This particular TLCB writer wasn’t alive in the 1970s, however from what he’s seen of the era on TV everything seemed to be square and of a nasty beige-y brown hue. Everything that is, apart from Formula 1.

Carl Greatrix makes his third appearance of the month here at TLCB with his final incredible 1970s’ Formula 1 racer; the brilliant 1975 Brabham BT44B. Designed by Gordon Murray (who would later go on to design the McLaren F1 road car) and powered by the legendary Ford-Cosworth DVF engine, the BT44 won 5 races taking third in the manufacturer’s championship in 1975.

Brabham also secured sponsorship from perhaps the greatest racing liveried company of all time. There was no beige or brown in Martini’s paintbox, and it’s a scheme that still looks superb 40 years on – as proven by the wonderful current Williams Formula 1 car.

To see more of Carl’s beautiful Brabham, and the two classic racing cars that preceded it, take a trip back in time via his photostream here – we’ll see you there!

After nailing* a sci-fi post yesterday we’re back to what we know; cars. These two will be instantly recognisable to many of you, they are of course the legendary Audi Quattro S2 and Lancia Delta S4 from the monstrous Group B era of the World Rally Championship. Flickr’s Dario Minisini is the builder, and you can see more of his recreations of the fastest and most dangerous racing cars ever built at his photostream.

*Er… yeah. Space.

Suggested to us via the feedback page by a reader (and previous bloggee) is Luca Rosconi‘s beautiful 1975 March 751 Formula 1 car, which won the Austrian Grand Prix in torrential rain that year. March were one of the most prolific racing car manufacturers of all time, building cars for dozens of race teams across a variety of racing formulas. Customer cars are now outlawed in Formula 1 so sadly you can’t just buy a car and enter a race. We think this is a bit of shame here at TLCB, so we’ll be imagining what it was like back in the ’70s via Luca’s Flickr page. Click the link above to join us.

Le Mans, probably the greatest motor race in the world, is better than ever this year. Alongside the ubiquitous Audis in LMP1 there’ll be Toyota, Nissan and Porsche, all running hybrids in a huge variety of configurations. Formula 1 take note; giving manufacturers the freedom to innovate in line with their own skills is what creates great racing. Whereas forcing everyone to make exactly the same car with a different paint scheme blows goats.

Anyway, Porsche’s current challenger features a tiny flat-4 turbo in conjunction with some very tricksy electrical witchcraft. It’s a very different beast to the car that Porsche are probably most famous for; the monstrous 1970s flat-12 powered 917.

The brilliant 917 above is the work of Flickr’s Manuel Cara, who has recreated the car that took the 1971 Le Mans overall victory in stunning detail, including the iconic Martini livery. The full gallery is well worth a look – you can see all the images of Manuel’s beautiful Martini-Racing 917 on Flickr via the link above.

Following Ferrari’s latest hypercar posted earlier this week we’re taking a trip back to a time when their cars were at their most beautiful, and long before silly names and crap merchandising.

This gorgeous endurance racer is the Ferrari 330 P4, and it’s been created by one of our favourite vehicle builders bob alexander. The 330 P4 was Ferrari’s answer to Ford’s all-conquering GT40, and whilst it didn’t take a Le Mans victory Ferrari did earn a famous one-two-three finish at Daytona ’67, staging the cars so that they crossed the finish line together.

Only four P4’s were ever built, but you can see more of this honorary fifth on Flickr – just click the link above to make the jump.

The 2015 Formula 1 Championship kicked off in Australia last week, and with a long-absent name back on the grid. Or should we say back of the grid? Honda’s F1 return with McLaren has not been an easy one, and due to ever more ridiculous FIA rules restricting development, innovation, and fun, the once mighty engine supplier will probably be at the back for some time yet. But we like Honda here at TLCB, so we’re going to take a trip back to when they were allowed to do what they do best – innovate.

This gorgeous 1967 Honda RA300 is the work of previous bloggee Nico71, and not only does his Technic recreation of one of Honda’s finest moments look completely beautiful, it works too. There’s Power Functions controlled steering and drive, functioning suspension, and of course, a replica of Honda’s masterpiece V12 engine which powered the car to victory in its first ever race.

