Tag: aircar

New Flickr Group: LEGO Antigravity

I had a hare-brained idea the other night, to create a Flickr group for antigravity-based vehicles. You know, Jetsons cars, Blade Runner spinners, Star Wars speeders, stuff like that. I’ve really enjoyed the LugNuts group that Lino runs, but wanted something like that with a more science-fiction bent. So I created the LEGO Antigravity group, and pimped it on the LugNuts and Sci-LUG forums. I added a few of my own aircars to it and invited a few other MOCs that seemed on-topic to join. Check it out!

From Jetsons to Star Wars to Blade Runner, antigravity has always been a fixture in science fiction. This group is for LEGO models of vehicles that levitate, hover, or otherwise defy gravity. Any scale, from nanoscale up to life size, is welcome, but probably most will be minifig scale.

Lunar School Bus

The other day I was thinking I’d build another hovercar, like my 2059 Cadillac or my remake of Justin’s red aircar. Lunar School Bus But as I was sifting through a bin of curved parts, the idea came to me to build a school bus when I saw some yellow Brick 2 x 4 x 1 & 1/3 with Curved Top (6081) parts.

I built it 7-wide (not counting the rocket engines), thanks to an idea I got from Flickr users Lego Monster and Mad physicist since it leaves room for an aisle; see their bus for the inspiration.

I also detailed the interior, with several students in varying degrees of good behavior and a driver inspired by the one from South Park. There are two thugs in the rear who are either conspiring or fighting, maybe both. There’s a boy facing backwards, harassing the girl in the seat behind him. And then in the front there are two reasonably well behaved kids whose hands are raised to report all this bad behavior to the driver. (Well really, their hands are raised because otherwise they wouldn’t fit in their seats)

The bus is a hovercar, using the same kind of smooth underside that I used on the Cadillac and red aircar with the ‘Wedge 4 x 4 x 2/3 Curved’ (45677) and/or ‘Wedge 4 x 6 x 2/3 Curved’ (52031) parts on the underside to represent antigravity units. I also added some 1950’s sci-fi style rocket engines for those longer hops between lunar settlements.

To see more, click the picture above or view the set on Flickr (or as a slideshow).

Justin’s Aircar Reimagined

At a recent BayLUG Space meeting, Justin brought a red aircar that he had built several years before.Justin's Aircar Reimagined At the meeting, several of us were discussing how newer parts could be used to make it better. It started with the windscreen; several of us suggested replacing the one Justin used with the new curved windscreen seen in the Agents and Speed Racer sets. Then I started thinking about the various angled pieces Justin used, and how those could be replaced with curved pieces that are now available from LEGO, and asked Justin if he would mind if I made my own aircar based on his.

After that meeting, I built an exact copy of Justin’s design based on pictures I took there, and then started thinking about how to update it. I included a few features that I thought were essential to his:

  • Suicide doors built using 1x2x2 panels, with a corner plate to form a rear-view mirror. But I added a cheese slope to it for streamlining (and studlessness).
  • Front grill using a grill tile mounted on a 1×2 plate with 2 finger hinge
  • Minfig seats used as air scoops
  • Overall shape and color scheme, including ridges on the front “grill” which Justin made using 1×3 33 degree slopes, but on mine are 1×3 curved slopes.

I also redesigned the underside and rear, which I felt could use more detail. I built the underside studs-down and studless, similar to how I did the 2059 Cadillac aircar.

Click the thumbnail for more pictures or view a slideshow.