Well, this is a Mini, but not a normal one. Designed to sell to the world’s militaries, the Mini Moke was an ultra lightweight off-road vehicle built for ease of travel and maintenance. And it did those things pretty well, being based on the standard Mini passenger car and being light enough to be picked up by its bumpers.

However, at the one thing the Moke really needed to do well, the off-roading stuff, it was a bit hopeless. Low ground clearance (and low power) meant the little car got stuck a lot, and even the addition of a second engine in the rear to give the Moke four-wheel-drive failed to convince any major militaries to back it.

Looking for a way to recoup their investment, the British Motor Corporation re-marketed the Moke as a fun car for civilian use, and in a few places – notably Australia, the Caribbean and parts of the Mediterranean – turned their initial failure into a quite a success, and the Moke has now become something of a cult car in these markets.

This lovely Lego version of the unusual Mini, built to match the scale of the official LEGO 10242 Mini Cooper set, has been built by Ritto Aydillo Zuazo of Flickr, and it’s a faithful recreation of the odd original. Ritto is hoping that his Moke replica can become an official LEGO set via the LEGO Ideas platform – to see all the images and to give it your vote check it out on Flickr via the link above.

The Lego Car Blog Elves have had a Good Day today. Firstly, the last four models to be blogged here have been yellow, and the Elves love yellow. Secondly, this was the fourth of them; built by Beat Felber and following on from his huge LeTourneau L-1200 front loader blogged here earlier in the week, it’s a truly humungous Euclid R-170 mining truck, and like the LeTourneau it’s fully remote controlled.

Driven by a single Power Functions XL motor, with Servo-motor articulated steering and a dumping bucket powered by twin linear actuators, the Euclid can be controlled remotely via a Bluetooth device thanks to a third party SBrick.

As is usual for this type of creation, the Elf that found it tried use it to smush his colleagues into the office carpet, but thankfully for our cleaners – who have to try to remove Elven blood and sick on a regular basis – the Euclid is pretty slow, and the Elves finally seem to be wising up to the constant threat of impending smushery.

Happily therefore, rather than being squashed a whole hoard of them are merrily riding around in the back, which looks tremendous fun until the Elf at the controls figures out how to operate the dumping mechanism. Until then we’ll enjoy the merriment and you can check out more of this amazing machine, and the matching LeTourneau L-1200 loader that accompanies it, by clicking here.

Ah, Back To The Future, an office favourite here at TLCB Towers and the film that made a star of the iconic Delorean DMC-12, a car that was… total and complete crap.

If you’re unfamiliar with the true story of the DeLorean, which is very nearly as remarkable as the film, you can read it here, but today we’ll be moving on from that steaming turd of a car, saved from obscurity only by a chance decision by Universal Pictures, to feature a vehicle from the movie that’s the total opposite of the DMC-12.

This is, of course, a humble Toyota 4×4 pick-up, known as the Hilux in most of the world, and it’s everything the DeLorean wasn’t. Hugely successful, superbly built, and unbreakably reliable, the Toyota truck was the dream vehicle for 1980s Marty McFly. His version featured a few mods too, which have been faithfully recreated in Technic form by regular bloggee paave.

Paave’s creation doesn’t just look the part either, as underneath is a four-wheel-drive fully remote controlled drivetrain, working leaf-spring suspension, and opening (and locking) doors, hood and tailgate.

You can see all of the images as well as a video of the Toyota in action at both Eurobricks and MOCpages – click the links to go back in time.

It sure is. One of the many tenuously-named monthly bandwagons, Febrovery is one we can get behind. Especially when the results look like this. Previous bloggee Priovit70 has turned classic space roving up to eleven with his stupendous tracked rover ‘NCS Sobriety’, and there’s more to see on Flickr here.

[Elven Screaming]… [Thump!]… [Elven Screaming]…

Sigh. It’s been a while since we’ve had a mass Elf squashing here in the office, but today, thanks to builder Madoca 1977, we were reminded what it feels like to slide a spatular underneath a flattened mythical creature to prise it out of the carpet. Still, in this situation it’s considerably better than being an Elf.

