We’re not really sure why the British are named after fruits. Australians call them ‘Poms’ (short for pomegranate) whilst in the U.S. they’re ‘Limy’. Whatever the reason (probably something to do with boats and avoiding scurvy), it’s a good fit for today’s post, which is both British and very lime indeed.

These two searingly-coloured creations are Aston Martin Vantage AMR GTE racers, which competed in the GTE Pro category at Le Mans 2018, and made a rather wonderful noise to boot.

Previous bloggee Lasse Deluran has recreated the #95 and #97 cars beautifully in Minland scale, replicating their very lime liveries superbly too.

There’s more to see of Lasse’s Aston Martin Vantage AMR racers at both Flickr and the Eurobricks forum, where you can also find a link to building instructions should you wish to recreate these for yourself. You may need to buy some lime coloured bricks though…

How every text received and sent by this TLCB Writer began back in the 2000s. What happened to text-speak? Anyway, this M8 isn’t shorthand, being BMW’s Le Mans GTE racing car from the 2018 24 Hour race. Previous bloggee Lasse Deleuran is building the entire grid of Le Mans racers and there’s more to see of this superb Miniland-scale recreation of BMW’s GTE endurance racer on both Flickr and at the Eurobricks forum, where free building instructions are also available. Click the links to take a look, and where you can LOL, OMG, YOLO, and all the rest.

The FIA is hardly a bastion of morality, but it has at least outlawed cigarette advertising on racing cars. Unless you’re Ferrari of course. Back in the ’90s though, promoting cancer was so acceptable that Williams not only had Camel cigarettes adorning its 1992 Adrian Newey-designed FW14B, they teamed it with alcohol sponsorship too.

We’re not sure the Camel or Labatt’s logos enhanced the FW14B’s speed in any way, but the money they brought sure helped, and Williams duly won the 1992 Championship – and made Nigel Mansell World Champion – with a then-record 9 race wins.

This brilliant small-scale replica of the title-winning Williams comes from TLCB Master MOCer Luca Rusconi (aka RoscoPC), who is better known for his hugely detailed large-scale Formula 1 recreations. Built using a fraction of the pieces but just as recognisable, Luca has turned his hand to historic racing cars on a much smaller scale, with the advantage of course that these are easier for others to build at home.

Suggested to us by a reader (and past bloggee themselves), Luca’s Williams FW14B is available to view on Rebrickable, where instructions can be purchased alongside those for a host of other famous classic F1 cars. Click here to see all the images and find downloadable building instructions to turn 169 pieces into William’s championship-winning cigarette advertisement.

This spectacular array of racing cars is the entire Le Mans 2018 GTE Pro grid, just one of the four categories that compete side-by-side at the world’s greatest motor race.

Built over two years by Lasse Deleuran, all teams and driver combinations from the GTE Pro class of 2018 are present, with Ferrari, BMW, Aston Martin, Chevrolet, Ford, and the race-winning Porsche squad recreated brilliantly in Miniland scale, many of which have featured here individually over the last two years.

Instructions for every single GTE Pro car are available for free, and you can see more of each racer and find the link to recreate your very own Le Mans 2018 GTE Pro grid via Lasse’s photostream by clicking here.

Formula 1 is looking increasingly out of place by the day. Despite the return of some great tracks in 2020 and the addition of some new ones (thanks to Coronavirus), the multitude of penalties, strict development regulations, huge costs, and one-team dominance often make it not very fun at all.

Worse, it seems manufacturers can’t translate the sport to the products people actually buy. Honda have announced their departure, just as they have a decent engine after years of struggle. Williams, once a dominant force, have handed themselves over to an equity company in a desperate bid to not be completely crap. And Ferrari… well they’re still earning a disproportionally huge revenue and marketing cigarettes to children.

So what alternatives are there for racing fans? The WRC is becoming cool again, but is still in the shadow of its glory days, WEC/Le Mans would be fantastic if more than one manufacturer could build a top-tier car, and NASCAR is still blobs driving round in a circle. Which leaves Formula E… We know we know, it used to be awful, but hear us out.

No less than nine of the twelve teams are backed by manufacturers, including BMW, Porsche, Nissan, and even Jaguar, and gone are the ridiculous days of drivers having to change cars mid-way through the race because the batteries were too small to last race distance.

The batteries are a common part shared between all teams however, along with the the chassis and aero – which we think is a shame as all the cars look exactly the same – but the motors, inverter, gearbox, and software to run it all are team-specific. The stupid fan-boost remains, but apart from that it’s really starting to look rather good, with the current Formula E cars called ‘Gen 2 Evo’ to ensure their differences to the formula’s  slightly rubbish beginnings are clear.

