The Science of it All…Roundup

Have you ever threw a party while your parents were away, then bragged about it on Twitter? Have you ever used a selfie stick while on a roller coaster? Have you cracked three separate cell phones? Have you ever locked yourself out of the house while not wearing pants…twice in one day? Does jumping on a trampoline with a bowling ball seem like a good idea? Then you, my dim-witted friend, are not the brightest bulb in the whole chandelier and you may be better served going to another blog about boobies, explosions, or monster trucks or something, cuz we're about to lay down some smarty pants book learnin' stuff that might confuse you. Go on, now! Git! Are they gone? Alrighty then! For the rest of you, for the above average, for the Mensa Set, we have a little build challenge we called The Science of it All…all about cars, trucks and bikes with scientific names or purpose. You know, like the Dodge Neon or the Honda Element. So grab yourself 355ml of your favorite libation, this round up is sure to have all kinds of fun scientific facts when I'm not otherwise distracted by explosions, monster trucks and boobies.


Did you know human saliva has a painkilling ingredient more powerful than morphine? Did you also know some eggheads at MIT put a Chevy Volt engine into a rusted old Nova? John Marshmallow knows it and now we're all just a little smarter for his efforts.



Dumb guys put bigger engines in their cars to go faster. Smart guys, they put in electric engines because they know that more torque, rather than more power is where the action is. John's Model S aka "Electric Dream" was possibly one of the greatest electric cars to have ever been built, so says he.



I'm just too goddamned lazy to research that myself. But I can easily wrap my significant IQ around a 1981 Nissan Pulsar Drag Rod called "Lil' Red Wagon", and a 1998 Mitsubishi Eclipse Drag Rod called "White Rocket". Vroom, Vrooooom, VROOOOM!!

The Porshe 962 can go 264 MPH on the Bonneville salt flats. It takes plenty of scientific science-y science to make a car go that fast without bursting into flames. Also, this car is named after Dr. Ferdinand Porsche, a scientist and inventor who worked on, among many things, the first hybrid-power troop transport train.



JohnniD shows us a world where solar powered hover cars are all the rage. That can happen. Ah science! it can answer all the most difficult questions like why is the sky blue? Is time travel possible? And what's with you people and fat white chicks anyway?



OK, maybe it can't answer that one, but still a burning question nonetheless. Let's move on. Predictably in a roundup full of cars pertaining to science-y science science, someone would build a Tesla. Not predictable, however is this entry by rkc62 that has a tesla coil on the roof and is zapped by lightning. I literally can't see how that can go wrong.



With a cool name like Emmanuel Spencer Iskandar he should do something cool like invent a battery or something. Unfortunately, that honor already goes to Alessandro Volta. He also gets a car named after him, which is a collaboration between Toyota and Italdesign Giugiaro. This supercar has a hybrid V6 engine and scissor doors.



One question science can't answer is why the hell does a robot need to drive a car? Even though he built it, Lino Martins does not know the answer, nor does he know why every last girl had big hair in the 80's. He does know, however, that Simon Liu digs this car for some reason.



Next on the Lino slab is the least science-y car ever that happens to have the most science-y names. Behold the 1965 Mercury(science) Comet (science!) Cyclone (SCIENCE!!) called Red Menace (not so much science, but political science, maybe). Don't let the pretty colors fool you, its all muscle!



Loek M snubs his germ infested thumb in the eye of whoever runs the Tesla company cuz this 533 PS electric Mercedes from 2011 was the first fully electric performance car. In your stupid face, Tesla! And by Tesla, I mean the sucky hair metal band from the 80's.



Known for their power and styling in the 60's and 70's, the mercury Cougar was a force to be reckoned with. But by the late 80's, however this 1987 Mercury Cougar XR-7 V8 Coupe built by Peter Blackert was a mere shadow of what it used to be.



Sounding more like a hair removal remedy than a car, the second entry by Peter is the 1994 Ford Laser Lynx 3-door Hatch. Laser is obviously science-y, but not so obvious is Lynx, which is a constillation in the northern sky.



Our entire sky consists of the whole galaxy so it becomes a fitting name for the biggest of the Ford line, the 1964 Ford Galaxie 427 Sport Roof Coupe. Incidentally, the Galaxie was cited as having the largest back seat, making the car popular amongst teenagers who enjoy…yanno…sitting and stuff.