There’s lots more to see of Nico’s RA300 Formula 1 car on the image sharing platform Brickshelf – click here to make the jump.

Mercedes-Benz are the racing team to beat at the moment, and back in the 1950s it was a similar story. Teams were run a bit differently half a century ago, with budgets very much smaller than they are today. Racing cars would turn up on the back of a transporter, go racing, and then go home again – there were no fancy mobile workshops, catering trucks or hospitality suites.

We quite like this approach, but the downside was that if one of your racing cars broke, there were few spare parts, and certainly no spare car, with which to fix it. To get around this Mercedes came up with a genius solution; they built a vehicle capable of racing across Europe at high speed to get back to the factory to collect another car – the amazing Rennwagen Schnelltransporter nicknamed ‘Blue Wonder’.

Underneath the weird car-transporting bodywork the Schnelltransporter was a 300SL Gullwing supercar, complete with its three-litre straight-six petrol engine, the first engine ever fitted with direct-injection. And that made it the fastest car transporter in the world.

A vehicle as legendary as that needs a legendary builder, and they don’t come much more so than Firas Abu-Jaber. Firas’ beautiful Model Team recreation of the famous Mercedes even features a stunning 300SL Gullwing to transport. There’s loads more to see on both MOCpages and Flickr – click the links for all the details.

The 24 Heures de Mans has finally been won by someone other than Audi. Porsche, in their second Le Mans since returning last year, claimed an amazing outright victory in 2015. Of course, Audi still kind of won as the two brands are effectively the same company – following VW’s recent take-over to continue their plans for world domination – but it was nice nevertheless.

Back when Porsche were an independent auto-maker though, they were even more successful, largely thanks to this – the awesome 917. This particular car, raced by Martini Racing and driven by Helmut Marko and Gijs Van Lennep, won Le Mans outright in 1971.

The Lego recreation shown here is the work of prolific race-car builder Greg 998, and it includes a wonderfully detailed chassis, cockpit and engine, as well as the brilliant custom-decalled exterior pictured above. You can see more of the 917 and Greg’s other racing cars on MOCpages at the link above.

This glorious Ferrari Dino F2 racing car, built by Flickr’s LEGO Bro for TLCB Summer Building Competition, takes us back to a time when the top motorsport teams (and drivers too) competed in multiple racing categories at once. With race calendars only featuring events in single digits throughout an entire season competing in several championships concurrently was a common practice.

LEGO Bro’s Dino F2 might have been down on power when compared to its F1 brother, but it still comes from a time when downforce hadn’t made it off the drawing board and driver safety was second very much to speed. As a result the F2 cars of the 1960s were slightly deadly, but wonderfully pretty machines, and the Dino was amongst the prettiest of all. Step back in time with LEGO Bro at the link above.

With the news today that the Volkswagen Group has made a spectacular blunder the Elves were duly sent out to find a MOC that we could relate to the story. Unfortunately the Elves are idiots, so this 1970 Porsche 908/02 ‘Flunder’ is as close as they got. Still, it’s only one letter away and to be fair to them here at TLCB Towers they do hear a lot of words beginning with ‘F’…

Anyway, back to Volkswagen. Today’s news that the company have rigged the NOX emissions of their diesel vehicles in order to bypass air quality laws is one heck of a blunder. Actually, it’s not even a blunder. It’s a thoroughly despicable, bordering on evil, business decision to put profit ahead of peoples’ well-being. The NOX levels emitted by the affected Volkswagen Group vehicles are up to 40 times the legal limit, directly damaging the lung tissue of those that breathe it, and causing a variety of respiratory diseases and even biological mutations. Yup, we’re going to stick with ‘evil’.*

So far Porsche, a subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group, are unaffected by the scandal – although only because they don’t yet use the group’s 4-cylinder diesel engines.

