By Eric B.
So you don’t have a Lego replica of the Cruiser, or vehicle, you drive? I decided over the holidays to combine a couple hobbies, Land Cruisers and Legos. I found a Lego designer program online, and started building. A very different experience than physically putting the lego bricks together with your hands. It was difficult to get started because I needed to build the body to scale before building the chassis.
The model changed quite a bit during the aprox 2 weeks I spent designing it on the computer. I wanted to include some of the key features that make a 60 series wagon what it is. The front fender vents, the hood, and side body lines were among the important features. I ended up adding length to it numerous times, the rear doors always seemed to small and the back end didn’t look as “out there” as it really is.
I also wanted to include the body armor that is on Lilly as well, but for the longest time could not figure out how to make it work. By the way, I was limited to the Lego pieces they provided, so I had to improvise even though I know they make other pieces that would have worked out better. It wasn’t ’til Whitney, my wife, mentioned something about using the body lines as the armor, and that did it. It worked out perfectly.
Size and limited selection of pieces made making some sacrifices in details and style. The winch rollers went through a few styles before settling on the final one you see. The snorkel actually progressed decently, and the roof rack actually resembles the old confer style racks.
Originally the first design had no opening components at all, as well as no interior. As you can see now, all doors open and the entire back end opens to include tire carrier with hi-lift jack and jerry can carrier. I even added a pull out drawer as well as fridge, first aid kit, fire extinguisher and water jug. Up front shows 4spd stick with twin sticks and passenger dash grab bar.
The Lego designer program has since discontinued their custom builds due to not all kits being built structurally solid by “novice designers” like myself. I myself noticed this when actually assembling the kit. The rear and is built soundly, but the hood lacks some support if built as the directions say to build. The instruction book is not made by you, the designer, nor in the order you actually design it on the computer. It automatically generates it at the end of designing based really on no order at all, very different the the “store bought” kits. I did notice other and better ways I could have built this while assembling it, just some things I didn’t, or couldn’t see, in the design program itself. Overall it turned out well and I am very happy with it.
Of course, I had to build Mini-me…