There's barely room to do much sitting, or anything else for that matter, in this 2014 Ariel Atom. Its the car thats sort of like a motorcycle, you need a helmet to ride in it and you'll get bugs in your teeth as the wind flaps your face like a sheet left on the close line on a windy day.



This 1983 Nissan Pulsar EXA Turbo is totally weird science. Like as in Kelly LeBrock. Remember her? Whatever happened to her anyway? Man, she was hot in her day! making a sex-crazed woman out of a few computer parts seemed totally feasible in my young teenage mind.

I'm sure the muscle bound owner of this 1972 Plymouth Satellite Sebring Coupe 440 sees no shortage of sex-crazed women. That's how it goes, girls like big muscles and big cars with back seats suitable for…yanno, sitting and stuff.



Be prepared to sit yourself stupid with this totally far out 1977 AMC Concept Electron shown here illustrating many innovative ideas, including real, accessible electric propulsion - though perhaps even more amazing, is that the car was shown in this basic form 10 years earlier, in 1967, as the Amitron.



Foregoing most of the things that made the Saturn brand innovative at launch in the early 1990s, the Saturn Ion Quad Coupe was really just an ordinary, small car.Perhaps the only feature which really made it stand out was the coupe model's rear suicide doors.



15 steps into my day and I'm already looking for a place take a load off, kick my feet up and leave things like hiking to people who actually like that sort of thing. I'm sure there's plenty of room to loaf around and do nothing in this Espace as built by PauloD.

As a physicist, Ralph Savelsberg is a man deeply rooted in science. With that said, Zak Bagans and the Ghost Adventurers (aka Scooby Douche and the Gang) can rejoice as their locking themselves in scary places and acting like a bunch of fratboys is now considered a real science cuz Ralph built the Ghostbusters car for the new movie. OK, thats a stretch, but I wanted an excuse to use my Scooby Douche joke.

Is that all of them? I think it is! What did we learn this time around? Not a god damned thing! But that's OK. These roundups are not always about learning…although you'd think I'd do a better job with a science based challenge. Science was actually my favorite subject in school. That and English and Creative Writing. And look where that got me! Distracted by explosions, monster trucks and boobies every couple of minutes. And I don't mean while surfing the net. No, there was like an explosion of boobies and monster trucks like seven feet away! But we have a chance to redeem ourselves with a little challenge we call The Great Outdoors, all about cars, bikes, and trucks made to enjoy (or pillage) the great outdoors. So remember, next time you're out enjoying the beach or the park, take only photos and leave only footprints. Its good for the environment and it makes you less of an a-hole. Thats my advice for now. Tune in next month, same bat time, same bat channel. In the meantime leave some comments or something.

The Fabulous Forties…Roundup

In case you've been keeping track, when we last posted on this fine blog I had said we'd have a roundup for a little challenge we called The Fabulous Forties, all about 40's era cars, bikes and trucks. I had also said that, while I wasn't around in the forties, I just assumed it was all about bra-less-ness and peace, love and understanding between all the nations of the world because…bra-less-ness is just sexy, and Japanese people have such adorable Buddha bellies, German people make great beer and pretzels and…what's not to love about America? I also said I would do some more research on the matter and report back with what I had learned. Well, I watched Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS, starring the buxom pulp movie vixen Dyanne Thorne. It seems I may not have been right about the whole peace, love and understanding thing. You see, it turns out there were these people called Nazis (who knew, right?!) who were not so fond of Jews for some reason. The Nazis, however did enjoy lesbian sex, women soaping each other up in slow motion, and bondage. Also, I was right about the bra-less-ness! I found the 40's to be a sexy, titillating romp and a feast for the senses! I recommend the 40's to everyone, but make sure you're 18 or over. You're welcome. Now that I'm considerably more educated on the matter let's educate the lot of you stupid people about 40's era automobiles! Here we go.


The most educated of us all, Johnni D, kicks us off to prove that any automotive roundup about the 40's would be nothing without cab over trucks. This yellow and black 1947 Ford COE flatbed was inspired by a Jada Toys cast.



Johnni comes back later to tell us his second entry is automatic, systematic, it's hyyyydromatic.....Why, It's Greased Lightning! Its the1948 Ford Deluxe! I feel smarter already.



With no shortage in the brains department, a kid named John Marshmallow schools us on what its like to be a nine stud wide 1949 Mercury lead sled. Even his own mom recognized the genius that was this little Merc, cuz apparently he has to explain all his other builds to her.