The cause of the carnage was this, Madoca’s (brilliant) Technic Toyota Tacoma pick-up. With remote control drive and steering, plus a two speed gearbox, it’s a model that is marginally faster than some of our fatter Elves. That’s Darwinism in action right there kids.

The aforementioned Elves would have caused a traction issue for most remote control models once they became smushed underneath the wheels, but Madoca’s Technic Tacoma not only features four-wheel-drive and front and rear suspension, but locking differentials too, meaning that even with three wheels lifted off the ground the fourth will continue to drive the truck forward.

With the model now safely under our control and the jubilant Elven discoverer contentedly cashing in its meal-token, we have an exciting half an hour ahead of us tidying up, so whilst we get on with that you can check out all of the images of Madoca’s superb Toyota pick-up at the Eurobricks discussion forum, where there’s also a video of the truck in action.

Flickr’s vehicle-building society LUNuts are very on-topic right now, with their current monthly building contest taking in all things dystopian.

Previous bloggee Lino Martins’ entry pays homage the bleak dystopian masterpiece ‘1984’, which contains absolutely no similarities with the current state of U.S politics.

Coincidentally, we’ll hand over to Lino to explain some of the features of his ‘Murica-mobile’; “The roof mounted loud speakers are so that the driver may broadcast alternate facts, and many people are saying that the gun rack and truck nuts are a classy touch. Many people. Believe me. And no one knows classy better than I do. Let’s make America great again. Bigly”.

No similarities whatsoever… See more courtesy of Lino’s photostream.

The annual bandwagon that is Febrovery is over for another year, with rovers of all shapes and sizes being submitted by the online community. We’re ending our coverage of this year’s event with two rovers from the very opposite end of the roving spectrum.

First above (above), and suggested to us by a reader, is this neat tracked satellite dish transporting rover, resplendent in a Classic Space livery and with a beautiful classic space monorail pictured behind it. There’s more to see at RVA LUG’s photostream by clicking here.

Today’s second Febrovery entry (below) comes from previous bloggee F@bz, and although it too is mini-figure scale, it’s an enormous machine. There’s some wonderfully inventive building in evidence too, and you can see more at F@bz’ photostream by clicking here.

Despite having zero sci-fi knowledge we’ve rather enjoyed this year’s Febrovery, so much so that we may get involved next year (although probably not in the way you’d expect!), so until then, happy roving, and we’ll return to vehicles of a more earthly nature.

Yup, after a few days away from TLCB keyboard we’re back! We’d been waiting for a crack team of Elves to return from a secret mission infiltrating The Lego Company headquarters, and we’re pleased to announce that some of them have returned safely!

The lucky returnees are enjoying the fame and glory associated with bringing back the clearest images yet of LEGO’s summer Technic releases, and the fact that there are no alsatians for them to evade in the grounds of TLCB Towers.

So, on to the first new set!

42068 – Airport Rescue

LEGO’s first new addition to the Technic range is this, 42068, and we feel like we’ve seen it before. Yes, it does bear a striking resemblance to 8454 from the bad-old days of Technic, but on closer inspection it’s a far more realistic attempt at an airport firetruck than was made in 2003.

With no Power Functions or Pneumatic System, 42068 relies on good ol’ fashioned mechanics to enable its working functions. Front and rear steering and a manually raising and extending boom are the key features, and the set employs a wealth of stickerage to liven up what is basically a panelled box sat atop six wheels. Next.

…

42069 – Extreme Explorer

Are LEGO running out of new ideas for Technic vehicles? If 42069 is anything to go by, probably. Loosely based on a tracked arctic exploration vehicle, the Extreme Explorer drops into the 2017 Technic line-up right at the top, being aimed at ages 11+, and the box – intriguingly – has no upper age limit. That stops us having to make excuses to long-suffering partners at least!

With a few unusual purple panels and four separate independently sprung tracks, 42069 looks like a set that’ll be snapped up by those wishing to increase their parts stock, but we’re not sure how well it stacks up in its own right.

In addition to those suspended tracks there’s front axle steering, gull-wing doors, flashy stickers (not shown on the box above) and a working winch. There also looks to be a gearbox too, although we’re not convinced that this is the conventional sort, and it may be more to do with suspension settings or all-track-drive capabilities.

