The remotely controlled LEGO Technic 42114 Volvo 6×6 Articulated Hauler is not only an excellent set, earning a 9/10 rating in TLCB’s review, but also a great source of parts. Two fantastic B-Models have appeared here to date (this and this), and today gyenesvi becomes the third builder to create a blog-worthy 42114 B-Model.

Deviating from the construction equipment genre, gyenesvi’s alternate repurposes the pieces from the Volvo 6×6 set to create a neat pick-up based wrecker, complete with a remotely operable two-stage towing arm.

The Control+ goodies don’t end there either, with working drive, steering, and a three-speed gearbox, alongside pendular suspension, opening doors, and a straight-6 piston engine.

Building instructions are available and there’s more of the model to see at Eurobricks and Bricksafe, where over thirty images are available to view.

The war in Ukraine drags on, as tiny-penised Putin continues his folly to return the region back to the days of the Soviet Union.

Those days, marked with oppression, fear, and the eradication of freedom of movement, religion and speech, also included some fine engineering. Most of this was of course of the nuclear-weapon or space-race type, but the Soviet Union created some excellent off-road vehicles too. This is one of them, the GAZ-66.

Produced from the mid-’60s until ’99 – and still in use today in a variety of despotic authoritarian regimes including North Korea, Iran, and Syria – the GAZ-66 was a 4×4 military truck available in a bewildering array of configurations.

This one is a ‘K66V’, fitted with a box body behind the cab. Built by Samuel Nerpas (aka Tatrovak), this brilliantly engineered Technic version is remotely controlled via a BuWizz bluetooth battery powering four drive motors, servo steering, and two sets of LED lights.

Planetary hubs, all-wheel-suspension, and all-wheel-drive ensure Samuel’s GAZ-66 is suitably capable off-road, and the model also includes a tilting cab, opening doors, and a removable superstructure.

There’s more to see at both the Eurobricks forum and via Samuel’s Flickr photostream, where you can find all the imagery, build details, and videos of the model in action.

The Online Lego Community can be a wonderful place of collaboration. Take this spectacular three-in-one build by TLCB Master MOCer Dennis Bosman.

Despite his own prodigious talent, Dennis can still find inspiration from other builders, and thus his stunning Scania T143E heavy haulage truck uses elements of a remote control chassis design by the late Ingmar Spijkhoven, hooked up to his own remotely operable Nooteboom low loader trailer, with motorised neck height. Riding atop the Nooteboom sits a previously-blogged Doosan DL 470-7 front loader by fellow Master MOCer Eric Trax, who himself was inspired by Dennis’ work. Which is gloriously circulatory.

Head to Dennis’ photostream by clicking here to see more of the build, and you can check out the builders and models that helped to create it via the additional links above.

The LEGO Technic 8865 Test Car didn’t exactly bowl over our reviewer when we had one on test.

However if you own a 8865 set (and a set of pliers to take it apart), you could turn it into this neat Dakar-esque off-road buggy by newcomer Tomas Rak, pictured here alongside the original.

Built only from the parts found within the 8865 set (including those impossible-to-remove ‘interference’ pins), Tomas’ alternate includes working steering, suspension, a two-cylinder piston engine, and a body that – whilst no less minimalist – suits its real-world source rather well.

There’s more to see on Flickr, where a link to building instructions can also be found; click the link to take a look and get ready to test your finger strength.

The days of petrol-powered racing are numbered. As the world shifts away from fossil fuels, the need to race with them is declining also. But electric racers… er, let’s just say they don’t match internal combustion yet.

Retaining the noise and spectacle of motorsport is therefore at forefront of organisers’ minds, with several options including synthetic fuels and hydrogen combustion being explored to replace petrol.

Cue SFH‘s superb recreation of the ‘Forze IX’ hydrogen endurance racer, which – being a fuel cell rather than combustion – solves precisely none of the noise and spectacle issues that plague electric motorsport. Oh.

