LUGNUTs' "For the Ladies" Roundup

Name of Model: New Ford Territory 2011

Created by: lego911 (Peter Blackert)

Roundup found at: http://lugnuts-cars.blogspot.com/2011/03/for-ladies-round-up.html

Details: The LUGNUTs have been at it again - this past month, they had a theme loosely based around the Valentine's day holiday. "For the Ladies" brought out the usual interesting and impressive mix of vehicles. My personal favorite is this 2011 Ford Territory, which I actually had to check to see that it was made out of LEGO bricks. The curves of this one are almost too believable, and it looks like the doors even really open. The actual offset techniques here are things we've seen before, but the application is spot-on and really sells this design.

LUGNUTs - By Random Appointment Roundup

Name of Model: 1937 Bugatti tipo Cinquantesette Atalante

Created by: r a p h y

Round up found at: http://lugnuts-cars.blogspot.com/2011/01/by-random-appointment-roundup.html

Details: For December's LUGNUTS challenge - "By Random Appointment" - members of this elite club of LEGO car builders randomly swapped assignments to build specific vehicles. While you can always count on LUGNUTS to collectively come up with some great designs, this particularly challenge required people to commit to participating before they were assigned a car to build - which brought out some different approaches than we've seen in the past. Case in point: the model I've pictured here, built by someone who generally builds in the 4-wide "Tiny Turbo" scale. That the jump to minifig scale worked at all is impressive, but this is actually a classy-looking 1937 Bugatti that'd fit well in any minifig-scale town. Elsewhere, we can see some more welcome improvements in the variety of models showcased - while "Model Team" style models are common in the group, it looks like Technic builders are finally starting to make serious inroads into LUGNUTS. You should, of course, check out all the models you can from the links above.

LUGNUTS' The Scuzz And The Fuzz Roundup

Name of Model: Volkswagen Passat

Created by: Mad physicist

Round up found at: http://lugnuts-cars.blogspot.com/2010/09/scuzz-and-fuzz-roundup.html

Details: It's time for another LUGNUTS' roundup. This past month, the flickr-based car building club's monthly challenge theme was "the scuzz and the fuzz" - a sort of police and criminals theme. As usual, it's brought up a great set of car models in a variety of scales. My personal favorite that is not by lego911 (a great builder but he's not the only LUGNUT deserving of our attention) is this Volkswagen Passat, based on the unmarked vehicles frequently used for undercover surveillance in the Netherlands. There's often a few clever takes on a theme that keep all the cars from being too similar (although in the case of this challenge, there were enough options that there wasn't much overlap in what people actually built), and this completely unmarked vehicle looks great without looking like too much of a police car.

LUGNUTS' Kickin' It Oldschool Roundup

Name of Model: Oldsmobile

Created by: NK DeSign-er

Found at: Oldsmobile: http://www.flickr.com/photos/32900512@N02/sets/72157624118916410/ Round-up: http://lugnuts-cars.blogspot.com/2010/06/kickin-it-oldschool-roundup.html

Details: It's time for another LUGNut's round-up. This time, the challenge was to recreate a car manufactured before 1950 (hence the "Kickin' It Oldschool" title). As usual, there were many great entries, but my personal favorite is the Oldsmobile pictured above. While it's not based on an exact make/model/year of car, it's an evocative, distinctive design that gets the idea of curves down without actually using many curved elements. Better yet, it's an alternate model that can be made out of only the parts found in set 4939 Cool Cars.

LUGNuts Animal Kingdom Roundup

I apparently picked the AC Cobra 427 Sports Car as the model of the day just a few hours too soon to properly feature the roundup of entries into that LUGNuts building challenge. The official Animal Kingdom roundup is now live on the LUGNuts blog. There are, as always, plenty of interesting cars to be seen here, but for the sake of my arbitrary rules for how often to post here and how quickly I should repeat themes, I won't be featuring any others from this challenge. Not that it'll pose any issue - next month they'll have another round of cars. I've featured some of their challenges here before, and there have been other great entries (that I haven't featured) in these monthly challenges as well.

AC Cobra 427 Sports Car

Name of Model: Shelby Cobra

Created by: BICZZZ

Found at: http://biczzz.blogspot.com/2010/02/moc-shelby-cobra.html

Details: LUGnuts is wrapping up another challenge. Fittingly, this "Animal Kingdom" theme has brought out some of the most organic car models we've seen yet. This 10-wide car is a model of the Shelby AC Cobra. The curvature came out strikingly realistic. Naturally, some studs-not-on-top trickery was required to get the shape just right - just in this front view we can see a section built sideways and another built upside-down. Some stickers were used to get the look just right - but it worked. There's even a model of the V8 engine under the hood! Pneumatic tubing rounds out the look of the driver's seat, and even the dashboard is properly detailed. Now if only it were motorized...

1966 Ford Galaxie Cop Car and Round-Up

Name of Model: Ford Galaxie 1966 Police Interceptor for the Lugnuts 1966 Ford Galaxie competition

Created by: lego911 as a member of Lugnuts

Found at: lego911's Police Interceptor: http://www.flickr.com/photos/29987108@N02/tags/police/ LUGNUTS roundup: http://lugnuts-cars.blogspot.com/2010/01/galaxie-of-possibilities-round-up.html

Details: Today's "model of the day" is the Police car seen to the left here, built by lego911. It was built for a contest on flickr hosted by the Lugnuts group, which is for builders of detailed LEGO cars in a variety of scales. This being one of our larger "Sunday edition" posts, I'm actually featuring the whole Lugnuts 1966 Ford Galaxie competition roundup. Personally, I feel that this particular car is the most handsome design in the bunch, and the cop car approach works well for giving the vehicle personality even though this contest requires that everyone participating builds the exact same make, model, and year of automobile. Some of the other interesting designs included detailing made with Bionicle elements, a yellow convertible, a black beauty with an angled front, and even a decent looking 5-wide tiny turbo.

What A Concept round-up

Created by various builders in the LUGNuts flickr group

Found at: http://lugnuts-cars.blogspot.com/2009/03/what-concept-round-up.html

Details: Every month, the LEGO car enthusiasts in the LUGNuts flickr group have a new building challenge. This past month, the theme was "What A Concept" - the idea was for members of the group to build various concept cars. In all of these challenges, there are a few different scales and a few people who interpret the challenge in a clever and unusual way, but this one might just take the cake on those fronts. There's a bit more here than I usually post in one day, so consider this your "daily fix" for today and the upcoming weekend.

1960 Chevy Impala Wagon

Name of Model: Solar Flare

Created by: Lino M

Found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/12622904@N03/tags/impala/

Details: There is a group of diehard Adult Fans of LEGO (AFOLs) that is devoted to building cars. They call themselves the LUGNUTs - a clever mix of "nuts" as in nuts and bolts with LUGNET, which is a popular site in the adult LEGO fan community. Last month, they did a building challenge called Night and Day, which yielded a number of interesting pairings of cars. There were a number of interesting submissions, but this one is my favorite of the bunch. This "Solar Flare" is the "day" to the "night" of proudlove's "Lunar Eclipse". I don't think I need to explain why I like this one - it really shows a love for the original car and some great building techniques. My favorite detail is probably the windows-as-taillights. EDIT: I somehow managed to screw up Scheduled-Post-Publishing today, so enjoy the unusually early Wednesday model. With any luck the rest of the week will show up at the correct times...