third volunteering Elf snaffled two new starter Technic sets aimed at the 7+ age group; 42026 and 42027. As with all starter models their simpler build does mean less functionality than the larger Technic sets, but the LEGO Group does enhance the play value with pull-back motors. The Elves, being optimistically at the mental capacity of a 7 year old,  love these, and we suspect they’ll be the biggest sellers in the range next year. Bold colour choices abound in 2014 with more lime green and a dash of bright orange – we’re sure that we’ll see these re-surface on a few muscle car MOCs throughout the year.

42020 – Lego Technic Double Rotor Helicopter

Probably our least favourite of the 2014 LEGO Technic sets is this transport helicopter, but the range has to start somewhere. The rotors spin in unison and it features some useful looking rotor blades, but not much else. It will be cheap though.

42023 – Lego Technic Construction Team, 42024 – Lego Technic Container Truck

The final two new Technic sets in LEGO’s 2014 range get back to the heart of the brand; big chunky construction equipment with loads of mechanical features. It’s safe to say we’re delighted with these two sets.

On the left is 42023, the Construction Team, and the first multi-model set we’ve seen in years. Featuring a tracked excavator, front-loader and a dump truck it looks like a great way to expand a Technic collection with some excellent mechanical models. Aimed at ages 8+ the three models are quite simple, but they’re also full of play potential. Bravo LEGO.

And finally, the last model in LEGO’s 2014 Technic range is 42024, container truck (or ‘skip lorry’ as we’d call it here in the UK). Aimed at the 10+ age group it features some strong mechanical features including working steering, a lifting container arm and extending support legs. It’s also – despite the modern studless construction – rather retro looking in a classic red-yellow-blue combo, and we like that.

Overall it’s a pretty strong line-up for 2014, and there will be further additions, including a new flagship, for the second half of the year. As always we may review some of these sets throughout the year, and if you’d like to read The Lego Car Blog’s expert reviews on official LEGO sets from previous years, check out the Reviews page here.

The Lego Car Blog staff seem to be a bit portlier than they were before Christmas. Blame this on decadence of the TLCB Christmas party food and the fact that, well, someone had to eat the Smarties usually designated to the Elves whilst they were incarcerated.

With normal service resumed here at TLCB Towers it seems fitting that one of the creations uploaded over the Christmas break is a machine that enabled our mass sugar consumption, Eric Trax’ incredible Holmer Terra Dos T3 sugar beet harvester.

Powered by no less than eleven LEGO Power Functions motors and containing over 6,000 pieces, Eric’s harvester is a fiendishly complicated piece of kit. Watch the video below to get a flavour, and you can see all Eric’s photos on either Flickr or Brickshelf.

YouTube Video:

The LEGO Technic Mercedes-Benz Unimog (8110) might be the best model The LEGO Group has ever made. At 2000 pieces and including both Power Functions and Pneumatic systems, as well as a huge array of mechanical functions, 8110 is one of the most sought-after sets the company has produced to date. However, unlike most other Technic sets, it didn’t really come with instructions for an alternate – or ‘B’ – model.

Eurobricks member djshiver has rectified this with his creation built solely from the parts found within the 8110 Unimog set. His Jeep features the Unimog’s superb 4×4 drive system and couples it to a two-speed gearbox whilst utilising the original model’s compressor motor to power a front-mounted winch. The Jeep also includes an inline 4-cylinder engine up front, superb all-round suspension, working steering, and full Power Functions remote control compatibility. Everything LEGO could’ve included had they designed a ‘B’ model themselves!

You can see all the photos, design details and discussion for the Unimog alternate model at the Eurobricks forum via the link above.

With the red and green, it looks like it could belong to a jolly fat man… welcome to TLCB’s review of the Lego Technic 42008 Service Truck.

Not quite the latest in a long line of mid-range truck models that always seem to be the meat of the Technic range, this one with its 1276 pieces and £100 price is definitely edging upwards from mid-range, despite its still-modest size.

It’s got most of the sophistication of a much larger model too, as we shall see.

First impressions: Well, you’ll either get on with the green or you won’t… Personally, I think a grey or black (not red) chassis would have helped. Nevertheless, it is good to see Lego broadening the Technic colour palette once again – long may that continue! You get an entirely typical box, well stuffed with goodies and three instruction books. And a sticker sheet, natch. You’ll need that…

Building it is a reasonably familiar experience for anyone who’s had any other mid-range truck set in recent years, apart from the pneumatics, possibly. This may be unique in combining pneumatics, linear actuators and a PF motor in the same model – I can’t think of any others that have all three – and it’s this fact that makes the price seem pretty reasonable. It’s a fairly intricate and densely packed thing, with little wasted space, but the instructions are typically clear and simple to follow.

After a leisurely afternoon’s building, you’ll have a pretty impressive model with many functions:

Steering: A very well engineered progressive-rate system that operates on the first two axles via the usual gear on the roof. It works very smoothly, there’s a reasonable amount of lock and nothing for me to complain about. Technic steering systems would seem to be improving, at last.

Rear Stabilizers: Operated via the left hand gearbox and motorized, like all the following functions, these raise and lower via a pair of small linear actuators and are of limited use, frankly. They don’t lock in place and they’re not strong enough to lift the rear of the model. Next!

Hook: Anyone expecting this to take an age to raise and lower, like every other motorized crane, is in for a surprise. The thing fairly rips along, assuming you’ve lifted the stop-lever if you’re extending it…. which item won’t stay up on it’s own so you need three hands to do so. Grrr! It has the strength to pull a similar size model onto the ramp, so it does it’s job.

Boom Lifting: Done by a single large linear actuator and operated via the right hand gearbox, this works smoothly and well. It goes a lot further up than it needs to for a service truck, but I’m not complaining. Much.

The pneumatic compressor is actuated via the right hand gearbox and this powers the boom extension and the ramp lowering mechanisms. Each of these items uses a small pneumatic piston to actuate it, which works fine – if rather suddenly, as is the way with airtank-less pneumatics – without a load, but the small pistons don’t have enough grunt to do much actual work. The standard, larger, pistons would have been better.

That’s an impressive array of working functions for what is still a relatively small model; the more so because there’s a motor and battery box packed in as well. Most of them work alright, after a fashion, and it does make this an extremely playable set. The only major gripe concerns operating the motor via the switch on the battery box; you’ve got to be delicate to avoid switching it to the other direction when you want it off. Adding a PF switch would make this a much more manageable thing to use.

You can use it well enough, though…

Model Team trucks are pretty but they break down a lot…

42008 will never be called pretty, exactly, but it looks… purposeful. There’s a fairly minimal amount of detail around the cab, but there’s enough. The doors open to reveal the usual pair of angled-liftarm seats and a rudimentary dashboard and (unconnected) steering wheel. As for the colour, it’s certainly striking… I don’t usually apply stickers to my sets, but with this it’s very necessary; and they do successfully break up what is a big slab of green without them.

Overall, I like it. It ain’t perfect, it ain’t pretty, but it’s packed with features and you get a sense that the designers were being ambitious with it. Perhaps a little over-ambitious, but there’s a lot to admire here. 7/10

The Lamborghini Miura has been done so many times, your model of it would need to be spectacular to get our attention…

… trust Senator Chinchilla to wake us up from our post-Christmas slumbers. Find this beauty on MOCpages,