Vintage Ford Hot-Rodding In LEGO Style
If you aren’t aware of Andrea Lattanzio’s work with LEGO, he is more or less a master—and is in fact officially a Master Builder in the plastic-brick-laying community—of miniaturization. If you’ve yet to see his shrunken replicas of famous speed shops like Mooneyes’ garage or his recreation of a vintage ESSO fueling station for instance, you’ll likely draw the same conclusions I did when I came across them initially: they aren’t approaching the complexity of some kits like the official LEGO Porsche GT3, but Andrea’s aren’t exactly left wanting for details, and there is a lot to be said about paring down on the pieces while still successfully achieving the homage.
His projects are always intriguing, and this consistency is proof of his passion not just as a LEGO builder, but as a gearhead. One interest without the other will result in fantastical but still somehow dull LEGO-ized “concept cars” that never have nor will exist, or else it will be some obscure model of a real life car constructed in bricks to be wholly unrecognizable from the 1:1 scale version. In the case of Norton74 though (Andrea’s online handle), both the competence in the medium and the knowledge required to aim it at something cool from the automotive realm are paired up, and this tandem has recently brought us this Ford hot rod, its garages, and a slice of Route 66.
Descriptively dubbed the Takehito Yamato coupe, this 1932 Ford Deuce is in fact a coupe, and was constructed (in full-scale metal and with a motor not made of ABS) for Takehito Yamato. Pretty straight forward on the surface. The interesting story attached to this car though involves an international tale from the hot rodding community. Commissioned from Japan and fabricated in Southern California by Walden Speed Shop, the custom chop-top, blower-motor Ford retains little of its original FoMoCo guts, and to boot is now living very far from home, in Japan. If you’re interested in the learning more about the car’s conception and build sheet, Hot Rod produced a much more in-depth piece on the car when it was completed.
We’re here for the LEGOs after all, and this version of the car does justice to the original in a lot of ways. Like its inspiration, the mini car is able to be separated into its component pieces in a rudimentary chassis-engine-body kind of way, and to further enhance the vibe, Andrea’s put together two garage dioramas to house the tan Ford in. The car looks great parked in the space adorned with Americana and automobilia, and we’d guess this scene is one that many hot rodders would like to open the door to. And when it comes time to work on the bespoke beauty, the mechanic’s shop tableau is so spot on that you half expect to see the car up on the lift with plastic man trudging in to change the plastic oil.
Real or not, cars like these can’t always be cooped up indoors, and thankfully this one also gets to see some open road, even if it is just a patch of replicated Route 66. The sun-shot animal skull is a nice little touch, and the kind of included detail that you’ll notice all over Andrea’s LEGO builds.
You can follow Andrea Lattanzio’s brick-building by following him on Facebook, or flipping through his Flickr account. If you’ve got any tips on other automotive-themed LEGO builders you’d like to share with us, we’d love to hear from you!