But what a fuel cell does do is enable electric racing without the need for a giant heavy battery. A battery that requires recharging, taking hours to do so (or – as per early Formula E racing – changing cars half-way through the race, which was profoundly stupid), nor the mining of rare-earth metals to create it.

Able to refuel in roughly the same time as a petrol racing car, a hydrogen fuel cell allows for endurance racing without the need to blow-up dead dinosaurs. And that’s awesome.

It’s just not quite as awesome as blowing up the hydrogen in an internal combustion engine, which creates all of the noise of petrol, but none of the emissions. We know which we prefer.

From one of the most extravagant vintage cars to one of the least. This is the Austin 7, so called because it had seven horsepower, and it was one of the most popular inter-war cars on the British market.

Produced from the early 1920s until 1939, the 7 was less than half the weight of the Ford Model T and proved incredibly popular, being sold under license in France, Germany, and even in Japan (although rather less-licensed) as the first Nissan.

This lovely Town scale recreation of the 7 comes from serial bloggee _Tiler, who’s captured it beautifully. Bicycle wheels, a rubber-band grille, and some cunningly constructed cycle-wings accurately portray the tiny vintage car, and there’s more to see at _Tiler’s photostream via the link above.

“It was a rich cream colour, bright with nickel, swollen here and there in its monstrous length with triumphant hatboxes and supper-boxes and tool-boxes, and terraced with a labyrinth of windshields that mirrored a dozen suns”.

It was also – in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel ‘The Great Gatsby’ – a Rolls Royce. However Baz Luhrmann, never one to let reality interrupt the stylised nature of his films, cast a 1929 Duesenberg Model J in his 2013 move adaptation, set in 1922.

Despite deviating from both the book and, er… time, the Duesenberg Model J was the perfect vehicle with which to represent the extraordinary opulence of the story’s titular character. The fastest and most expensive automobile of the time, the Duesenberg Model J was the car of choice for America’s ultra-wealthy, with bodywork created by any number of American or European coach-builders, a weight of up to three tons, and a straight-eight engine that could, if optionally supercharged in ‘SJ form’, make 400bhp.

This astounding model of the Duesenberg SJ used in 2013’s ‘The Great Gatsby’ is the work of the fantastically talented Adrian Drake and is – like its real-world counterpart – quite unfathomably long.

Measuring 144 studs from front to rear bumper, with a complete interior behind four opening doors, LED lighting, and the most intricate and incredible brick-built wheels we’ve ever seen, Adrian’s creation is fit for the most mysterious of 1920s millionaires.

It also wears a truly jaw-dropping body, created from a myriad of overlapping bricks, plates and tiles, that can only be accomplished when building at a scale as large as this.

A stunning collection of imagery reveals Adrian’s ‘The Great Gatsby’ Duesenberg SJ in phenomenal detail, and you can find it – along with the builder’s other works – on Flickr. Click the link above to take a ride across 1920s New York, and here to see the real movie car doing just that in Baz Lurhmann’s gloriously over-the-top film interpretation.

It’s time! After a period lost in space, and with the Elves that managed not to become German-Shepherd-snacks safely back at TLCB Towers, we can reveal the brand new for 2024 LEGO Technic line-up. And it’s such a good one…

42163 Heavy-Duty Bulldozer

LEGO have released several Technic bulldozers over the years, with recent incarnations being large enough to actually bulldoze. However we kick-off the 2024 Technic range with one that marks its entry point, the lovely 42163 Heavy-Duty Bulldozer.

Aimed at ages 7+ and with under 200 pieces, 42163 is the best starter set we’ve had in a long time, and includes rotating tracks plus a neat worm-gear driven blade elevation mechanism, controlled via a cog on the roof. A few System parts add realism and – joy – it needs no stickers whatsoever. Top work LEGO.