It’s one of these Formula E ‘Gen 2 Evo’ cars that we have here today, as built by previous bloggee R. Skittle and featuring its own electric propulsion thanks to LEGO’s new Powered-Up bluetooth system. A full gallery of over twenty images is available to view and you can charge over to Flickr via the link to take a closer look. Which it might be worth doing with the actual Formula E too…

Italy and Germany have a long rivalry. Two of the best football teams in Europe, they’ve met 35 times, with Italy winning 15 of those encounters to Germany’s 8. They’ve fought on the track since Formula 1’s beginning (and even before that), with Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union battling Alfa Romeo and later Ferrari for dominance. Oh, and they fought against one another in World War 2, but only after Italy overthrew racism and changed sides.

Recently though, all the victories have been German. Mercedes-Benz have annihilated Ferrari in Formula 1, Italy haven’t beaten Germany in their last four soccer matches, and Ducati are now owned by Volkswagen.

However, go back to the mid-’90s and you’ll find a remarkable story of Italian dominance in Germany’s own back yard; the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM).

In 1993 Alfa Romeo decided to take their new 155 V6 to DTM, building an all-wheel-drive 11,000rpm Class 1 Touring Car to take on the domestic German teams from Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Opel. The car proved unstoppable, with Nicola Larini winning a record eleven of the twenty-two races and teammate Alessandro Nannini another two, taking Alfa Romeo to a dominant manufacturer’s title.

This incredible replica of the ’93 championship-winning Alfa Romeo 155 V6 Ti comes from previous bloggee Zeta Racing of Flickr, who has recreated both the car and its iconic livery in stunning detail.

Underneath that beautifully stickered exterior Zeta has accurately constructed the 155’s drivetrain, including a jaw-dropping V6 engine, all-wheel-drive system, working suspension, gearbox, and a suite of Power Functions motors to control it all remotely.

A spectacularly detailed interior is included behind the four opening doors, with a bucket seat and racing harnesses, a full roll cage, and even the 155’s fire suppression system replicated in bricks.

Zeta Racing’s creation is a work of art (as any Alfa Romeo should be) and there’s a huge gallery of images available to view at his photostream on Flickr. Click the link above to remember a time when the Italians beat the Germans at their own game, and here to see (and hear!) the 155 DTM’s 11,500rpm V6 in action way back in ’93.

We’ve all dreamed of building our own racing circuit from LEGO bricks, with tyre barriers, grandstands, food stands, a pit lane, maybe even a Dunlop bridge…

Well SpaceMan Nathan has actually gone and done it, taking fourteen official LEGO Speed Champions sets and creating this wonderful race track diorama, complete with of all the above and more!

Measuring 144 by 112 studs, Nathan’s Circuit of Speed Champions includes everything a race track should, with a crowd of cheering race fans present to watch to the on-track battle.

There’s loads more to see of Nathan’s beautifully presented circuit diorama at his photostream on Flickr – join the action trackside via the link above!

This unusually-hued creation is a 1970s Can-Am racer, from a time when huge V8s and top motorsport teams combined to create some of the coolest racing cars on earth.

Can-Am ran from the mid-’60s to the mid-’80s, with McLaren, Porsche, Lola and others fielding some wild creations, many of which pioneered turbo-charging, downforce, and even – in the case of the Chaparral 2J – using a snowmobile engine to suck the car to ground, years before Brabham did the same in Formula 1.

This generic mid-’70s Can-Am racer comes from Flickr’s michaelablinger, who has captured the aesthetic of the time brilliantly, further enhancing his model with period-correct decals from Michelin, NGK, Magneti Marelli and others.

A detailed cockpit, realistic chassis including a V8 engine and brick-built ‘suspension’, opening doors and removable rear bodywork all feature, and there are lots more images to see at Michael’s photostream.

Head to the racetrack c1974 via the link above.

This beautiful creation is a Lotus 18, and it’s one of the most wonderful racing cars ever made.

Succeeding Colin Chapman’s Lotus 16 (what happened to 17?), the 18 was designed to compete in both Formula 1 and Formula 2, and was powered by a little Coventry Climax 4-cylinder engine, first in 2500cc and then 1500cc sizes when Formula 1 reduced the engine limit.

The 18 gave Lotus’ their first Formula 1 win, plus two-time World Champion Jim Clark his first Grand Prix drive, before he and Innes Ireland took Lotus to the Constructors Runner-up spot in the 1960 World Championship.

