While the LEGO Modular Building series is set in modern times, the buildings themselves are mostly old style structures. Reusing and even repurposing old buildings is very much part of modern city life. While the sets are mostly focused on the buildings themselves, a couple of them do include vehicles. The #10197 LEGO Creator Fire Brigade comes with an old style fire engine, and the #10232 LEGO Creator Palace Cinema includes a classic limousine. 🙂
This also depicts modern city life quite accurately, where old vehicles are still running amongst newer models. Some of them are well maintained service-vehicles, other are the pride of collectors who take their classic cars out for a spin on the weekends. So you can certainly add modern vehicles to your LEGO Modular city, and mix in some old styles as well. Or if you choose to, you can even take back the entire LEGO Modular Building series to the 1930s, and use classic style vehicles only with ladies and gens milling about.
I have my LEGO Modular Building street set in modern times, but I do really like the old style fire engine in the #10197 LEGO Creator Fire Brigade set. and wanted to add some more classic vehicles around town. LEGO minifigure size classic vehicles look quite charming, just like their real life counterparts. Of course you can design classic LEGO cars from scratch, but if you need a little help or inspiration, LEGO actually released quite a few classic-style vehicles in official LEGO sets.
Many of these sets with classic vehicles I will talk about here have been retired already, but you can easily get the building instructions online directly from LEGO’s website or from websites like BrickInstructions.com. You can either copy the vehicles as they are from the instructions, or use them as springboards for your own creations. You can even change up colors or other details to create more variety. Here I will show you some classic-style LEGO cars from official LEGO sets that I found during my research. They may give you some ideas and inspiration for your own LEGO city.
The green vehicle (pictures first in this article) is from the extremely rare 2015 San Diego Comic-Con exclusive LEGO Action Comics #1 Superman set. This is one of the vehicles I choose to add to my city, as it looks fantastic. While the set is only 145 pieces, it sells for hundreds of dollars on eBay, so unless you are a collector of rare sets, it is not worth to get it. However Allen from the BrickFan was kind enough to upload the instructions (see here), which is what I used to build the car. Please note that building the vehicle in all green is not possible without some modification, as the roof piece only came in green in this particular set. So you can choose a different roof piece, a different color for the roof (the piece is available in white, black, yellow, red, and light-gray), or build the entire vehicle in a different color to match the roof (I’m building mine in all black).
The LEGO Creator Winter Village series also includes some very nice classic style vehicles. The #10222 LEGO Creator Winter Village Post Office comes with a charming old mail delivery truck, and the #10229 LEGO Creator Winter Village Cottage with an old style flatbed truck that can be converted into a snowplow. This second vehicle in particular can be repurposed to build so many different classic trucks!
The LEGO Indiana Jones theme is a goldmine for classic cars. This series has been retired, so it might be difficult to track down the original sets for a reasonable price, but again, the instructions are readily available online. The #7682 LEGO Indiana Jones Shanghai Chase includes an absolutely fantastic cloth-top car in tan, and a black sedan. The #7683 LEGO Indiana Jones Fight on the Flying Wing comes with an old style fuel truck. The #7628 LEGO Indiana Jones Peril in Peru got a simple little jeep and tractor in classic style. And there is a more complex jeep, and an old style truck in the #7622 LEGO Indiana Jones Race for the Stolen Treasure.
There is also a really sweet classic style Ford Hot Rod in the #75875 LEGO Speed Champions Ford F-150 Raptor & Ford Model A Hot Rod set. Perhaps you can add this to a garage in your city, or someone tinkering with it in the alley behind the Modular Buildings. This set is currently available under the LEGO Speed Champions section of the Online LEGO Shop. Speaking of classic-style Hot Rods, the #10200 LEGO Factory Custom Car Garage set includes three (see below)!
As you can see, there are quite a few classic LEGO vehicles in official LEGO sets that look excellent. And of course you can also find pictures of many more old-style cars made by LEGO fans on various image sharing sites, LEGO forums and blogs, that you can use for inspiration. But if you need a bit of help to get started, or you just want to get some classic-style vehicles added to your city without having to design them on your own, you can certainly use the models provided by LEGO. All you need is pick the vehicle you like, use the set number to find the building instructions, gather the parts from your LEGO collection or buy them on BrickLink, and start building!
What do you think? How do you like these classic LEGO cars found in official LEGO sets? Do you have any of them already? Have you considered adding old-style cars to your LEGO Modular city? Are there any other classic LEGO vehicles that you really like and would recommend? Feel free to share and discuss in the comment section below! 😉
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