domela

There's a lot of coincidence about one's choice of interest. Back when I was a kid in the early '80-s Town sets were available and affordable (with the occasional Classic Space set thrown in for variety), so that's what I had the most building experience with. By the time Model Team came around in 1986 I was way too much into Town and, while I desperately wanted one of those awesome sets, I was also old enough to realise that they wouldn't really fit into my line of building and would have been way too expensive anyway. So I let it slip but never stopped admiring the amazingly detailed character of the Model Team sets. I'm still, or rather, once again, building in good old '80-s Town style, these days as background for my son's train layouts. Minifigs are (mostly) yellow, cars are (mostly) 4-wide and studs are (mostly) visible. However, a little while ago I was thumbing through an old catalogue and came across Model Team once again. And I started wondering if I could recreate some of those old favourites in true 1980's Town style. So, without further ado, here's the result. I decided on the 5580 Highway Rig and the 5590 Whirl N' Wheel Super Truck for these were the two mighty sets that first made me drool for Model Team. Positioned here as I first saw them in the catalogue. You may argue that they are not exact replicas and you'd be right. One of my most fundamental rules is that whatever I build should be "playable" in '80-s Town style: doors should open, minifigs must be able to sit in, there should be some tools or utensils for them, etc. Just as if they were a proper set from back then. I made some concessions though, these are 6-wide to scale better with my otherwise 4-wide passenger cars and the 8-wide trains of the layout, plus a lot of new parts and new building techniques were used, too, that were definitely not around thirty-odd years ago. Here's a few more photos: With a helicopter that reflects the style of the era but carries the correct livery. The little tools cabinet was never there in the Model Team version, I added that for the sake of playability. I also made a minifig version of one of my other Model Team favourites, the 5541 Blue Fury, this one strictly 4-wide. (I saw that cool little windshield design on the internet but I can't find the source any more.) Ironically, by the time I finished this, LEGO also made their own version but, like all the newer passenger vehicles, it's 6-wide and has a strange "boxy", angular feeling about it that makes it a lot less sleek than the original. Anyway, together for one more time, an homage to Model Team: Please leave a comment if you liked my little tribute to Model Team. You may also want to check out my 4-wide vehicles and my MOC Star Wars Microfighters.

Thanks for all the tips and support everyone, I refreshed the post with my new models.

Your cars look absolutely fantastic! Functionality is important if you are a kid, who wants to PLAY with their cars (or if you, like me, are deliberately into it). However, if you build models for a town street exhibition layout, where they just sit stationary all day, good looks can be just as important. The funny proportions of the minifig will always force some compromise on us so never mind, let's just sit back and appreciate and enjoy each others's work. I certainly have :) Hats off!

Yes, I have and yes, they did. Here's the story: I keep the parts in sortiiment cabinets with transparent plastic drawers, but the cabinets are A) stored face-to-face (i.e. their solid black side walls are outwards so the light can't exactly get in), and B) a plastic bag is pulled over them, as I live in a fairly dry and dusty neighbourhood and try to keep my parts clean. The cabinets are then put on the top shelf behind the shadow of a large wardrobe. It is the darkest but also, I suppose, the warmest part of the room, hence my suspicion about heat. Now, a few years ago I spent a couple of summer weeks treating my old parts and almost every one of them returned to its original white colour. Then I put them aside in the sortiment cabinets. Some months later I discovered they all went back to yellow, so I retreated them the following summer and again, everything was perfect. And after a few months they are yellow again, plus I discovered a few of my brand new and unused white parts turned to almost tan. Just like Greg998 wrote, some totally random parts remained white after being treated, but this is the exception rather than the rule. I've fully understood the chemical processes behind retr0bright and I am totally at a loss trying to explain what is happening :(

This topic has been inactive lately but I'm having a lot of trouble with the issue, so I bring it up again. To answer the original question: yes, modern white bricks do still turn yellow. I have some white plates that I bought brand new, stored in a dark spot away from direct (or even indirect) sunlight, no smoke, and yet they turned yellowish in a few months. It is quite eerie to see the clean, unused, "milky" new surface of white parts that turned to a uniform, almost tan colour. I've done the retr0bright process on quite a lot of my old and discolored parts, with and without Oxy, various time intervals and H2O2 concentrations, and mostly it worked like a charm. Then I put away the treated parts (again: no UV, no smoke) and some months later a LOT of them are back to the same or even worse yellowish condition. I've researched the net if anyone had the same problem of re-yellowing after treatment, and apparently I'm not the only one, but nobody could actually explain it yet. I'm living in a fairly hot apartment (around 23-25°C = 73-77°F, even higher in the summer) and I'm beginning to wonder if that has something to do with it. So, chemists, material engineers or anyone out there with a solution, PLEASE HELP!

