MOC: Volkswagen Passat

[Ralph_S]

Having built a lot of classic cars and sports cars in recent times, I felt like building something a bit more mundane: a current model Volkswagen Passat. Trying to build a recognisable model of a car that is not particularly spectacular represented a different challenge.

Volkswagen Passat (1) by Mad physicist, on Flickr

A few weeks ago, Lasse D posted a very useful little program here on eurobricks. It allows you to superimpose a grid with proportions that correspond to LEGO plates over an arbitrary picture.

Normally I'd do something similar with a hand-made drawing, but I decided to give his program a try when building my Passat. I worked out how long it was going to be (27 studs), found blueprints, cropped those to the length of the car and superimposed the grid. The programme is still an early version, but it came in very handy. Thanks Lasse!

Passat with superimposed grid by Mad physicist, on Flickr

I know the Passat is not universally popular, but I like the car's understated looks. Dark blue seemed the perfect colour for it.

Volkswagen Passat (2) by Mad physicist, on Flickr

I always used to think of the Passat as a fairly large car. When I was working out the dimensions of the model, I realised that it would have to be only 10 studs wide, which after having built many American cars -which usually end up being 11 studs wide- seemed small all of a sudden.

Volkswagen Passat (4) by Mad physicist, on Flickr

Many Passats sold in Europe have four-cylinder engines. On the current model the engine is mounted transversally.

Volkswagen Passat (7) by Mad physicist, on Flickr

Part of the challenge of building one of these was trying to get it to recognisably look like the real thing, despite the real car not being particularly distinctive. I think that on the real car the grille and the tail lights are the main features that distinguish it from, say an older model BMW five series, a Toyota Camry, or a Buick Lacrosse, to name a few.

However, I am reasonably pleased with the result.

Cheers,

Ralph

[lightningtiger]

'Ralph'....you've done it again....man, if it's not a WWII fighter it's a VW sedan !

Such details on the vehicle right down to the engine is just AWESOME - great designing from you again - I'm a conformist! 'Ralph_S' I'm a conformist! !

[prateek]

This is great! The front looks good, but I really love the back

[shimon]

Very nice!! looks very real

And just in 1 word: it couldn't have been better!

Do the wheels steer completely?

[Milan]

Passat is extremely hard to make, like a Porsche.

But I think you did a great job.

I must say, not your best one, but certainly a great one!

I like the front and back part, and opening sections

My favorites are still your Porsche 935 and Camaro!

[GRogall]

Well done! I really like the way you have build the front grill and headlights

Now since you are from the Netherlands I'm sure you will adding a camping trailer

soon?

[Rufus]

Nice job, Ralph! I'd have known that was a Passat without you stating it, which is most of the battle. The front end, in particular, is spot-on; I love what you've done with the wheels, and the colour scheme is delightful.

This is not a criticism - you've done far better than anything I could do - but you've hit on a snag that I've encountered when trying to recreate modern cars. It's pretty much impossible to get the curves, particularly the double curve of the windscreen, recreated in Lego, which always leaves the model looking a bit square. This is also noticeable at the rear, which probably ought to taper slightly. I don't think there's an obvious solution to this problem at this scale, but if there is, I'm sure you'll find it!

It's always a joy to see your MOCs, and this is one of the best. Keep up the good work!

[TechnicJuan]

Very Nice Model! Nicely detailed for that scale.

[EpicXDFail]

Really nice car!

I love the detail in the lights, and it's nice that there are movable parts like the opening engine and doors. The special wheels are cool too :)

[dr_spock]

Nice work, Ralph_S. I think Polish Guy owns a real one.

[tazzycorner]

this is really nicely done!

great details ... good job!

[simonwillems]

Very nice!

It is indeed a car that has few distinctive features of it's own, but the taillights in your model really make it a Passat. Especially the lights themselves, with the red and white round plates attached on top of each other. Great work.

Btw, I visited London and the Hamley's toyshop and was surprised to meet some of your models 'in the flesh', the routemaster bus and London-taxi. They are even better in real life then in the pictures here on Eurobricks.

[indyman09]

Geweldig!! Hij lijkt super, kan ik tenminste ook eens in het Nederlands reageren.