42164 Off-Road Race Buggy

The excellentness continues with the second new Technic set for 2024, the 42164 Off-Road Race Buggy. Aimed at ages 8+, the 219-piece ORRB looks a bit like ‘RC’ from ‘Toy Story’, and it seems LEGO have remembered more than just that computer-animated movie from 1995, having equipped 42164 with proper mechanical functionality that we thought they’d all but forgotten in recent starter sets.

Harking back to those mid-’90s Technic sets, 42164 includes working rear suspension via a single-shock, a miniature V4 piston engine turned by the rear wheels, opening doors, and – more unusually – tilt steering (like a skateboard).

The set also features good visual details, some almost comically generic stickers (what should be written on the side of a buggy if not ‘buggy’?), and some rather non-off-roady tyres, but overall we think the 42164 ORRB looks great, presenting another fine way for newcomers to begin Technic building…

42166 NEOM McLaren Extreme E Team & 42169 NEOM McLaren Formula E Team

…unlike these two. OK, that’s a little unfair, because LEGO do seem to have got their head around ‘Pull-Backs’ after some dismal efforts, with recent sets being visually appealing and bringing some unusual licenses to the range. 2024 continues this trend with the 42166 NEOM McLaren Extreme E Team and 42169 NEOM McLaren Formula E Team sets.

Aimed at ages 7+ and 9+ respectively, the new sets recreate two of McLaren’s non-F1 race teams, both of which are electrically-powered. Each does a decent job of reflecting its real-world counterpart, although via the assistance of a million stickers, whilst the 452-piece 42169 Formula E car (the most pieces for a Pull-Back ever?) also includes working steering alongside the obligatory kinetic motor. Operating this whilst deploying the aforementioned motor is probably the trickiest thing you’ll ever do however…

42167 Mack LR Electric Garbage Truck

The electric and officially-licensed trend continues with the next new addition to the 2024 Technic range, the superb-looking 42167 Mack LR Electric Garbage Truck.

Constructed from just over 500 pieces and aimed at ages 8+, 42167 resembles a miniaturised version of the 42078 Mack Anthem B-Model, and features some lovely mechanical functions, including working steering, a side-mounted bin emptying mechanism, and a tipping compactor, all controlled by hand via various cogs.

Wearing thoroughly excellent messaging and with a few new parts too, 42167 could be the pick of the range when it reaches stores early next year.

42168 John Deere 9700 Forage Harvester

Away from the starter sets and things are getting bigger, although not by much. This is the 42168 John Deere 9700 Forage Harvester, a 559-piece replica of the ‘self propelled forage harvester’ fitted with ‘ProStream Cropflow’ and ‘XStream KPTM’, according to the excerpts we took from John Deere’s website. We’re not really sure what any of that means, nor that 42168 needed to be an officially licensed set, but we suppose it’s nice to have the added authenticity.

Working rear steering and an elevating and spinning harvesting header (via many yellow cogs linked to a small jockey wheel on the ground) are the working features, which is actually a little less than the smaller 42167 Mack and 42164 ORRB. Still, if ‘Farming Simulator’ is your thing, then the 42168 Forage Harvester may be your cream of the crop when it reaches stores alongside the rest of the 2024 Technic range in January.

42170 Kawasaki Ninja H2R

The final new Technic set in our H1 2024 preview is this, the 42170 Kawasaki Ninja H2R. Yup, LEGO have partnered with another motorcycle manufacturer following their successful collaborations with BMW Motorrad, Yamaha, Harley Davidson, and Ducati, bringing Kawaski’s legendary Ninja to the Technic line-up.

In doing so, 42170 doesn’t actually bring anything new to the Technic Superbike genre beyond the new partnership, but it does offer as much in the way of working functionality as its predecessors, with working steering and suspension, a foot-peg operated two-speed plus neutral gearbox, and a piston engine buried somewhere inside the frame.