The glorious 1970 Porsche 908/02 ‘Flunder’ pictured above comes from a time when emissions could legally be quietly ignored, being powered by a three-litre flat-8 engine making just under 400bhp (and it still emitted less NOX than a modern VW diesel). The 908 raced alongside the bigger 917, being favoured on twisty tracks where the 917 was too cumbersome, and the example above raced at Le Mans in 1970 in the hands of Rudi Lins and Helmut Marko.

Previous bloggee Greg 998 is the builder and you can see more of his beautiful 908 on both MOCpages and Flickr.

*TLCB – somewhat unbelievably – predicted this back in March(!). We’re still awaiting a call requesting our services from the investigators at the Environmental Protection Agency. We’re sure it’ll be any day now…

This stripy porker comes from TLCB favourite Greg998, who has added another gorgeous classic racing car to his already impressive stable.

His latest model is a recreation of one of the most successful (and dangerous) endurance racers of the 1970s; the incredible Porsche 917. This example was driven by Herrmann and Atwood for Porsche Salzburg in 1970, giving Porsche their first ever overall Le Mans victory.

Beautifully built and decaled, you can see more of Greg’s stunning Porsche on Flickr – click here to make the jump to his epic photostream.

We’re starting to think that Formula 1 is becoming a bit, well… boring. You can thank Bernie Ecclestone’s enormous rulebook for the current state of affairs, but back in the ’50s the racing was gloriously exciting, due in most part to the fact that the rulebook could probably fit in a small pamphlet.

This exquisite 1957 Maserati 250F Tipo takes us back to a time when things actually happened on an F1 racetrack, when the Argentinian legend Juan Manuel Fangio overcame a 51 second deficit to win the German Grand Prix (and then the championship). Noah_L (aka Lego Builders) is the builder and there’s more to see of his beautifully photographed creation on both MOCpages and Flickr.

No, not that LEGO Porsche, but it’s just as good. This is the latest classic racing car to come from Greg998. and it’s a special one. Porsche’s late ’80s 962C won pretty much everything in sports and endurance racing, including Le Mans in 1986 and 1987.

Greg’s version is one of the three 962Cs entered in the 1988 event, and it features with working steering, suspension, a detailed turbo-charged flat-6 engine, and the 962C’s incredible aero-bodywork – complete with authentic period decals.

There’s lots more to see, including some spectacular chassis imagery, on both MOCpages and Flickr – click the links to see the full gallery.

Greg998 is becoming a regular here at TLCB with his superb classic racing cars. His latest, this brilliant 1976 Martini-Porsche 936 ‘Black Widow’ was suggested to us by a reader, and you can see more of it and his other builds on Flickr.

We like the Lancia Stratos very much here at TLCB. Styled by Bertone, powered by Ferrari, and winner of three back-to-back World Rally Championship titles, few cars can match the pedigree of Lancia’s incredible 1970s sports car.

The two gorgeous models shown here both come from James Tillson, and they’re amongst our very favourite creations of the year so far. Underneath the wonderfully replicated bodywork is a full mechanical Technic Supercar chassis, featuring all-wheel independent suspension, working steering, opening doors and front and rear clamshells, a transversely-mounted V6 engine, a working 4-speed gearbox and pop-up headlights. There’s also some absolutely beautiful decal-work giving the models fantastic period authenticity.

There’s lots more to see of both the Alitalia and +1 Racing Stratoses at the Eurobricks discussion forum and via James’ Flickr photostream – making the trip to view the Lancias’ full gallery is recommended hugely! We’ll see you there…

This is a 1970s March 731 Formula 1 car, built by previous bloggee Greg998, and it belonged to one of the greatest racing drivers in history.

David Purley was not a particularly successful racing driver, only racing in eleven Formula 1 races and scoring no points. He did win races and championships in lower formulas during his career before he left motor-racing to become an aerobatics pilot – a sport which tragically took his life when he was aged just 40.

However, it was his actions in the 1973 Dutch Grand Prix during his short stint in Formula 1 that make him one of the sport’s greatest figures. You can see more of Greg’s superb March 731 at the link above, and you can watch David Purley’s incredible bravery during one of Formula 1’s darkest and most shameful moments by clicking here (viewer caution advised).