However it wasn’t just Team Lotus who raced the 18, with Rob Walker Racing leasing a car to be driven by a new hotshot driver by the name of Stirling Moss.

Moss won the 1960 Monaco Grand Prix for Rob Walker Racing, the first time a privateer team had ever one a Formula 1 race, with only two teams managing it since.

Moss went on to take another win later in the season, although the Lotus 18’s campaign was marred by Moss’s injury at Spa-Francorchamps which put him out for most of the championship, and fellow Lotus 18 driver Alan Stacey’s death at the same track, after the 26 year old driver hit a bird.

Moss returned to racing though, continuing to campaign the Lotus 18 successfully for Rob Walker Racing in 1961, winning another two races and taking third in the World Championship behind the two Ferrari drivers.

The Lotus 18 was quite an important car then. It gave not only Lotus, but several future racing greats their early wins, their first Formula 1 drives, and – sadly in Alan Stacy’s case – their last drive too.

This unfathomably good recreation of the Lotus 18 comes from Andre Pinto, whose stunning replica of Sir Stirling Moss’s 1960 race-winner is one of the finest historic racing cars that this site has ever featured.

Beautiful detailing and attention to detail is evident everywhere you look, and there’s lots more to see at both the Eurobricks discussion forum and at Andre’s ‘Lotus 18 Stirling Moss‘ album on Flickr.

Click the link above to take a look at one of the most important Formula 1 cars ever made.

The inline four-cylinder petrol engine is the most commonly fitted engine to cars the world over. The optimum balance between smoothness, power, efficiency, and er… cheapness, the inline-4 needs only one cylinder head, there are always two cylinders going down as two go up, and when mounted transversely it takes up little space.

Despite all those worthy attributes however, these days the inline 4-cylinder can be seen as a bit dull, despite the efforts of the world’s best engineers to liven it up. Back in the earliest days of motoring though, it was anything but.

Bentley’s amazing ‘Blower‘ racing cars used 4-cylinders, and so too did Fiat, who – in 1911 – fitted a four-cylinder engine to their S76 World Record Car of twenty-eight litres capacity. The result was quite fiery, and allowed the ‘Beast of Turin’ to hit an unofficial top speed of over 130mph.

It’s this car that Joe Maruschak‘s ‘Vintage Race Car’ most closely resembles, itself being fitted with a working 4-cylinder engine utilising LEGO’s suitably vintage square pistons and featuring pushrod-operated valves.

A hidden Power Functions motor brings Joe’s creation to life and there’s more to see of his mighty 4-cylinder racing car on Flickr via the link above.

The 2021 Formula 1 season is about to begin, in which some tiny sports car manufacturers (Aston Martin, Alpine, McLaren, Alfa Romeo and Ferrari) will fight over second place behind Mercedes-AMG.

Of course for three of the five teams above, it’s literally just the brand name stuck on the side of the car, which the team itself has nothing whatsoever to do with. Which might be part of the problem.

We’d go back to the more interesting (and sponsorship free) old days, where manufacturers built the cars they raced and the rules were lax enough to allow them to make what they were good at.

Regular bloggee Tim Henderson is enabling the time travel, and there’s more to see of his ‘Vintage Formula 1’ creation via the album of the same name by clicking here.

The 2021 Formula 1 season is about to begin, with the team reveals arriving thick and fast. TLCB – with our finger on the pulse as usual – are bringing you a car from 2011…

Of course what colour sponsorship the teams have this year won’t change the fact that they’ll be fighting for second place, and we’ll be watching Formula-1-driver-cum-irritating-eco-warrior Lewis Hamilton cruise to an 8th World Championship in the dominant Mercedes-AMG.

However it wasn’t always Mercedes-Benz who ruled Formula 1. In fact there have been several teams that have dominated the sport for a period, including Williams (remember that!), McLaren, Ferrari*, and – just before the current AMG-whitewash – Red Bull.

From 2010 to 2014 Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel won four consecutive World Championships, in part due to this car; the fabulous Adrian Newey designed ‘blown diffuser’ RB7, that used exhaust gasses to create downforce even when the engine was coasting. Not bad for a soft drinks company.

This brilliant recreation of the title-winning Red Bull RB7 comes from Noah_L of Flickr, who has not only built and photographed his RB7 absolutely beautifully, he’s endowed it with some of the most realistic (and complicated) decals we’ve ever seen on a Lego model, even down to the ‘Pirelli P Zero’ labels on the tyres.