[Lasse D]

You told us how hard it would be to build such an ordinary car (seriously. The Station Wagon version is one of the best selling cars in Germany!), but seeing the end result makes it looks like a piece of cake. You really nailed the defining parts of this car, which makes it instantly recognizable. I encourage people to find out what the cars in Legoland are supposed to look like - then you will know how hard it is to build everyday cars in such a small scale.

From the time you mentioned the project, I was looking forward to see how you would do the rear lights where the red lamps are behind clear glass. Your solution is perfect!

Well done.

And there will be an updated version of Griddy soon, so you don't have to resize (It is slowly evolving).

[Ralph_S]

Thanks for all the nice comments.

'Ralph'....you've done it again....man, if it's not a WWII fighter it's a VW sedan !

Such details on the vehicle right down to the engine is just AWESOME - great designing from you again - I'm a conformist! 'Ralph_S' I'm a conformist! !

The link from the WW-II to the car was quickly made. I had lots of left-over dark blue plate

This is great! The front looks good, but I really love the back

As I wrote in the original post, from the side many four-door cars have roughly the same shape and the design of the front and the rear is what sets them apart. The front on the Passat, with the large chrome insert is very recognisable. The combination of round lights set into square light units in the rear is also typical for the current model Passat. The way I recreated them is little different from what I did for my Dutch Police VW Golf a few months ago. There are a lot of things I tried on that model that came in handy for this one.

Do the wheels steer completely?

All of my cars on this scale have a steering mechanism, although usually it isn't connected to the steering wheel inside the car. That includes this one. It does create a few problems, in that the front wheel well has to be larger than the rear one (typically five studs wide vs four studs wide), but with the wheels turned slightly, somehow this doesn't seem to be all that obvious.

Passat is extremely hard to make, like a Porsche.

But I think you did a great job.

I must say, not your best one, but certainly a great one!

I like the front and back part, and opening sections

My favorites are still your Porsche 935 and Camaro!

I'm hard-pressed to name my own favourite. I agree that this probably isn't my greatest car model. Right now I am quite partial to my classic Jaguar. (I built it about two months ago, but may not have posted it here)

Jaguar Mk VII (7) by Mad physicist, on Flickr

Now since you are from the Netherlands I'm sure you will adding a camping trailer

soon?

HMMM. I did think about adding a bicycle rack to the rear...

Nice job, Ralph! I'd have known that was a Passat without you stating it, which is most of the battle. The front end, in particular, is spot-on; I love what you've done with the wheels, and the colour scheme is delightful.

This is not a criticism - you've done far better than anything I could do - but you've hit on a snag that I've encountered when trying to recreate modern cars. It's pretty much impossible to get the curves, particularly the double curve of the windscreen, recreated in Lego, which always leaves the model looking a bit square. This is also noticeable at the rear, which probably ought to taper slightly. I don't think there's an obvious solution to this problem at this scale, but if there is, I'm sure you'll find it!

It's always a joy to see your MOCs, and this is one of the best. Keep up the good work!

Thank you. I completely agree. There is little to nothing I can do to the windscreen (although as you can see from the blueprint, it is fairly flat on the real car). The aft bumper is too square and should be a bit narrower. I did consider making it 9-studs wide and attaching it with a half-stud offset, but this created all kinds of issues. It wasn't helped by there not being any 1x1 tiles in dark blue. I may revisit this in the future.

I felt a car like this needed nice wheels. I really wanted to use black hubcaps with the inserts that you get on some racers sets, but unfortunately seem to already have used all of the ones I have in my collection. The only ones I still have are red The combination I used instead (the central bit is a technic gear) seemed suitable.

Very Nice Model! Nicely detailed for that scale.

Thank you.

Really nice car!

I love the detail in the lights, and it's nice that there are movable parts like the opening engine and doors. The special wheels are cool too :)

I always want to have opening features on my car models and if I can add them without having to compromise too much on the shape or on the structural strength, I will. Off the top of my head, the only car model I have where I can't open the luggage compartment is my classic VW Beetle.

Nice work, Ralph_S. I think Polish Guy owns a real one.

Thanks. I wouldn't be surprised if there are EB members who drive one of these. These cars don't stand out, but when I started thinking about building it I kept noticing Passats all over the place. In the Netherlands it's not as common as, say, a VW Golf, and most Passats I see are estates rather than sedans, but there sure are a lot of them. Dark blue seems a popular colour for them too.

this is really nicely done!

great details ... good job!

