[MOC] Suzuki Samurai (42213 alternate)

[gyenesvi]

Hi All,

A last build for the year, finally, I managed to complete my Bronco alternate. I have been planning to build a Suzuki Samurai from it, slowly experimenting for a while, and in the meantime others have built the same car, but I had different ideas, so in the end I finished it.

 

Features

• pendular axle suspension, springs loaded rear, free swinging front
• working V6 fake engine (V4 or inline 3 is also possible by removing pistons)
• openable doors and hood
• detachable HoG steering on the roof
• clean interior, including the rear seat

 

Video overview

 

 

Design

I was aiming for something like this:

The core idea was that the wheels and fenders were perfect for this model, and also I wanted to build this classic cute little off-roader for a while. However, the red part inventory was a bit shy, so I had to shuffle things a bit to make it look as I wanted to. The most difficult part was to make the roof open yet stable, and also to build the front grille / hood. As for the technical side, I wanted to try a different suspension than in the A model, so the front also became a pendular axle to imitate the live axle of the original.

 

Chassis

Besides changing the front axle, there are a few technical details I did not like in the Bronco, so I wanted to build those differently. Namely, I did not like that the steering goes through the rear seat, and also that the springs on the rear axle are mounted in the middle of the passenger space. So I wanted to fix these in my alternate, turning the steering into a HoG on the roof and moving the springs to the back, behind the rear seat, this way leaving a clean interior. In the end I managed to use a classic steering / drivetrain bypass technique with the free spinning 16T gear. Also, I decided to use the two blue straight 12T gears in the set in a perpendicular gear mesh, to see how well they mesh; they work okay-ish on a smooth surface (table / floor tiles) but they do skip on rougher surface (carpet). Anyways, I kept it this way for the simplicity, even though I did consider some more complex linkage without gears for the steering mechanism, but in the end I did not want to complicate things, including the drivetrain. If anyone would like to actually play with the model and the gear skipping becomes a problem, they can replace those gears with bevel ones.

The complete chassis looks like this:

Here are some more photos of it:

And even more are available on Bricksafe.

Building instructions are available on Rebrickable.

Let me know how you like it!

Cheers,

Viktor

[2GodBDGlory]

Nice work! I always love to see some Suzuki 4x4 love, and I love your work in general, so it's great to see the combination!

That'd be a fast car with a V6! I do appreciate that you can also swap it to a factory-available I3 if you want

[TLCB]

Featured at

The Lego Car Blog

[gyenesvi]

On 12/30/2025 at 4:06 PM, 2GodBDGlory said:

Nice work! I always love to see some Suzuki 4x4 love, and I love your work in general, so it's great to see the combination!

Thank you! :)

On 12/30/2025 at 4:06 PM, 2GodBDGlory said:

That'd be a fast car with a V6! I do appreciate that you can also swap it to a factory-available I3 if you want

Yeah, the V6 is overkill and unrealistic, but with the available parts it wasn't possible to make the engine shorter overall, so these options remained.

On 1/1/2026 at 10:32 PM, TLCB said:

Featured at

The Lego Car Blog

Thanks!