42069 will reach stores in the second half of 2017 and will be priced towards the top end of the Technic line-up, but with no pneumatics or Power Functions components it could offer a decent piece count for the price.

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42070 – 6×6 All Terrain Tow Truck

This is more like it! With over 1,800 pieces and Power Functions remote control, 42070 becomes the flagship set in the 2017 line-up when it arrives later in the year.

Just like your Mom, this thing is massive, with those six suspended wheels running on the same tyres as the brilliant 42054 Claas Xerion tractor set.

We expect 42070 to include full remote control drive and steering, working support legs at the sides and rear, and a gearbox to transfer the motorised power to a remotely operable crane and winch.

We’ll see if we’re right when 42070 lands later on this year, but expect it to be expensive!

…

There you have it, the 2017 Technic line-up is now complete, plus rumour has it that combining these sets allows you to build a modern take on the very first LEGO Technic supercar set too.

We’ll bring you further set news later on in the year, and in the meantime you can check out all the official LEGO sets that have been reviewed here at The Lego Car Blog so far by visiting the enormous Set Review Library.

Except this really isn’t any old Jeep. This is Jeep’s little-known ‘Mighty FC Concept’, which we assume stands for ‘Forward Control’, and it’s been superbly recreated in remote control Technic form by vehicle-building legend Madoca 1977.

Packed inside Madoca’s brilliant creation are six LEGO Power Functions motors, three sets of LEDs, and two third-party SBrick bluetooth receivers. The first two motors are XLs, which take care of the Jeep’s all-wheel-drive via portal axles, whilst a Servo motor controls the steering. Three Medium motors drive the winch, activate the locking rear differential, and control a two-speed gearbox, all of which is powered by an on-board rechargeable battery.

The Elves, who seem to have infiltrated Jeep’s vehicle-naming department, love the Mighty FC, even though it’s much too slow to cause any carnage in TLCB office. It can carry quite a few of them at once though, which appears to be what is currently happening, so whilst we let them get on with that you can discover the build’s full details by visiting the Eurobricks forum, and you can watch Madoca’s Jeep in action via the excellent video below.

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It’s been a slow (read ‘hungry’) week for The Lego Car Blog Elves. However, with their empty stomachs ‘motivating’ them it was only a matter of time before we’d have a creation to share with you.

The hungry Elf responsible for today’s find was duly awarded a meal token and Smartie, upon which something remarkable happened… the Elf ate about half of its Smartie, and it then proceeded to break the rest into pieces. Were we about to witness the first ever moment of Elven compassion and sharing? Were we balls.

The aforementioned Elf scattered the Smartie pieces opposite a curtain in the office and then scurried off. Soon several of its colleagues had sniffed out the unguarded confectionary and landed on the abandoned loot like seagulls on an open bin.

But unguarded the confectionary wasn’t, and the curtains suddenly parted as a huge white truck powered through them. The nearest Elf had just enough time to point and scream before being squashed forcefully into the office carpet, before its scavenging colleagues met the same fate.

A jubilant Elf then re-emerged, scooped up the Smartie remnants, and ran off cackling madly. Sigh. We thought they were getting bored of this.

Still, kudos the Elf in question, which had deployed some remarkable inventiveness to overcome its find’s lack of speed – which normally would have left it unable meet out any smushings.

The vehicular weapon, whilst slow, is a mighty impressive bit of kit though. Based on a Volvo FMX truck, the build features five Power Functions motors that power the four-wheel-drive system, generate air pressure for pneumatically locking differentials, and drive the centrally-pivoted steering, whilst pendular suspension with simply ludicrous articulation and oversize tyres from the 42054 Claas Xerion tractor set take care of truck’s impressive rock-crawling ability.

The build is the work of TLCB debutant dgustafsson1317 and there’s an enormous gallery of high quality images available to view on Flickr. Click the link above to see all of the Volvo FMX Crawler photos, whilst we scrape some very flat Elves out of the office carpet.