Aimed at ages 10+ and with 643 pieces, the 42170 Kawasaki Ninja H2R will join the rest of the 2024 Technic line-up in stores early next year, which – in case you missed it – includes a few new additions we really weren’t expecting.

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Let us know your favourite new 2024 Technic set in the comments. Us? We’ll be picking up the trash in the 42167 Mack LE Electric Garbage Truck. Although… there is one set number as yet unfilled…

The end of the ’60s seemed to mark the death of the American Dream. Picked up by Tarantino’s ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ and Don McLean’s ‘American Pie’, he drove his Chevy to the levy, but the levy was dry. If Don was disillusioned by Americana in 1971, how much further it has declined since then.

Yet the 1960s – and the American Dream found within them, its loss lamented by Don – are nevertheless worth celebrating, as successive generations cling on to a memory they never had.

No where is this more true than in automobiles, where new generations preserve and salute classic cars and trucks from an era in which they were not part, such as this fantastic 1966 Chevrolet C10 pick-up truck by Jakub Marcisz.

Complete with opening doors, hood and tailgate, working steering, and a brilliantly executed body, Jakub’s C10 has TLCB Team romanticising about the decade of civil rights, the space race, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, the assassination of JFK, race riots, Stonewall…

Perhaps then, the American dream was as flawed and unreachable for most in the 1960s as it is today, and Don’s ‘American Pie’ could have been applied just as pertinently a decade earlier. The cars though, like Jakub’s superb ’66 Chevy, surely were America’s automotive high-point.

*Today’s most poignant title song.

No really. Because this Technic Ford Mustang GT500 has been created solely out of the parts from the official 42115 Lamborghini Sian FKP 37 set.

Suggested to us by a reader, this exceptional alternate is the work of Porsche96, who has turned the Lamborghini that no-one’s heard of into the default vehicular choice for smashing into lamp posts, other cars, and pedestrians at every car meet in America.

Fitted with a V8 engine complete with spinning supercharger, independent suspension, functioning steering, an eight-speed sequential gearbox, plus opening doors, hood and trunk, Porsche96’s 42115 B-Model packs in as many working functions as the set upon which it’s based, and he’s made building instructions available too.

If you fancy swapping your model of the kind of car that will be forever sealed inside a hermetic chamber – never turning a wheel, for one with a life expectancy that can be measured in days, check out Porsche96’s fantastic 42115 Mustang GT500 alternate at both Eurobricks and Bricksafe via the links. And then watch one last Mustang crashing video…

Fresh off the back of another example of our sci-fi incompetence, here’s more space-related overreach from TLCB staff.

Built by Nick Trotta of Flickr, this cyberpunky spacecraft is so superbly designed that even we can see it’s probably one of the spaceships of the year.

Ingenious construction techniques and inspired parts choice make Nick’s creation absolutely worth a closer look, even if – like us – you’re not really sure what you’re looking at, and you can join us gazing in wonder via the link above.

Oh uh. Sci-fi. Or is it sky-fi? Or dieselpunk? It doesn’t really matter to be honest, as we don’t understand any of them. It also doesn’t matter because this wild looking ‘Sky Viper’ by Flickr’s Greg Dalink is so many kinds of awesome we don’t know where to start. Built for ‘Novvember’ (don’t ask us!), Greg’s creation mashes multiple themes for maximum effect, and you can see more of the amazing resultant model at his photostream. Click the link above to take off.

It’s that time of year again, when a crack team of TLCB Elves ‘volunteer’ to be fired over the perimeter wall of LEGO’s HQ. Their mission; to uncover the new-for-2024 Technic sets, dodge the guard dogs, and return with this new set bounty to TLCB Towers where fame and glory awaits. By which we mean they’ll get fed.

However this year, things have gone… well, unexpectedly…

42178 Surface Space Loader LT78 

No it’s not April 1st, these really are (some of) the new LEGO Technic sets arriving in 2024, when – for the first time – LEGO’s Classic Space theme and Technic will collide like an asteroid into the surface of the Earth.

