70ties Mercedes-Benz 280 CE

[flofler]

I like to introduce me first. I am 30 years old and live in Stuttgart, Germany and found some interest in LEGO again after a lot of years without. Here comes my story:

There are some model cars of the type Mercedes Strokeeight available. Brands like Autoart and Sunstar offer sedans and coupés in several sizes and colors. But none of them matches my original car:

• Engine: 280 CE, 6-Cylinders
  
• Painting: white
  
• Interior: Bambus Leather
  
• Additional headlights
  
• Adjustable headrests
  
• no sun roof
  
• no mirrors at passenger side
  
• etc.
  

Because I am not a hobby model maker, I could not modify a buyable model car in a way that it will match my Benz. What should I do to get a unique model?

Hey, you played with LEGO a lot in your childhood! That's why I tried to model my coupé with the nice tool LEGO Digital Designer during last holiday season. I was so satisfied with the results that I ordered the needed 607 bricks from Pick-A-Brick, Bricklink and Ebay. About 25% of the bricks I could take out of my own bricks I collected as a child.

Besides the right painting and interior color I installed some mechanical parts. The rear axle has a differential and is connected with the engine by a cardan shaft. Inside the engine double overhead camshifts are turning and for cooling there exists a cooling fan.

I attached the lxf-file to this post if you like to load it. When building the original model I noticed that some contructions were allowed by LDD on the one hand but were not that stable in reality. There were also some bricks that could be replaced by simpler bricks and also brought more stabilisation to the whole model. The lxf-file is not yet updated with the latest changes.

The building process in LDD and the following building of the real model were so much fun that I am sure this first MOC (right?) will not be my last

Here is my video and the screenshots and photos:

w114.lxf

Edited March 17, 2012 by flofler

[Alasdair Ryan]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

I like your car.

[DLuders]

Welcome to Eurobricks! I like your blend of a "System" body and "Technic" internals. Your building style reminds me of Lego911's Lego cars. You could consider adding this MOC to Rebrickable.com's MOCs that also have LDD Building Instructions like yours.

[timslegos]

Welcome! Nice car. i really like the lines and overall looks of the car, very close to the original .

tim

[Ralph_S]

Welcome to Eurobricks flofler.

It's a nice car and very faithful to the original. However, there are a few things that I don't like.

Loose the minifigs. They're completely out of scale with the car. The fenders. I know they stick out of the sides somewhat on the real car, but not nearly as much as they do on your model and that makes them look awkward. Finally, it may be a good idea to make the roof a bit narrower than the body of the car -at most nine studs wide.

I built a different Mercedes several years ago in a similar style and perhaps. I think it shows what I mean for the roof.

Mercedes W123 (2) by Mad physicist, on Flickr

Other than that, it's just about perfect.

Cheers,

Ralph