Classic American cars

[Ralph_S]

In the last month I've been building a lot of minifig scale stuff, but I haven't forgotten about larger cars. I've got a book on classic American cars and found a lot of inspiration in that. Both were built for challenges on the LUGNuts group on flickr. So, here are my latest two models.

The first was build for the "sympathy with the underdog" challenge, in which you had to build a car that just gets no respect. I chose a 1958 Edsel Bermuda station wagon. Edsel was a new brand launched by Ford in 1958, but it failed spectacularly due to bad quality control, economic recession, their weird name and last but not least their oddball styling. It seemed perfect for this challenge. The radiator was tricky as were the slanted pillars for the roof, but the styling grew on me while I was building it.

The second is a much more successful model in real life. It is a 1960 Chevrolet Impala coupe. This was built for the 'colour me strange" challenge, involving building a car in an unusual colour. Baby blue (LEGO medium blue) is very much a colour of the fifties and sixties, so it seemed like an obvious choice. Building it in this colour was complicated by the lack of hinges, but it does have opening doors as well as a boot and bonnet (trunk and hood for Americans).

Both cars were built to the same scale, so here they are together.

More pictures of these and some of my other classic cars are in my classic cars set on flickr.

I hope you like them.

Cheers,

Ralph

Edited September 12, 2008 by Ralph_S

[MightyMegs]

WOW

The cars are incredible, but the aircraft leave me totaly speechless.

Edited September 13, 2008 by MightyMegs

[Guss]

these cars look really nice!

[Freddie]

You haven't lost your touch, Ralph_S.

Those cars are just sweet! And instantly recognisable to boot. Any chances of sharing your building secrets with us?

[Ralph_S]

Thanks guys. I haven't posted any new aircraft here because I actually haven't built that many in the last months. The last I built was an A-10 Thunderbolt II about three months ago, and I did post it back then. I am currently working on a new one that's almost finished. When it is, I'll post it. I'm not sure how to 'share' my building secrets short of making instructions. I have no intention of doing that, because it's just too tedious. I could explain how I go about building something like this, but I know that what works for me might not work for somebody else.

Cheers,

Ralph

[Lt. Col. Thok]

Amazingly done, my fave has to be the red one (i like red)!

[samthelegoman1]

Those cars are awesome! As a matter of fact, I have a 1958 Edsel Bermuda Model car aswell. It's in Pink, though. It would be a real challenge to recreate that!

[Captain Green Hair]

You don't stop to amaze us, do you Ralph?

That Impala is my favourite, it looks just like the real thing!

I would like to see a little more chrome, but that's just my personal taste.

[VBBN]

Very nice! I like the Station wagon the most.

[Ralph_S]

Thanks everyone. I really would love to have enough pink parts to build a car similar to these in pink. It's a bit of a cliche, I suppose, but it would probably have to be a 59 Cadillac. I considered building the Bermuda station wagon in light blue, but there aren't any hinges in that colour and I really needed them for the slanted roof pillars. I had to settle for a red one. I think it is an odd car and not particularly pretty, but out of the two it was the most interesting to build and I suppose that shows. The radiator too some doing.

he Impala is a much sleeker car and looks prettier IMO, but other than having to work around not having hinges, it wasn't a particularly difficult build. I'd love to replace much of the light bley with proper chrome or lacking that, pearlescent or silvery grey, but don't have enough parts in any of these colour to actually do that. I probably ought to buy the agents silver car.

Cheers,

Ralph

[Eilif]

Great Job, I had a look at your brickshelf folder. Amazing stuff. I'm particularly impressed with detail and function you managed to introduce in minifig scale! Especially impressive to those of us like myslelf who struggle with MOCing vehicles.

[Ralph_S]

Great Job, I had a look at your brickshelf folder. Amazing stuff. I'm particularly impressed with detail and function you managed to introduce in minifig scale! Especially impressive to those of us like myslelf who struggle with MOCing vehicles.

Thanks. I am glad you like my MOCs. I used to have difficulty building something realistic that fit with minifigs and consequently I didn't do much minifig scale building until about a year ago. I stuck to building larger cars such as these and aircraft. However, I am a member of the Brickish association and I see some of the truly wonderful stuff that they do for minifigs on a fairly regular basis and I decided that I wanted some of that action. I found that the tricks that I've picked up building aircraft full of half-stud offsets and with working landing gears and flaps and suc translate into minifig scale building quite nicely and am really enjoying doing that. In fact, apart from the odd car now and then I seem to mainly build minifig scale things at the moment.

Cheers,

Ralph