Vehicles for a modular city

Comments

• brumey Member Posts: 1,002

  July 2016

  i am also planning a city scene currently. and i find it very difficult to get cars in the right scale.
  originally i wanted to use lego town hot rods and lego town mini-busses (it could be a VW T1, T2 for instance). they seem to match the standard. for heavy trucks and/or campers i wanted to use the new city ones. 
  i got the cinema and there it was. a 6 stud wide car. my world did fall into pieces!
  but i did come up with an explanation in the end to justify all those widths:
  4 stud or 5 stud cars could be european cars
  6 stud wide cars --> american muscle and/or supercars
  4 stud van, camper, mini-bus and so on --> european/asian mini vans (think of an DAIHATSU HIJET for instance)
  4 stud cars could also be e-vehicles
  6 stud wide trucks could be trucks above 3,5 metric tons
  8 stud wide trucks are those super heavy haul trucks for moving bridges, houses, big machinery and so on above 40 metric tons
  
  my plan is to mix everything up:
  town era, new city, speed champions, heroes, ninjago.
  
  also want to use speeder bikes, hover crafts and aero flyers in my layout. planning a fire temple moc with parking for all those ninjago hover vehicle, air bikes, whatever.
  
  

  

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• akunthita Member Posts: 1,038

  July 2016 edited July 2016

  I really like the green classic car from the Comic Con Superman set. It works well with the limousine from the Palace Cinema, but could also be used in a more modern setting. It has such beautiful shaping all around. I have built a black one, a dark red one, a tan one and a light-blue one. Some other colors are also possible (based on parts availability): http://brickset.com/sets/SDCC2015-3/Action-Comics-#1-Superman

  

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• Bumblepants Member Posts: 7,728

  July 2016

  @akunthita pics? I would like to see your alternate versions

  

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• akunthita Member Posts: 1,038

  July 2016 edited July 2016

  Bumblepants said:

  @akunthita pics? I would like to see your alternate versions

  
  I'm planning to take some good photos and even write an article, but I'm still missing some parts so I haven't done it yet. But here is a preliminary mugshot to give you an idea how they will look like. The black one is the only one fully completed. The silver filigree on the light-blue one are printed elements from the Friends line. That's my favorite. :)

  
  

  IMG_4964.JPG 105K

  

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• pharmjod Member Posts: 2,916

  July 2016

  @akunthita those are great! Thanks for sharing.

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• akunthita Member Posts: 1,038

  July 2016 edited July 2016

  pharmjod said:

  @akunthita those are great! Thanks for sharing.

  
  You're very welcome. I will take better pictures once they are done. I looked at other colors that can be built as well. Of course green (but the green roof is extremely rare and expensive, so would need to be replaced with another color), regular blue, dark-blue, dark-tan, bright-light-orange, red, lime, and yellow can all be done. Colors can also be mixed. Like I think light-tan/dark-tan with a white roof is nice. The roof piece is available in white, black, light-bluish-gray, yellow and red (plus the crazy rare green one). Such a great little car! :) 

  

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• thebeermonkey Member Posts: 390

  July 2016

  @akunthita
  
  Those cars look awesome. Are the build instructions for the Comic Con Superman car available online anywhere? 
  I must build a few of these.

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• akunthita Member Posts: 1,038

  July 2016 edited July 2016

  thebeermonkey said:

  @akunthita
  
  Those cars look awesome. Are the build instructions for the Comic Con Superman car available online anywhere? 
  I must build a few of these.

  
  Yes, Allen from the Brickfan has it available at the following link. That's where I got it from. He also included a downloadable PDF version on the same page: http://www.thebrickfan.com/lego-dc-comics-super-heroes-sdcc-2015-exclusive-action-comics-1-superman-building-instructions/

  

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• thebeermonkey Member Posts: 390

  July 2016

  ^ Fantastic.
  
  Many thanks.

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• akunthita Member Posts: 1,038

  July 2016

  thebeermonkey said:

  ^ Fantastic.
  
  Many thanks.

  You are very welcome. Have fun building yours! :D
  

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• klatu003 Member Posts: 729

  July 2016

  @weeksuk Good topic!  I, and I'm sure many others, have had the same thought over the years.  #7682 Shanghai Chase has two classic 1930s style cars that work well in modular cities.  The sets aren't cheap and I don't know how available the parts are, but they can be a good starting place for your own MOCs.  Thanks for posting the link to the Superman car instructions PDF @akunthita.

  

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• CupIsHalfEmpty Member Posts: 545

  July 2016

  The cars from Indiana Jones Shanghai Chase work well #7682
  
  
  

  

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• akunthita Member Posts: 1,038

  July 2016

  klatu003 said:

  @weeksuk Good topic!  I, and I'm sure many others, have had the same thought over the years.  #7682 Shanghai Chase has two classic 1930s style cars that work well in modular cities.  The sets aren't cheap and I don't know how available the parts are, but they can be a good starting place for your own MOCs.  Thanks for posting the link to the Superman car instructions PDF @akunthita.