It’s a wonderfully accurate build, with removable rear bodywork, a highly detailed engine, and spindly ‘suspension’, and there are loads more stunning images to see at Noah’s ‘Red Bull RB7’ album.

Click the link to head to a time before Mercedes-Benz domination, taking the knee, spectator-less venues, and Lewis Hamilton tweeting that we need to do more for the environment from inside his private jet.

*We know the link isn’t to a dominant early 2000s Ferrari, because surprisingly the Archives reveal we’ve never blogged a Scuderia Ferrari from the Schumacher-era. However we will take any opportunity to remind people that Ferrari are scumbags… Here’s the link again.

Formula 1 hasn’t always been dulled by Mercedes-AMG’s utter dominance. Back in the early 2000s it was dulled by Scuderia Ferrari’s utter dominance, which peaked with this car; 2004’s imaginatively named F2004.

Winning fifteen of the season’s eighteen races, taking Ferrari to their sixth consecutive Constructor’s Championship, and Michael Schumacher to his fifth straight Driver’s Championship (and seventh overall), the F2004 was one of the most successful Formula 1 cars of all time, and the penultimate Ferrari of the V10 era.

This magnificent replica of Schumacher’s championship winning Scuderia Ferrari F2004 is the work of newcomer LN Teknik, who has recreated the real car beautifully in Technic form.

Working inboard pushrod suspension, functional steering, a removable engine cover and front and rear wings, plus – of course – a working V10 engine all feature, and there’s lots more to see at Flickr, Bricksafe, and the Eurobricks forum, where a link to building instructions can also be found.

This is the Ferrari F50 GT, a GT1 racer designed to compete in the Global GT Series of the mid-’90s against supercars such the McLaren F1 GTR, Jaguar XJ220 and Porsche 911 GT1.

However, Ferrari being Ferrari, they were unhappy that homologation specials like the 911 GT1 were allowed to race, and so threw their hands in the air, shouted something Italian, and stormed off to continue monopolising Formula 1’s TV revenue.

Thus only three F50 GTs were built, none of which raced, and these days they’re probably worth a gagillion of any currency you care to pick. Fortunately this one is rather more attainable, being a (stunning) 1:10 scale Technic ‘Supercar’ replica.

Created by Jeroen Ottens, this beautifully presented build features all of the Technic Supercar requirements, including all-wheel suspension, functioning steering, a working V12 engine and four-speed sequential gearbox, plus opening doors and front and rear clamshells.

It’s a jaw-dropping model and there’s more to see at both Flickr and Eurobricks, where you can also find a link to building instructions so you can create Jeroen’s F50 GT for yourself. Just ensure you refuse to race it against a Porsche and shout a lot in Italian about things not being fair for the authentic Ferrari experience.

If TLCB Elves were to design a car, it would probably look like this. Only with rocket launchers. Despite that obvious omission, our smelly little workers are still mightily excited by this ‘Igniter III’ from Flickr’s Tino Poutiainen, which looks like a cross between a Tyrrell P34 F1 car and a spaceship. A Technic helmet, cement-mixer nose-cone, and Bionicle torsos are just some of the ingeniously chosen pieces, and there’s more to see at Tino’s photostream via the link above.

Every Lego car builder has probably dreamed of running their own supercar company. So too has every multi-millionaire, with a new one popping up on an almost weekly basis claiming that they’re actually going to do it, their car has two thousand horsepower and will do 400mph, before quietly disappearing never to be heard from again.

Except Cameron Glickenhaus actually did it. Starting by creating unique Ferraris for his own personal use through their bespoke programme, Glickenhaus has since gone the whole hog and built his own car. From scratch. And now he’s going racing.

This is his new racing car, the Glickenhaus 007 LMH, which is already fighting Toyota in the top-tier World Endurance Championship, and it’ll go wheel-to-wheel with Porsche, Ferrari, Peugeot and others as the Hypercar class expands next year.

This excellent Speed Champions recreation of the unlikely hypercar was suggested by a reader, and comes from ReddishBlueMOCs. Instructions are available and there are more images to view via Bricksafe at the link above.

The wildly incompetent back-alley of the internet that is TLCB actually came to be because the proper Lego blogs were turning their noses up at vehicular creations. We’re not sure if ‘turning their noses up‘ translates internationally very well, but basically you had more chance of unearthing pirate treasure under your sink than seeing your car featured.