This incredible-looking vehicle is a 1980s Porsche 962C, one of the most dominant racing cars in the history of Sports, GT and Endurance racing. Built by previous bloggee Tamás Juhász aka mbmc this remarkable 1:8 replica is very probably the finest Technic racing car that we’ve featured here this year.

Underneath the beautifully replicated bodywork is one of the most brilliantly engineered chassis that we’ve come across. Each wheel is fully independently suspended (although that sentence really doesn’t do justice to just how incredible the suspension set-up on this model is), there’s working steering with Ackerman geometry, a functioning four-speed gearbox complete with gear indicator in the cockpit and – most impressively of all – an automatic clutch.

There are also working pneumatic brakes operated via the brake pedal in the cockpit, plus possibly the finest Technic engine that we’ve ever seen. It’s a twin-turbo flat-six, as per the real 962C, and you really need to click the links above to see it!

Tamás has published an extensive gallery to both Eurobricks and Flickr, and as his Porsche 962C also features opening doors and a removable engine cover for better access, the engine and chassis shots are really worth your clicks. You can see all of the spectacular imagery via the links in the text above – it’s where most of TLCB Office have been all afternoon.

Every so often we receive a suggestion here at TLCB that makes the whole office stop what it’s doing (which today seemed to mostly be Google-imaging attractive Rio Olympics athletes) to gaze in wonder at the creation/s found. This was definitely one of those moments.

These incredible Model Team classic Formula 1 replicas have all been built by newcomer Idihnab Szalab from Hungary, and he’s uploaded all four to MOCpages in one go. Each is an exquisitely detailed creation that perfectly captures one of the Formula 1’s most famous and iconic cars in Lego form.

From top to bottom Idihnab has built; the dominant 1972-75 Lotus-Ford 72D in John Player Special livery, Ferrari’s 1989 640, the double World Championship-winning 1986-87 Williams-Honda FW11, and lastly the beautiful Lotus-Ford 72C from 1970-71 in magnificent Gold Leaf livery.

We can’t recommend paying Idihnab’s MOCpage a visit enough – click here to view all four incredible creations and to step back in time to Formula 1’s greatest era.

We receive loads of requests to blog digital creations here at TLCB, and our answer is almost always ‘no’. However this time we’ve bent our usual rule, because this, readers, is how to build a digital creation.

Designed by Alan Guerzoni it’s a Speed Champions scale Ferrari 512 Long-Tail as raced by Ecurie Francorchamps at the 1970 Le Mans 24 Hours.

Not only is Alan’s design brilliantly executed he’s also maximised his use of the digital medium, by adding Ecurie Francorchamps period-correct decals and a printed canopy (as LEGO do themselves) to recreate the 1970 512 as accurately as possible.

If you like Allan’s historic Ferrari as much as we do you can vote for it to become an official LEGO set via the LEGO Ideas platform – click this link to make the jump and add your vote.

We may only be four months into the year, but we’re pretty sure we’ve found our favourite creation of 2017 already…

This breathtakingly beautiful scene comes from Michel Van den Heuvel aka Start Bricking on Flickr, and it is -of course – Scuderia Ferrari’s 1950s workshop, recreated wonderfully in mini-figure scale.

Inside Michel has taken care of every detail, from tools to trophies, rubber to race cars, nothing is missing, and it’s all been thoughtfully replicated in miniature from our favourite Danish plastic.

Outside the workshop and underneath some stunning brick-built lettering are a trio of historic Scuderia Ferrari Formula 1 racing cars, complete with a superb Fiat team transporter ready to take the cars to their next race.

Michel hasn’t stopped with Formula 1 either, as Ferrari’s legendary endurance racers and sports cars have also been exquisitely recreated in Lego form.

There’s a whole lot more to see of Michel’s incredible build at his Flickr photostream by clicking here, and if anyone from LEGO is reading this; please make this an official set. You know you want to!