LEGO’s new partnership with BMW Motorrad has already produced a brilliant looking Technic set in the form of the 42063 R 1200 GS Adventure motorbike. Joining it in a matching scale is this superb F700 GS Rallye built by Flickr’s ianying616, who has recreated BMW’s mid-spec tourer wonderfully in the latest Technic style, adding some neat Model Team detail touches whilst retaining Technic functionality. Steering, shaft drive, and a two-cylinder boxer engine all feature, and there’s more to see at ianying’s photostream.

What’s better off-road than a four-wheel-drive vehicle? A six-wheel-drive vehicle of course. In fact by TLCB arithmetic it’s a whole two better.

Eurobricks’ KevinMoo also clearly favours the ‘more is more’ approach and has built his latest creation – loosely based on Mercedes-Benz’s nuts 6×6 G-Wagon – accordingly. With twin L motor drive going to all six wheels and all-round multi-link live axle suspension Kevin has constructed quite a capable machine, and – as a by-product of trying to reduce the stress on LEGO’s famously weak U-Joint pieces – a reasonably quick one too, as there’s little gearing-down at work in the drivetrain.

Remote control coupled with reasonable speed does of course mean a few of our Elves have been squished in the making of this blog post, but hey – blogging’s not without the odd sacrifice. It also meant that, once the Elf at the controls was found, fed, and then ejected from the building, we could take a good look at the internal workings of Kevin’s build.

As you can see from the image above, the 6×6 fully suspended drivetrain is a remarkably compact piece of engineering, and unlike the real 6×6 G-Wagon it’s made possible by the unusual step of not constructing a separate chassis, but rather a monocoque or ‘unibody’ whereby the body and chassis are designed as one unit.

In addition to the clever drivetrain Kevin’s build also features LED lights front and rear, Servo steering, and opening doors, hood and tailgate. There’s lots more to see at the Eurobricks forum, plus you watch the 6×6 in action via the video below.

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Today’s news is full of the story of America dropping its largest ever non-nuclear bomb on some unsuspecting militants in Afghanistan. Weighing 9,800kgs and at over 3oft in length, the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb sure is a devastatingly deadly bit of kit. But we suspect it’s not half as deadly as this, Yamaha’s YFM 700 quad bike.

Designed to roll over on top of you if you so much as look at it, the YFM 700 is the sort of machine that is way, way too fast for almost everyone that will ever climb atop it. But it sure is a cool way to go. This Lego recreation of the lethal Yamaha comes from Flickr’s André Pinto, and thankfully it’s much safer than its full size counterpart. See more at André’s photostream via the link above.

The Lego Car Blog Elves are clearly in a spacey mood today, as we have no less than three sci-fi creations to share. This gives us a headache because, as regular readers will know, we’re useless with anything science-fictiony. Oh well, here goes…

First up, pictured above, is perig perig‘s ‘The Tiny Whale’, which looks like a boat, an airship and tow truck have been involved in a forceful accident. Still, it is, even to us here at TLCB, a deeply cool build, and you can see more at the link above.

Next up is this mean looking tri-pedal mech from Flickr’s Sunder_59. This TLCB writer’s Better Half has informed him that pastel colours are in, which explains why Sunder’s creation looks so good. There’s more to see at the builder’s photostream – click the link above to take a look.

And finally, something with wheels! We still don’t really know it’s for though, seeing as it’s also a sci-fi build, but if we were a mini-figure we’d love to drive it to the shops. Volker Brodkorb is the builder behind it, it’s called a ‘DooM Inc. Troop Support Vehicle’, and there’s lot more to see on Flickr via the link above.

You can see more of all three builds via the links in the text above, and normal car-related service will resume here at TLCB shortly…

Awarded a meal-token for every find, one of our Elves is about to get very fat. These ten brilliant Town-scale off-road vehicles are the work of just one builder. Pixel Fox owns the mind (and hands) behind them, and he’s done a simply stupendous job of recreating some of the world’s best known off-roaders in mini-figure scale, as well as building a delightful scene for each one to reside within.

Above, clockwise from top left, are a film-set Hummer H1, South African Volkswagen Syncro, beach-bound Jeep Wrangler TJ and a forestry Mercedes-Benz Unimog 406.

Next are two of the world’s most prolific 4x4s, the iconic Land Cruiser J70 (left) complete with an adorable brick-built rhino, and the legendary Land Rover Defender 90 (right).