Four new Technic Space sets will launch in 2024, each bringing a galaxy of new elements, and each wearing a distinctive white-and-orange colour scheme. This is the first, the 42178 Surface Space Loader LT78.

Interestingly, LEGO have decided to give a Classic Space vehicle code to the new sets’ titles, with the Surface Space Loader denoted as an ‘LT78’, which is what we’ll call it from now on.

Aimed at ages 8+, LT78 features working rear-steering, a curious transformable body – where the bubble cabin can be raised above the surface or lowered close to it – and a side-loading mechanism for picking-up or depositing an orange crate. Kinda like a space garbage truck.

Newly grey tyres, 435 pieces, and a multitude of stickers complete the 42178 set, and you can expect to see LT78 and its cosmic counterparts in Earthly stores for 2024.

42179 Planet Earth and Moon in Orbit

There is one exception to the vehicles in the 2024 Technic Space range, the 42179 Planet Earth and Moon in Orbit, although we’re not sure why LEGO didn’t just call it an orrery, seeing as that’s what it is.

Constructed from 526 pieces, the 42179 orrery creates an approximation of the Moon’s orbit around the Earth, and the Earth’s around the sun, with each celestial body represented via bespoke half-sphere elements (with the moon being a ball on a stick).

Turning a handle at the base of the orrery sends the Earth on its orbit courtesy of a large Technic arm, accurately spinning the planet on the correct tilt as it does so, whilst the Moon circulates it.

It’s a lovely example of mechanical engineering, something that perhaps Technic has lost in recent times, and we think it looks rather beautiful too.

The 42179 Planet Earth and Moon in Orbit is perhaps the most unusual addition to the Technic line-up that we can remember, and yet… it’s the one we’d really like to take home.

42180 Mars Crew Exploration Rover

The largest of the 2024 Technic Space sets is this, the 1,600-piece 42180 Mars Crew Exploration Rover. Apparently ‘Inspired by NASA Mars Rover Concepts’, 42180 is a huge six-wheel tow-truck/mobile laboratory arrangement, complete with a rotating and lifting crane, pendular suspension, working steering, and a body that can expand or condense for… er, space reasons.

Like 42178, the 42180 set also uses a myriad of System parts alongside its Technic components for greater detail, and allowing for range of accompanying equipment, including gas canisters, a robotic rover, storage containers. These items can be loaded on board by the crane, or there’s another bin-lorry-type-hoist at the rear, with all of the above controlled by mechanical levers and knobs.

The aforementioned System parts also mean that 42180 is approximately mini-figure scale, with a detailed crew quarters and cab suitable for your Classic Spacemen. They probably can’t wait.

New wheel covers, an array of decals, and the return of the Classic Space logo all feature, and you’ll be able to get your hands on the new 42180 Mars Crew Exploration Rover when it deploys in 2024.

42181 VTOL Heavy Cargo Spaceship LT81

The final set in the 2024 Technic Space line is this, the 1,365-piece 42181 VTOL Heavy Cargo Spaceship LT81.

Looking like some sort of spacey Bell-Boeing Osprey, the LT81 features pivoting engines to enable vertical flight, controlled via a mechanical cog, whilst another deploys the landing gear.

A container and a remotely operable vehicle are included, which can be plucked from the martian surface via a fuselage-mounted hook system. It also appears that the container from 42181 is able to be connected to the those included within the 42178 and 42180 sets, combining to build something no doubt very spacey indeed.

As with the other sets in the new Technic Space line, several new parts make their debut on LT81, with others available for the first time in new hues, whilst System pieces are combined with Technic (plus many stickers) for added detail.

Aimed at ages 10+, the 42181 VTOL Heavy Cargo Spaceship LT81 will land at the start of next year. Start turning your bedroom floor into martian landscape now…

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We didn’t see that coming. LEGO’s decision to combine Technic and Space could well be an inspired one, but even if you’re not too sure about trading a supercar, tractor, or giant crane for a martian rover, we suspect many builders will be interested in the new Technic Space line for the parts alone.