As a kid, I grew up with Star Wars, and I always knew that Space Dart I WAS the X-Wing Fighter, despite the blue spaceman, the missing canopy and the wrong arrangement of engines. I still stop every time at the Star Wars section in LEGO shops and I'm conjuring up clever schemes to persuade my wife that the 75192 UCS Millenium Falcon is actually a very wise investment but, call me odd, the thing that really got me was the Microfighter series. When I first saw them I thought "Wow, if there ever was a Star Wars-themed amusement park carousel, those little kids riding it would look just exactly like these sets", and I saw my son riding around in circles on top of a very stubby, very fat, open-cockpit Millenium Falcon. I fell for the series immediately. Of course, I bought the MF, the X-wing, the Star destroyer, the snowspeeder with the AT-AT, but I was a bit disappointed to realise that although we had the TIE Interceptor, the TIE Advanced Prototype (now even the TIE Striker) for some reason there never was a true TIE Fighter in the series. So, I decided to break down my TIE Advanced, which didn't have Vader anyway, and rebuild it in true, wholesome TIE Fighter fashion. Here's the result: It only took a few extra pieces, so I decided I might as well try some more. Like the Y-Wing, that I built long before the official version came out (which, by the way, turned out to be somewhat of a disappointment, too): I'm rather proud of those engines, even though they always turn the wrong way. Another vehicle I always loved and built many versions of over the years is Luke's landspeeder. Strictly speaking, it stands off the line a bit as it is not a fighter but a civilian vehicle, it doesn't even feature the series' trademark workable rockets, but it coincided so well with my other line of interest (4-wide classic town vehicles) that I just built it anyway. When The Force Awakens came out, the inevitable was Poe's orange and black X-Wing, which I rebuilt so many times that I don't even have a current photo of it, and then, of course, Rey's speeder: and after Rogue One I rushed to buy the U-Wing fighter, which again turned out to be a very great disappointment, so I tore it down and used many of the pieces to build this: Now I can't wait to see The Last Jedi and what Microfighters LEGO brings along (or what ideas in it I can use for customisation). I hope you enjoyed looking at my little sets as much as I did building them, if you want, please leave a comment below.

An absolutely brilliant set, congratulations! You have so perfectly captured the essence of a bygone era when gas stations were the embodyment of the brave new motorist's world. (Except at the backyard, where all the trash went, a funny detail, thanks for adding it.) I particularly like the diner sign with the flashy 50's-style neons and the clever way you used the transparent archway to create a curved window. Very nice work with a ton of attention to details, keep building more of these, thanks for sharing!