  There are actually a number of other really sweet classic cars in official LEGO sets. I did some research about them recently and wrote an article about my favorites:
  http://thebrickblogger.com/2016/04/classic-style-lego-cars-in-official-lego-sets/

  

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• Bumblepants Member Posts: 7,728

  July 2016

  The Christmas Tree Truck #40083 is a nice one too. I have it and another built in black/dark gray for my City you can see below. I also changed the sand green car from the Monster Fighter Vampyre Castle into a classic styled convertible by taking off the net trap cannon and redoing the back. 

  modstreet2.jpg 524.1K

  

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• ecmo47 Member Posts: 2,101

  July 2016

  These guys have some nice vehicles. Some of their modular plans (Speak-easy and hardware store) have a vehicle included.
  
  https://www.brickcitydepot.com/store/products/Instructions/City?page=2
  
  For inspiration, take a look at this guys outstanding vehicles:
  
  https://www.flickr.com/photos/er0l/
   

  

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• tfranklin84 Member Posts: 114

  July 2016

  Perhaps I am not picky enough, but I treat my modular city as a modern day downtown (which of course has buildings which are "old", as do many real down town areas). I find the LEGO "great vehicles" (basically any of the $20 sets such as garbage trucks, car and camper van, tow trucks, etc) look just fine, perfect scale or not. Then for regular cars, it's just the standard ones such as the taxi which comes with the current train station, the cars which come with the city square set, etc. 

  

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• TheBigLegoski Member Posts: 1,437

  July 2016

  I currently have no room to display them, but a while back I bought my first two modular sets (petshop and cinema). And this weekend I bought my first City themed car set. Hurrah! I crossed over to yet another theme. It was just a tiny set, but this car looks sooooo good: #60113   the yellow/black rally car. I paid only €8 for it. It was a fun build (that car is a little over six studs wide). Okay, granted beefed up tuned rally cars full of decals and lots of extra head lights are not the type of cars you see in a city most of the time, but for my modular street, I felt, this set is just right. Two other sets I also consider worth buying are  #60073  (service truck with portaloo), and the garbage truck #60118  , as well as  #75899  (LaFerrari). I am not too fond of all the models of the 'speed champions' theme; too many stickers on some, or they just did not design them quite right IMO, but that one I like a lot.
  
  As to the OP's question, I don't care about the size of the Lego cars too much. If the set takes my fancy, I will buy, build, and display it along side other Lego sets. Today along one of the canals in Amsterdam where I live, I saw a pristine Oldsmobile Starfire from 1963 parked next to a tiny city car, and a BMW. The Oldsmobile is hardly wider then the BMW, but the German car is so much more compact, mostly due to the length of this American car. I figure three Smarts, or similar tiny cars, take up just as much parking space as that American classic car or others (Cadillac, Dodge, etc.) like it. 
  
  ps.
  Love all those classic 1920s/30s/40s cars other people here mentioned and/or posted pics of. Definitely got to build some of those some time. Thanks @akunthita for all your valuable contributions on this thread, really like all your alternate versions, the article you wrote, etc.
  

  

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• akunthita Member Posts: 1,038

  July 2016

  TheBigLegoski said:
  
  As to the OP's question, I don't care about the size of the Lego cars too much. If the set takes my fancy, I will buy, build, and display it along side other Lego sets. Today along one of the canals in Amsterdam where I live, I saw a pristine Oldsmobile Starfire from 1963 parked next to a tiny city car, and a BMW. The Oldsmobile is hardly wider then the BMW, but the German car is so much more compact, mostly due to the length of this American car. I figure three Smarts, or similar tiny cars, take up just as much parking space as that American classic car or others (Cadillac, Dodge, etc.) like it. 
  

  I definitely agree that with the modulars you can use both modern and older cars, after all we can often see them each other in real life. I have to say though that I really fell in love with the firetruck that comes with the Fire Brigade and wanted more cars in that style. That's when I started researching classic cars in LEGO sets. Most modern cars have such boring shapes, and they all look the same. I like the classics. :D
  

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• TheBigLegoski Member Posts: 1,437

  July 2016

  ^
  The classic sort of pre-WW2 cars look really well in Lego.
  
  See if you have the parts to build this truck:
  http://brickset.com/sets/10937-1/Batman-Arkham-Asylum-Breakout
  I have that set, and I think this truck is well designed. Leave off the police flashing lights, try some different colours, some other minor tweaks, and you have a nice truck that will go along fine with all the classics you build.
  (actually if you check out several of the DC-Comics lego sets released the last four or five years you might find some more designs or parts of Lego car design that can serve as inspiration for further MOC'ing)
  

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• Toc13 Member Posts: 1,150

  July 2016

  akunthita said:

  Bumblepants said:

  @akunthita pics? I would like to see your alternate versions

  
  I'm planning to take some good photos and even write an article, but I'm still missing some parts so I haven't done it yet. But here is a preliminary mugshot to give you an idea how they will look like. The black one is the only one fully completed. The silver filigree on the light-blue one are printed elements from the Friends line. That's my favorite. :)

  
  

  Are those parts from #41053 (Cinderella's Dream Carriage)?

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• akunthita Member Posts: 1,038

  July 2016

  Toc13 said:

  Are those parts from #41053 (Cinderella's Dream Carriage)?

  Yes. :)
  

  

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• Lego_Fox Member Posts: 12

  July 2016 edited July 2016

  LEGO Juniors from what I have found actually has some reasonably priced cars that can be very useful for the cities! Licensing prices shouldn't be too much of a nightmare either! If you want to add some humor maybe throw in a Mighty Micro here or there.

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• AllBrick Member Posts: 1,497

  July 2016

  I quite like the car from #76002 . It looks different and sporty. I bought the set just for the car. #76003 has a jeep type vehicle too that can be easily adapted.

  

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• Bumblepants Member Posts: 7,728

  July 2016

  AllBrick said:

  I quite like the car from #76002 . It looks different and sporty. I bought the set just for the car. #76003 has a jeep type vehicle too that can be easily adapted.

  Yeah I bought the Jeep parts from someone who was parting that set out into chunks for $5 and it was a really easy/good looking conversion. Pretty much just took the gun out and closed in the bed. I think I also moved either the front or rear wheels in one stud as it looked better to me that way.

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• AllBrick Member Posts: 1,497

  July 2016

  #79104 has a dinky little van that could be useful.

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