Being a car blog, we’re rather more interested in the new earth-based vehicles that we’ll be able to reveal soon, but we nevertheless salute LEGO for boldly going where they’ve never gone before. And we really do like that orrery.

We’ve not seen the TV show ‘Supernatural’. It sounds like ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’, only without Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And we only watched that show for, well… Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Still, whilst it’s missing the obvious key ingredient, ‘Supernatural’ does feature a cool car; an awesome black ’67 Chevrolet Impala.

This top-quality Model Team example of that car comes from previous bloggee Szunyogh Balázs, who has constructed and captured his Supernatural Impala model beautifully.

There are four opening doors, a detailed engine under an opening hood, an accurate brick-built drivetrain, and the trunk opens to reveal a weapons rack for hunting ghosts and ghouls. Although it might just be the content of the average American’s trunk.

There’s more of the model to see at both Eurobricks and Flickr, and you can take look via the links above if – unlike us – you haven’t already got distracted Googling pictures of Buffy the Vampire Sla…

Gas stations, at least in TLCB’s home nation, are on borrowed time. With an EV mandate requiring all manufacturers to hit a percentage of EV sales beginning in just one month, in just a few years there won’t be any new internal combustion engined cars sold at all.

Thus the gas station, until now a staple fixture of every town, village and main road in the country, will soon – like phone boxes, MSN Messenger, and the Ice Bucket Challenge – be nowhere to be found at all.

Which isn’t a bad thing really, but we will lament the passing of the pretty ones, just like this wonderful example by Flickr’s Christoph Ellermann. Stunningly photographed and with beautiful LED lighting, Christoph’s ‘Octan Gas Station’ is of the type we’ll miss, and you can stop to fill up at his photostream via the link above. Whilst you still can.

We love alternative builds here at TLCB. They’re at the very core of what LEGO is all about, turning the pieces used to create one thing into another thing entirely.

Flickr’s Dyen’s Creations earns our admiration today, having flipped their 42122 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon into something altogether different, creating this excellent (and operational) Technic backhoe loader from only the parts found within the 42122 set.

There’s a working front arm complete with a tilting brick-built bucket, an unfurling rear arm, working stabilisers and functioning steering too.

We think we might like it even more than the set upon which it’s based, and if you agree you can take a look at Dyen’s ‘LEGO 42122 – Backhoe Loader’ album via the link above, plus you can check out all the other things that the 42122 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon set has become by clicking this bonus B-Model link!

The Lego Car Blog Elves, fed only when they find a blog-worthy creation, could be called ‘competitive’. By which we mean they’re willing to use Max Verstappen levels of ruthlessness to win.

This inevitably leads to regular Elf fights at TLCB Towers, which we wouldn’t particularly mind, if it weren’t for the tidying up and occasional trips to ‘Elf Hospital‘.

Fortunately today we could keep the peace, as two Elves returned each with a blog-worthy creation by the same builder.

This gorgeous pair of classic Aston Martins comes from barneius of Flickr, the first (above) being a stunning V8 Volante, and the second (below) a DBS.

Both were effectively the same car, hence the accurate similarities between them, and there’s more to see of each classic Aston via the link above. Take a look whilst we distribute two meal tokens to a pair of lucky Elves.

The 4,100-piece LEGO Technic 42100 Liebherr R 9800 Excavator is the largest and most expensive Technic set ever released. With seven motors, two ‘Smart Hub’s, and programmable control via the PoweredUp app, it’s LEGO robotics for the post-PC era.

It is also the ideal set to create an alternative model from, because if you’re going to pick a set for parts, it might as well be the one with the most!