For example, this tiny little Crosley Wagon. I'm a self-proclaimed car dude and I was like…huh? Is this one of them Scion XB's or something? Google had to explain it to me. Turns out, just like Nazis, the little Crowley was a real thing in the 40's.



One of the hilarious things about youth is they live in the now. They always proclaim that their most latest project is the best thing they've ever done in the history of the world ever! No exemption, John claims this Jaguar XK 120 is his best work yet. But yanno, the kid may have a point.



Later, John cranks up the Ritalin dosage with this Volkswagen Kubelwagen and gives us a long spiel about why he built it and why it was so different from everything else he has built thus far. Isn't there some written rule about short write-ups? No? Well, there should be!



I'd tell John to save the book report for English class, but, it turns out, he educated me about the 1949 Crosley Farm-O-Road, which is tinier than its other Crosley counterpart and could go twice as fast as a race horse. See, peeps, that's some book learnin' right there!



The human Marshmallow starts off his sixth entry with: "This is what they call...insanity. " Indeed, John! Now you know what I feel like three nights into trying to come up with humorous antidotes for all of Peter's entries. There's just not enough $54 whiskey in the world to contain my sanity!



Thanks, Lulu, for the Father's Day present, by the way. You're a dog who knows that fathering is so much better when done three sheets to the wind. Food goes in the sharp end, poop comes out the stinky end, and never the other way 'round. OK, got it! See, I'm a good doggy daddy. Not related, but jlegoman4437 (if that's your real name) builds us a Ferrari 166 Inter Stabilimenti Farina Coupé.



Speaking of pseudonyms, our next builder didn't want to give away his real name cuz he's an UndercoverWookiee. But, he did build us a pretty cool 1941 Dodge Pickup Rat Rod. He used a band-aid to wrap around the pipes to create that all important rat-rod look, which is a pretty idea in my book.



PauloD gets right to the point and tells us he's built "a Willys '41. In minifig scale. That's it…" No convoluted diatribe about the evolution of how he thought up the idea, no copy/pasted 3 page long entry from wikipedia, just to the point. John, Peter, you taking notes?



Senator Chinchilla is all about voting important bills into law and chewing on empty cardboard toilet paper tubes. He's also all about building a no frills but still totally sweet 1948 Ford.



When thinking in terms of great cars from the 40's, there's bound to be some overlap. Ralph Savelsberg was getting ready to slick back his pompadour and sing us "Grease is the Word" but was beaten to it three weeks ahead by JohnniD. Still a cool car and figure though.



School appointed child psychologists have proven that no one thinks quite like Lino Martins. That is why I was the only one to come up with a slammed International Harvester Metro Delivery Van called Bread Winner. This "bread sled" is as startling and unexpected as the sweaty ball-slapping sex your parents are having right now.

Now you're going to have to repress that memory until you're at least 40. Good luck with that! No stranger to having to repress horrifying memories well into middle age is Tim Inman with this sleek 1948 Talbot-Lago T26 Grand Sport Coupe. The memories are hazy, but at least the car is cool.



Somehow Peter Blackert is still finishing up projects from the 91st build challenge called Anger Management. Hmmm, maybe I should have called it "Time Management". Anyway his first of many renders shows us some road rage with this 1941 Pontiac Torpedo Eight Coupe.



Peter tells us that the 1946 Ford V8 Coupe was the first post-war production car after a several year hiatus of building war stuff presumably for Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS. Apparently not a friendly bunch, those Nazis. But they do love bathroom humiliation!



Anyway, Peter admits to not being the first LUGNut to build a 1941 Graham Hollywood Sedan. That distinction went to Tim way back in our 76th Challenge called "Places, Everyone!"



Y'all gonna make me lose my mind…up in here, up in here! Did I already use that lyric in another roundup? I think I did. Anyway, what else happened in the 40's? Here's a 1949 Hudson Commodore Eight Convertible.



Interesting tidbit; on July 30, 2013, DMX filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy citing his obligations to having to pay child support for a whopping 11 children! That's thug life for ya! Here's a Meteor V8 Coupe.



Also, it seems DMX was arrested more times than I can count for felonies including multiple counts of animal cruelty, reckless endangerment, reckless driving, drug possession, and identity falsification. By comparison, here's a rather tame 1948 Maserati A6 1500 (Pininfarina).



