Brickvention 2020 Spotlight: LEGO® Brick Lowrider
Luke is our resident car enthusiast so there was never any doubt that he’d build a LEGO® brick car for his Brickvention model! Building a simple straight model wasn’t going to be enough, so Luke set himself the challenge of creating a bouncing Lowrider!
Using LEGO motors and Linear actuators was going to be way too slow, so Luke started experimenting with LEGO’s pneumatic system. The pneumatic cylinders not only gave him faster movement, but they’re also be more accurate to the real cars.
Using pneumatics required him to make the LEGO Technic car chassis as strong as he could because the pressure the cylinders put on the LEGO was immense. He also had to use a small 30psi compressor to give the cylinders enough pressure to lift the car. Of course the car had to have proper steering, so the front wheels can turn as well.
Once he the bouncing system in place Luke could start on building the rest of the car. He went with a ’64 Chevy Impala- a favourite car for Lowrider conversion.
Luke used actual Impala blueprints to get the proportions correct and the details spot-on. He got custom stickers made for the number plates as well.
Luke detailed the interior with opening doors, reclining seats, foot pedals, an opening glove box and even pink fuzzy dice hanging from the rear vision mirror!
With the car itself complete Luke turned his attention to creating a scene to put it in. With the scale of the car as big as it was Luke created brick-built figures to match. He dressed them based on the fashion style of the Lowrider scene, including slurpee cups, gold chains, and various other appropriate accessories.
Luke also had custom name tag stickers printed for some of figures’ torsos. This character is supposed to be the owner of the car, Diego Sanchez, who sports a gold grill using 2 chrome Lord of the Rings “One Ring” pieces for the teeth.
Beyond the car club member figures, Luke built lots of extras.
The trophies the car has won in past bouncing competitions.
A giant clear vertical scale that replicates the real scales used to measure a cars bounce in competitions.
A classic cassette boom box ready to pump out the tunes.
Watch Luke talking about the build and see the bouncing suspension in action:
