Model Team: Psych

[Lasse D]

Having built the Euro version Toyota Yaris, it was quite straight forward to build the NA Toyota Echo Hatch. And why not throw a pop-culture reference in with it as well?

Let me present my latest creation. A first generation Toyota Echo Hatch and the stars of the show Psych, Shawn Spencer and Ernesto Agapito Garces con y a de Abelar, better known as Gus.

The North American Echo is distinguished from the European Yaris by the longer front bumper. The longer bumper allowed for a better looking front, better sculpted windscreen and...

... This time the hood opens as well!

Inside there's a rear bench seat, front seats, gear lever and steering wheel.

With 32 cheese slopes on a length of 16 studs the cheese-factor is 2.

Want to build your own? Then follow this link to the building instructions:

Brickshelf gallery with additional pictures.

Edited May 17, 2013 by Lasse D

[legolijntje]

Nice car

I don't know why, but I like the windows more in this car compared to the Yaris, but they are almost the same

But maybe the people are a bit too big for the car

Edited June 29, 2011 by legolijntje

[Lasse D]

Well spotted. The characters are in scale 1:22 with the car being scale 1:25.

The neck and shirt on my scale 1:25 Shawn ended up not looking very good, so I decided to make them both larger.

Update

I have finally made my figs work out in scale 1:25 as well and made instructions for them. I will update the first post once I have new pictures.

Edited July 1, 2011 by Lasse D

[Lasse D]

I have updated the first post with new figures in the correct scale (1:25) and building instructions.

[brickmack]

Nice Rcho car. The windscreen looks a bit blocky though, but I suppose it's rather hard to make a non-blocky one without using a prefab windscreen. Cool functions with the various doors and such, makes it a way nicer model. Nice figures also, but the arms seem a bit short. And now I'm going to catch up on the last few seasons, since this reminded me that that show exists.

[Lasse D]

Thanks. When it comes to windscreens there usually are 4 options:

- You can choose a car where one of LEGO's pieces fit (I have done this on my S2000, GTs and Solstice)

- Leave the space empty. I don't like building in this style. Other builders pull it off nicely, but I have some aversion against doing it myself :)

- Build the windows. This often results in opaque surfaces like on this car

- Cheat and make your own piece. I'm too much of a purist to do this.

The arms of Shawn have the right length, being normal hinge plates. Having the crossing arms of Gus was more of a challenge. Unfortunately there isn't enough room for 1x1 tiles with clip on top, which could resemble hands, nor is there space for 1x2 plates with hinge mechanism. Using 1x1 pricks and plates would make his arms too thick, so I ended up with this compromise. I'm open for better ideas.