Minifig scale car help!

[aaroncb]

I'm forever having trouble building a properly scaled minifig compatabile vehicle. (doors closed, arm room, 2 figs seated comfortably, seats etc)

anyone here a resident brick/gear head that can give me some pointers? or even someone with experience building outside of the 1 seater, center drive style lego cars.

source of massive frustration!

thanks.

also, mods move as needed, redirect me if neccesary

[BimmerBoy]

I'm with you! I would like to build some minifig scale vehicles that vaguely look like cars I have owned. I can get the details down, I have trouble with the basic framework/chassis.

[legoman19892]

It would have to be 8 studs wide.

[emilstorm]

Hi folks. I have quite a lot of experience with 6 wide 2 seaters. There is obviously never going to be tons of room in there, so the limits of comfort have to be pushed a little:) but there is a variety of methods, I have a bunch of my 6 wides here http://bricksafe.com/pages/emilstorm/Cars%20and%20Vehicles , many of them don't have figs in them in the pictures, but I would be happy to upload some pictures of it when I have proper time.

The methods I use the most is either placing one of these http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=4865 under a 1x3 door, or integrating a 1x2 jumper into the floor under a 2x3 door. I don't care much for the little guys' comfort, I am more about getting the exterior look of the car, so if you need something with actual seats and stuff, I am afraid someone else will have to help you :)

I can try to upload interior pictures of the principle of it, if there is interest.

[rriggs]

I would either go for realism/scale/proportion and not worry about fitting two figs side by side or go for a more vague approximation of realism/scale/proportion and fit the figs in as you want. I think if you do both it's just going to end up either big and unwieldy or unstable.

Cheers

Rog

[kibosh]

I, too, am going more for exterior realism. I build in both seats, bit only put the driver in.

I have been kicking around the idea of removing the arms of the figures where they would meet in the middle. (Drivers right arm, passengers left.) This way, they could sit next to each other, and it might not be noticeable from the outside.

[emilstorm]

I have been kicking around the idea of removing the arms of the figures where they would meet in the middle. (Drivers right arm, passengers left.) This way, they could sit next to each other, and it might not be noticeable from the outside.

I have seen people do this and, at least to me, it is very obvious. It is possible to make full room for 2 minifigs in a 6 wide, and still make it look somewhat like the real deal.

[SeanM]

I recommend looking up MOC LDD files and dissected them. Techniques vary but it all boils down to style preference vs play-ability. -It's difficult to achieve both. Member imvanya has some really good LDD designs here on EB too.

[Modulex Guy]

Building a car to fit two minifigs is always a challenge. 6 or 7 wide would be the max size to get the scale right. 8 wide would be too big in my opinion. I haven't found a good way to build both realism, scale, and minifig compatibility. I got stuck to 5 wide and don't even build interiors, let alone space to fit even one fig.

[aaroncb]

lots of good responses, thanks everyone. and going to be getting a bit off topic with this but,

minifigs aren't exactly a perfect representation of a person, for lack of a better word they're awkwardly shaped as heck!

[TheOneVeyronian]

This is an interesting topic to me, as not too long ago I was facing exactly the same problem as the original poster, as I wanted realistic looking cars that could sit 2 minifigs side by side, or seat a combination of minifigures in ways realistic to the car I was building in minifigure scale. The way I solved the problem was by using a 7-wide scale, which should allow 2 minifigs to sit side by side in most cases. I find that supercars do run into difficulty when going for accuracy even at 7-wide as the problem then becomes the height of the minifig rather than width, and you do sometimes have to amputate the minifig's legs for them to fit in the low-slung car. If you want some ideas for 7-wide cars, feel free to browse my Flickr album dedicated to 7-wide cars (always being added to periodically) and take some inspiration from them.

As far as 6-wide seating 2 minifigs side by side goes, you might want to look at the car from the Simpsons House (instructions available here, car instructions are on pages 9-17) as a starting point to see how to sit 2 minifigs side by side in a 6-wide vehicle.

I hope that is somewhat helpful to anyone looking to build minifig scale cars

[ER0L]

I've been struggling with this problem ever since. But like others have already said, it is possible to fit 2 (whole) minifigs side by side in a 6w car either by using the thin doors or tiles. No need to remove body parts. 7-wides offer even more possibilities. I'm actually using a building scheme consisting of 6w cars (like the Roadster, see below), 6w+ cars (with mudguards, mainly vintage or oldtimer cars) and 7w cars (full size cars).

However, the main problem often isn't the width but the height of the car (as has already been said). That's why I regularly place the figs on the floor to get a low roof line. Again, no need to remove body parts. Another good idea is to place the figs from the beginning - later it gets more difficult or it looks odd. Sometimes it helps to tilt the backs of the figs a little to the rear to fit them in (as you can see with the black Ford POS (7w) below, the car in the middle is the Palace Cinema car, it's just to compare the scales).

The two following groups might be interesting for you:

• LEGO Minifig Cars (http://www.mocpages....group.php/21846)
  
• LEGO 7-wide Cars (https://www.flickr.c.../lego7widecars/)
  

Plus I strongly recommend the work of Search Function, also active here, who is surely a master in squeezing Minifigs in rather small cars, see http://www.mocpages.com/home.php/96166

[Poisso3]

The #10197 Fire Brigade firetruck and the #71006-1 Simpson's car are both 6-wide vehicles that fit 2 figures across. The firetruck has open sides, but the Simpson's car has doors. Maybe use them for referances?

[aaroncb]

everyone has been so responsive, thanks!

I'm definitely going to have to take a few hours come the weekend to get a good read done on everything.

that being said I hope others are benefiting from all this knowledge in one place!