Cue TLCB Master MOCer Nico71, and this amazing… er, honestly we’re not sure. Nico describes it as a ‘Container Handling Vehicle’, which probably doesn’t do it justice, what with it looking like a cross between something from ‘Thunderbirds’ and that ‘Hibernia‘ place that seems to feature here from time to time.

Four suspended tracks, each of which is driven with the front two also steering, are controlled remotely, as is a huge two-stage hook-lift arm and a motorised container locking mechanism.

Building instructions are available and there’s more to see of Nico’s fantastic 42100 B-Model at both Brickshelf and his excellent website. Click the links to take a look, plus you can watch the ‘Container Handling Vehicle’ in action below.

YouTube Video

Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, Halloween, Valentines Day are – these days – all thinly-veiled temples to consumerism.

However the worst of all of them doesn’t even try to hide its intentions behind a pretext. Black Friday, where spending eclipses the annual GDPs of 50% of the world’s countries and leaves one in four Americans in debt, is upon us once more, and – as is usual – we will not be partaking.

If you fancy joining us in abstaining from the annual greedpocalypse there are some wonderful alternatives available;

Creations for Charity

Buy a one-of-a-kind Lego creation, with all of the proceeds used to buy LEGO sets for underprivileged children who might get nothing else this Christmas.

Red Cross, Tearfund, Christian Aid

Fantastic charities working every day to alleviate poverty, suffering, and injustice around the world. Visit their appeals, and change a life.

Last (and very much least), the ad revenue generated by your visit here at The Lego Car Blog is given to those who need it more than we do. If you like the look of a product or service in an ad you see here, please do give it a click, and if you like what we do here at TLCB, then please consider sharing us. The more eyeballs the ads get, the more money you raise for us to give.

Thank you

It’s the early-’80s, and British Leyland has a new small (and surprisingly good) car on its hands. The Metro, first sold as an Austin and later a Rover, rapidly became a best seller, with over 130,000 sold in 1983 in the UK alone. Aiming to capitalise on this success British Leyland decided to take the Metro racing, and the pinnacle of motorsport in the mid-’80s was rallying’s monstrous ‘Group B’.

Bearing a physical resemblance (but little else) to road-going cars, Group B racers featured tubular-steel space-frames, mid-mounted engines, and trick all-wheel-drive systems, and the Metro got the lot.

Developed by Williams Engineering, the Metro 6R4 gained a mid-mounted naturally-aspirated V6 engine, loosely developed from the all-conquering Cosworth DVF Formula 1 unit, a glassfibre body, and MG badges – to better align it with the hot-hatch versions of the road-going Metro. For homologation purposes customers could actually buy a road-going 6R4 too, which must’ve been a wild thing to take to the shops.

The new Metro 6R4 rally car debuted at the end of 1985, taking a podium at its first event. However, by just the middle of the following year, it was all over.

After a series of fatal accidents, Group B was banned mid-season, and the 6R4 – along with rest of the Group B field – was orphaned. Without a global series in which to race, Rover sold the cars on, but their motorsport life wasn’t over. Rallycross and British rallying became the 6R4’s new home, and in the hands of privateers the cars became formidable opponents, winning so frequently the rules had to be tightened to restrict them.

The 6R4’s V6 engine also went on to a rather interesting new life… but you can read about that another time.

Thus, despite such a short life in world rallying, the Metro 6R4 remains one of the most iconic and fearsome cars ever borne out of Group B, and previous bloggee Samolot has paid homage to the unlikely rally star with his incredible Technic replica.

Under a one-piece removable body Samolot’s 6R4 features a mid-mounted V6 engine, all-wheel-suspension, and a remote controlled all-wheel-drive system with working steering courtesy of LEGO’s Power Functions motors. Custom decals recreate the ’80s works livery, there are opening doors, bonnet and hatch-back, and there’s more of the model to see – including photos of the trick all-wheel-drive chassis – at the Eurobricks forum.

Click the link above to take a look at the maddest Metro ever built.