Thank you. It's appreciated.

Very nice!

It is indeed a car that has few distinctive features of it's own, but the taillights in your model really make it a Passat. Especially the lights themselves, with the red and white round plates attached on top of each other. Great work.

Btw, I visited London and the Hamley's toyshop and was surprised to meet some of your models 'in the flesh', the routemaster bus and London-taxi. They are even better in real life then in the pictures here on Eurobricks.

The display at Hamley's is a part of an arrangement with Brickish. Warren Elsmore (the current chairman of Brickish) had already built copies of my taxi and routemaster for his St. Pancras project. Because this was arranged somewhat last minute, he asked whether he could build multiple copies for the shop display. That really was an offer I can't refuse. Models of mine are on display at Hamley's and I didn't have to lift a finger to get them there It's nice that you saw them and like them. I often get told my models look better 'in the brick' than in pictures. I must be a lousy photographer.

Geweldig!! Hij lijkt super, kan ik tenminste ook eens in het Nederlands reageren.

Dank je wel. Het wordt tijd dat ik gele 1x3 tiles op de kop tik voor de Nederlandse nummerborden.

You told us how hard it would be to build such an ordinary car (seriously. The Station Wagon version is one of the best selling cars in Germany!), but seeing the end result makes it looks like a piece of cake. You really nailed the defining parts of this car, which makes it instantly recognizable. I encourage people to find out what the cars in Legoland are supposed to look like - then you will know how hard it is to build everyday cars in such a small scale.

From the time you mentioned the project, I was looking forward to see how you would do the rear lights where the red lamps are behind clear glass. Your solution is perfect!

Well done.

And there will be an updated version of Griddy soon, so you don't have to resize (It is slowly evolving).

Thank you Lasse.

The LEGOLand cars are usually very impressive. Making a very distinctive car like a Hummer or a Ferrari can be difficult, but if you mess up somewhere, the odds are it'll still look recognisably like a Hummer or a Ferrari. There is less room for errors on a car like this. Griddy was a great help.

I know you wrote it quite quickly and that you wanted to improve it. One thing that I would love is if it could also save the file. I have no idea how much work this is (whenever I write a program, it's always some data-processing with a user interface that dates from the dawn of computing; I never do graphical stuff) and I get around it by taking screen shots, but that is a bit clumsy. I've already started looking at a few other cars that I wouldn't mind building and used griddy and blueprints to see whether I think I can do it.

Cheers,

Ralph

[Raphy]

Daaaaamn, bro! Only a great builder like you could make a normal, average, ordinary, mundane car like this interesting.

[Plastic Nurak]

Surely a great car ; it looks more like a medium Creator car than a Model Team.

[Ralph_S]

Daaaaamn, bro! Only a great builder like you could make a normal, average, ordinary, mundane car like this interesting.

Thank Raphy. My Dutch car collection was beginning to look like LEGO city: police vehicles, an ambulance, a fire truck. Where are the people they are supposed to rescue? I anticipate building more more-or-less common cars in the next few months. It was fun.

Surely a great car ; it looks more like a medium Creator car than a Model Team.

Thanks.

I tend to post my Trucks in the Model Team forum and since this car is the same scale as my truck, I felt it wasn't out of place here either.

I think the difference between Model Team and some Creator sets is marginal. There currently is an ongoing discussion in this sub-group about this particular topic, so I won't repeat it here.

Cheers,

Ralph

[Sato]

Thank Raphy. My Dutch car collection was beginning to look like LEGO city: police vehicles, an ambulance, a fire truck. Where are the people they are supposed to rescue? I anticipate building more more-or-less common cars in the next few months. It was fun.

Hmm, Makes me wonder if your interested in building a rather common car that became very special to me about 2,5 years ago.

And then help me build my own copy of it, As I cant find an 1:18(or any other scale) Model of it.

[Ralph_S]

Hmm, Makes me wonder if your interested in building a rather common car that became very special to me about 2,5 years ago.

And then help me build my own copy of it, As I cant find an 1:18(or any other scale) Model of it.

It kind of depends on what it is. I'm not in the habit of building things to order, but if it's a car that I think is doable and that appeals to me, I'd consider it. You can send me a personal message through EB if you don't want the discussion to be public.