Also, he's been checked into a mental institution while in prison. Sort of brings credence to that whole "y'all gonna make me lose my mind" song, doesn't it? Here's a neat pair, a 1940 Mercedes-Benz W150 770 Cabriolet & 1943 Messerschmitt Me410 Heavy Fighter.



Like most other countries, Australia halted automotive production to instead build supplies to fight Ilsa's wicked sexy bra-less war. But post-war they resumed production with this 1948 Holden 48-215 Sedan.



Way back before the dawn of time, I built a rusty old 1949 Buick Roadmaster Sedanette with a tree growing out the hood. Peter has since built (or rendered) several incarnations of this car each with a back story as convoluted as all those Game of Thrones books. I'm not even sure if this particular phase is before the tree grew through its hood or after it was restored.



Man, I wish Peter's write ups were short and punchy! Be like me; short and punchy. But I guess the same can be held true for this blog. If you were to read this entire blog "cover to cover" it would probably be the equivalent to a 500-ish page novel. Here's a 1946 Austin 16 hp Saloon.

But, I suppose without all this writing I gotta do, mostly for Peter's entries, you, dear readers, would not get to read the tale of one man's slow but sure foray into madness. Here's a 1949 Packard Custom Eight Limousine for ya.



And if I'm gonna go nuts, I'd rather do it in front of more than nine readers. Can we get into the double digits before next century? And why ain't I making any money for all this writing? Here's an entry I actually really like, a 1946 Chevrolet COE Farm Truck.



There was a time when Peter was the only builder to have done a LEGO General Motors Futurliner #9 Motorhome Conversion. Now, he's the only builder to have done it at least a half dozen times already. This one has stars and stripes!



Each nation has a car known as the 'car that put that nation on wheels' - or something like that. France had the Citroen 2CV and Renault 4CV, Germany the VW Beetle, and the US the Ford Model T. For the UK, that title probably goes to the Morris Minor (MM) 2-Door Saloon.



Copy/pasting Peter's write-ups is easy, but not always entirely funny. When you copy from wikipedia it seems to lack jokes about ball-slapping sex. Speaking of which, here's something out of France, the 1947 Citroen 11CV Normale (Traction Avant). Pretty cobblestones.



You might want to keaster your drug stash if you haven't already because here comes the Ford 1949 V8 Tudor Police Cruiser. Although seeing this classic beauty in your rear view mirror would be a sight to behold.



Possibly the smallest production car ever is this 1947 FIAT 500 Topolino, which means "little mouse" in Italian. Believe it our not its supposed to be a two seater but apparently you can cram more people behind the seats.



Short guys rejoice! Not so much for this 1948 Chevrolet Fleetline Aerosedan Coupe, but check out the happy couple in front of it. Seems his Mrs. is just a little taller than he is. He's a man after my own heart, cuz my own girlfriend is three inches taller than me. But then again, when you're a short, punchy Portagee, everyone is three inches taller.



A guy who likes all three of his names is Emmanuel Spencer Iskandar. Thats so you don't get confused with all the other Emmanuel Iskanars who build with LEGO. Anyway, this Emmanuel built us a toothy SAAB Ursaab, which was the first prototype made by SAAB in 1947.



You goth kids can set your Facebook status to slightly less melancholy because Sam Sir Manperson built us a black and seething, low and slow '49 Merc. He also points out that he spelled convertible wrong in his caption. Let that be a lesson to you kids; always use sunscreen!



You goth kids might also like this black and red 1940 COE Hot Rod Hauler as built by Chrisbuilds. Cuz nothing says gothy like putting on some eyeliner, listening to Bauhaus and cruising down the strip on your custom COE. Hearse optional.



Well, I think that's everybody. Do you feel more educated about the 40's? No? Neither do I. Seems my research material was lacking in historical truth. Apparently Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS was filmed on the set of Hogan's Heroes. Now there's a show with some historical accuracy! Anyway, if we lacked educational value this time we might be able to redeem ourself next time around. You see we have this challenge coming up called "The Science of it All". Its all about cars, trucks, or bikes with scientific names or purpose. This next roundup should be chock full of brainy scientific facts, so much, in fact, that I'm pretty sure we're going to win a Nobel Prize…or something. You're just going to have to stay tuned to see what its all about. In the meantime, just leave your intelligent, thought provoking, and insightful comments in 3…2…1...