Cue the arrival of TLCB, and car builders still probably wishing they could appear on a proper website rather than here…

Anyway, a lot has changed since then, and proper sites like The Brothers Brick now not only blog vehicles, some even have vehicle builders on staff too. Which means that this splendid 1990 Tyrrell 019 Formula 1 car was not found by one of our Elves, as instead this TLCB Writer first saw it blogged on The Brothers Brick. Which makes this site rather pointless.

Still, our title is much more tenuous and you don’t get ‘Your Mom’s so fat…’ jokes over there, so we’re going to blog it here too.

Said Tyrrell 019 was – whilst not a race winner – a regular points scorer during the 1990 season, in part thanks to its revolutionary ‘high nose’ design that allowed maximum air underneath it, thereby generating more downforce along the car’s underside.

It set the template for nose cone design right up until Formula 1 banned high noses in 2012 due to fears over safety (in doing so making F1 cars horrendously ugly overnight), and it’s been replicated beautifully by builder Tenderlok in Model Team form.

Excellent custom decals, a replica Cosworth V8 engine, detailed cockpit, removable bodywork, and an ingeniuous (if slightly ‘illegal’) front wing connection technique add to the realism, and there’s more to see of Tenderlok’s Tyrrell 019, complete with its upturned nose, on both Flickr and at the Eurobricks discussion forum. Or The Brother’s Brick of course.

History is littered with vehicle manufacturers who sold about five cars a year, but yet somehow thought they could afford a top-tier racing team. Caterham, Marussia, Spyker, TVR and others have all tried – and without exception failed – to turn a tiny (and sometimes non-existent) sports car business into a successful racing team.

Re-born Alpine are the latest company to have a go. However whilst they also only sell about five cars a year, they’re owned by Renault, whose pockets and racing experience are rather deeper than Marussia’s…

Cue the Renault F1 team becoming Alpine in 2021, and – perhaps less encouragingly – this; the Alpine A480 Le Mans Hypercar entrant. Which wasn’t a Hypercar at all, rather a ‘grandfathered’ LMP1 Rebellion/Oreca 07 with a new paint-job.

Still, it brought a much-needed competitor to the top tier of endurance racing, which is currently rather short of entries, and gave the French fans something to support.

This neat brick-built version of the ‘Alpine’ A480 comes from Lasse Deleuran (aka gtahelper), who’s added it to his extensive line-up of Le Mans cars from the last few years.

There’s more of the model to see on Brickshelf via the link above, and we’ll be looking forward to Lasse’s Lego versions of the new Peugeot and Ferrari Le Mans Hypercars which are due to join the field soon. We just hope they do a bit more than give an old Rebellion/Oreca 07 a new paint job…

Early-’00s American cars are fat, badly built, inefficient, poor handling crap-boxes, and you’d have to be an idiot to like any of them.

This is an early-’00s Dodge Viper; a fat, badly built, inefficient, poor handling crap-box, and it’s one of our favourite cars ever.

Even more so in this configuration, the 2003 GTS-R endurance racer, as constructed to near-perfection in 1:14 scale by TLCB favourite SP_LINEUP.

SP has used over 1,300 pieces to recreate the iconic American racing car, including a beautifully detailed interior, engine bay, chassis bracing, brick-built drivetrain, and the spectacular GTS-R long-tail bodywork.

There’s more to see at SP’s photostream and you can make the jump to an early-’00s endurance race – and one of TLCB favourite cars ever (because we’re idiots) – via the link above.

This bizarre looking vehicle is a Porsche 356 Carrera GTL Abarth, a lightweight racing car from 1960 resulting from a rare collaboration between Germany and Italy.

Previous partnerships between the two European powers were – thankfully for mankind – disastrous failures, but the Porsche 356 Carrera GTL Abarth was… OK, not great either.

It overheated, the steering couldn’t turn enough, and there were a few ‘differences of opinion’ between Porsche and Abarth when it came to acceptable build quality.

However unlike their 1940s effort, the two nations persevered and re-engineered the 356 Carrera GTL to the point where it became a rather excellent racing car, successfully competing across Europe and taking three consecutive class wins at Le Mans.

This neat Model Team recreation of the German-Italian racer comes from Tim Inman, who has managed to replicate the 356 Carrera GTL’s decidedly odd bodywork in brick form.

Opening doors and a lifting engine cover reveal a detailed interior and rear-mounted engine respectively, and there’s more to see of Tim’s Porsche 356 Carrera GTL Abarth at his photostream.

Click the link above to join the Axis Powers’ 1960 campaign, which was a lot better than their 1940 effort…