I first wrote this post about my obsession with 4-wide, 80's town style cars a couple of years ago. I got some nice comments and checked out the works of others (de-marco in particular, go see his work, that man is a LEGO car genius) and that gave me an awful lot of inspiration, thank you very much for all the tips! Some fellow builders commented on how 6-wide cars are more detailed or 5-wide are a real challenge but, after all, I've found real pleasure in building good old 4-wide, like when I was a kid. I only do this as a hobby, with little time and resources, and I'm also into other things (like town scenes or custom Microfighters) so new models come slowly, but I now have a bunch that are worth showing, so...enjoy :) I had the good luck of being a kid in the 80-s, the Golden Age of LEGO Town. Back then the great majority of town sets were vehicles and the concept of town vehicles was simple: 4 studs wide, seats one person and, due to the proportions of the minifig, fairly tall compared to its length but otherwise perfectly recognisable for what it is: a CAR. Then I went to high school and uni, started my adult life, and with all my LEGO packed away in a box I only followed the juniorisation of the late '90-s and early 2000-s with a mild shock form a distance. However, in the middle of the decade the miracle happened, Town suddenly found itself and, as it coincided with my son growing old enough to fall for the brick, I started hunting the toy stores once again. But alas! The new concept was 6-wide! Everything 6-wide! A simple ambulance van as wide as a train! And even the few 4-wide cars had tires sticking out a mile with the odd fenders that were everywhere. To me it didn't look right at all. Meanwhile, my son grew and got very seriously into the MOC trains' business (strictly 8-wide) and needed a lot of scenery for his train layouts, so I decided to restore the glory of the 4-stud wide with some MOC-s of my own. My first was a little follow-me-car for an airport project which was heavily influenced by the work of fellow builder pjotr. Here is my version: Next came a small tanker truck for the same project. I just love the way SNOT techniques became part of even the smallest sets, but I tried to still keep it in line with the 80's style. I also tried the smooth, "studless" look on this truck but I'm still undecided whether I like it or not. And the petrol company is Shell, no matter what Octan says. This truck looked very cute, but it also looked ridiculously small, and at this point I had to realise that the correct scale for trucks was the 6-wide after all…so I reverted to passenger cars. Like this still somewhat crude attempt at a colleague’s New Mini: When the 10242 Mini Cooper came out a much smaller version also came with it. And I didn’t like it: you couldn’t even seat a minifig in there! So I made my own version: Ok, I admit, it doesn’t have doors, but only because dark green doors are so horrendously expensive. Anyway, I designed it so that as soon as I can get a pair of real doors they will fit right in. While I was about it, I also made my version of perhaps the most famous Mini ever: Which brought along another classic movie car from the 80's: and this... ...and this... ...and this (ok, this is a 70's movie but it played a lot on TV when I was a kid in the 80's ). I also tried various stereotypes. A Land Rover Series III: A Trabant 601 with custom sticker. Growing up in Eastern Bloc Hungary these were all around at that time. Today the few surviving ones are prized collector's items. The colour is absolutely authentic, you either had this, or a grayish white. But mostly just this. (Side note: being patient pays. In more than one ways. The first version of this model had round taillights which were factually incorrect, but the more correct "stadium" tile was not, at that time, available in trans red colour yet. Nevertheless, I put it on my Bricklink wish-list and two years later I got an email that one store has them. It must have been a pre-release, at an exorbitant price, so I let it slip. A few more months and, Hey Presto!, it's available in the right colour at a reasonable price at a whole selection of nearby stores. Like I said, patience.) Another iconic Eastern-bloc car, the Polski Fiat 126. This was a Polish-made, licensed design that was so small, it hardly seated two adults with two kids in the back. Yet, it was relatively cheap and my aunt had three in a row, so there is some personal connection here. I always try to build models that are also playable. As much as I can do (or afford, see dark green doors) it, wheels should roll, doors should open and it must be possible for the minifig to properly sit inside the car. Just like in the official 80's models. This next one is a VW beetle cabriolet, that very elegantly sidestepped the fact that I just couldn't fix a proper roof for it. With some custom stickers and chrome parts: As time went on, I picked up more and more tricks of the trade and became more confident with placing bricks in unusual ways. One of my latest is a Citroen DS that I'm rather proud of, as this is a car that has very few straight lines. Yet, I think I managed to capture all those curves and bulges with abundant use of SNOT-techniques. Here's a wealthy French couple from the 1960's with their DS, in front of their holiday chalet. Sometimes I just can't help the urge to soup up one of my old sets with the new parts that weren't around back then. Here is my pimped 6650 Fire and Rescue Van : And this is an oldtimer postal delivery truck to complete my rebuilt 6362 Post Office. While we are about it, here is a somewhat off-topic, truly 6-wide truck, an homage to the Model Team set 5580 Highway Rig, the set literally every kid wanted when it came out, but very few possessed (guess what, I wasn't one of them). It is a nice addition to the town and, again, the size is also more correct then a 4-wide truck of this type would be. I also enjoy building generic cars and trucks just for the fun of it. Here's a small delivery truck (I know, I know, I said trucks are 6-wide but I just couldn't resist the colour, only baseplates and vegetation was available in green in the 80's). In one of the old (maybe 1989) catalogues I quite liked a close-up photo of a truck using the then-new spring-suspension wheels. Many years later I actually bought a pair of these and was looking for some good use for them. In the end I just built a generic pick-up truck. And here's an old sports car, also greatly influenced by some photos I found on the internet, I just had to modify it a bit to include minifig. And here's something really crazy to finish with: my son built a truly amazing 8-wide Albatross steam locomotive (it works!) and I couldn't help but make a 4-wide, microfighter-style version of it: Well, this is it for now, more as I build. As I said, I know many people here praise the 6-wide as those models can provide more details and a better scale to real life vehicles, but I always held that the proportions of the minifig are so screwed up that it is a futile effort at best anyway to build scale models for them without sacrificing the play factor. For me it's a fun journey down memory lane and I hope you enjoyed it too. For more photos you can visit my Brickshelf page. If you liked my models please, leave a comment below. Better yet, if you liked them try your hands at the 4-wide business yourself! It's fun!