The final set of instantly recognisable off-road vehicles is made up of a Mercedes G-Wagon, tragically pictured  on red-carpet duty, a superb Range Rover Series 1 going hunting, a lifted Jeep Cherokee XJ, and a Dakar-spec BMW X5.

Each creation is wonderful in its own right, and you can see more of all ten mini-figure builds at Pixel Fox’s Flickr album by clicking here, whilst we begin feeding a very deserving TLCB Elf!

Your Mom sent us a picture of her grand canyon a while back but we can’t post that here, so instead here’s Mark of Falworth‘s version, complete with three neat M-Tron surveillance vehicles deep within it. There’s more to see on Flickr – click the link to take a look.

This Thunderbirds-looking thing is actually a GAZ 3351, a real all-terrain transport vehicle with its roots in the Soviet Union. Well, this one’s made of LEGO, but you could buy a real one if you wanted to.

Which is what we suspect the Elves, if they had any money or concept of money, would do – such was the joy (and carnage) amongst them when this powered into the office this morning.

Driven by an XL Motor inside each section and steered via a linear actuator powered articulated pivot, Sariel‘s GAZ 3351 can go almost anywhere, and over almost anything – TLCB Elves included.

The four tracks providing this go-anywhere, smush-anything ability are suspended via oscillating bogies, and are constructed from 560 individual rubber axle-joiners.

This gives the GAZ incredible traction, but the design wasn’t without its teething problems, which you can watch in Sariel’s excellent development and demonstration video below. There are more images to see of Sariel’s GAZ 3351 at his photostream too – click here to take a look.

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If you were wondering where we were before today’s posts, seeing as things had gone very quiet here at TLCB, let us explain. It’s all Sariel‘s fault.

This is his awesome remote control Ford Raptor Trophy Truck; a twin buggy Motor propelled, long-travel suspension Technic monster, with a 15km/h top speed.

A typical TLCB Elf cannot run at 15km/h. At least not for a sustained period. And thus, as has become standard practice in TLCB Towers, our Elves were duly mown down in the corridors by the delighted Elven pilot of Sariel’s machine.

So fast, nimble and tough is Sariel’s Raptor that almost every Elf in the office at the time became a road traffic accident statistic (if we ever bothered to record the casualties), before the driver finally lost control and crashed the Ford into the water cooler and alerted staff to the carnage.

With the victims mostly patched up and all the errant Elven body parts put into the food recycling tub we’ve been able to return to blogging today, so whilst we go through our mailbox and award Smarties to successful Elves (including the one responsible for today’s smushing), you can check out Sariel’s brilliant Ford Raptor Trophy Truck by clicking here, plus you can watch it in action courtesy of the excellent video below.

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When you’re in middle of an Iraqi desert with mechanical trouble you can’t just call the AA. Luckily Ivan M has just the tool to help. Built to recover seriously heavy military hardware, Ivan’s military heavy duty tow truck features a V8 engine, working steering, all-wheel suspension, a rotating and raising crane, and a functioning winch. If your armoured car has broken down give him a call on either Flickr or Eurobricks.

The World Rally Championship has a long association with humble hatchbacks. This is probably because of the sport’s grass-roots origins, when cars really were just road-going shopping appliances, and where the tightness of the rural European roads on which the stages were held favoured the small and nimble.

These days the WRC is used primarily as an advertising tool for mass-market products. If a car can deal with a Swedish forest, it’ll probably be alright in the supermarket carpark. The current crop of works WRC cars include the Ford Fiesta, Skoda Fabia, Hyundai i20, Citroen C3, and Toyota Yaris, and they are becoming increasingly (and gloriously) nuts.

Previous bloggee Horcik Designs has decided to construct his very own WRC contender to join in the fun, and it’s a beautifully packaged bit of kit. A three-cylinder piston engine is mounted transversely under the hood, delivering the power to the independently-sprung wheels via a four-speed gearbox. Working steering, opening doors, hood and trunk, and a roll cage all feature too, and the body panels can be easily removed to reveal the internal construction.

A full gallery of images is available at Horcik’s Flickr photostream – click the link above to the make the jump.