Cheers,

Ralph

[Sato]

It kind of depends on what it is. I'm not in the habit of building things to order, but if it's a car that I think is doable and that appeals to me, I'd consider it. You can send me a personal message through EB if you don't want the discussion to be public.

Cheers,

Ralph

Can't seem to find a way to send personal message's.

But anyway the car is a 1994/1996 (Not really sure at the moment.) Subaru Impreza Plus 1.6l.

I got only one picture of his car, But it won't be of any help. (As it's taken by a news reporter, And thats all I'm gonna say on a public board.)

As the basic shape of the car is the same in both sedan and stationwagon versions, It should be easy enough to make different versions of it.

And so you can help me while also building a version you like more.

I haven't been able to build one myself for a number of different reasons,

And I haven't been able to find a model I can try to replicate on Brickshelf or MOCpages.

So any help would be welcome.

[DLuders]

@ Sato: You have to have made at least 10 Eurobricks posts to be able to send out Private Messages (PMs).

Here's a link to many pages of Subaru Impreza Plus 1.6L cars: http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=A0S020xhUIJMzQwAh.qLuLkF?p=subaru+impreza+plus+1.6&ei=utf-8&iscqry=&fr=sfp . You can refine the image search to get what you want.

LUGnuts has lots of cars that you could possibly build.

[Enilder]

wow looks great! I just checked out your F40 too...wow amazing!!!

[Ralph_S]

Can't seem to find a way to send personal message's.

But anyway the car is a 1994/1996 (Not really sure at the moment.) Subaru Impreza Plus 1.6l.

I got only one picture of his car, But it won't be of any help. (As it's taken by a news reporter, And thats all I'm gonna say on a public board.)

As the basic shape of the car is the same in both sedan and stationwagon versions, It should be easy enough to make different versions of it.

And so you can help me while also building a version you like more.

I haven't been able to build one myself for a number of different reasons,

And I haven't been able to find a model I can try to replicate on Brickshelf or MOCpages.

So any help would be welcome.

I've searched for pictures using google images and I can see a problem with building one of these. I fear that the car has few features that distinguish it from other Japanese cars of a similar vintage to make a LEGO model of it sufficiently recognisable. At least the Passat has a recognisable front end. I have my doubts I could make this work.

Right now I'm thinking Toyota Prius.

@ Sato: You have to have made at least 10 Eurobricks posts to be able to send out Private Messages (PMs).

Here's a link to many pages of Subaru Impreza Plus 1.6L cars: http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=A0S020xhUIJMzQwAh.qLuLkF?p=subaru+impreza+plus+1.6&ei=utf-8&iscqry=&fr=sfp . You can refine the image search to get what you want.

LUGnuts has lots of cars that you could possibly build.

I reckon Sato has a particular desire for the Subaru and I reckon that if there is a decent LEGO Subaru out there, it's probably a rally car, although I can't remember ever seeing one.

wow looks great! I just checked out your F40 too...wow amazing!!!

Thanks. I'm glad you like them both. They are obviously rather different vehicles.

Cheers,

Ralph

[Sato]

I've searched for pictures using google images and I can see a problem with building one of these. I fear that the car has few features that distinguish it from other Japanese cars of a similar vintage to make a LEGO model of it sufficiently recognisable. At least the Passat has a recognisable front end. I have my doubts I could make this work.

Right now I'm thinking Toyota Prius.

I think you're absolutely right about that,

Probably the main reason why my attempts at a small scale model are failing at the moment.

The only solution is to build bigger, But that only makes it harder to do for me.

Although I do not doubt that with some carefull planning and pre-designing important bits before I start with the car itself I could pull it off,

But my biggest fear is that I will end up with a digital(mlcad) model that can't ever be build with actual bricks because the don't exist in the required collor.

And as my goal is to build it with real bricks,

I'll have to order all the required parts because my entire collection consists of complete sets and I intend to keep it that way.

So I'm gonna think real hard before even starting this project.

thanks for your reply.

I reckon Sato has a particular desire for the Subaru and I reckon that if there is a decent LEGO Subaru out there, it's probably a rally car, although I can't remember ever seeing one.

The whole problem is the lack of Lego Subaru Rally cars on Brickshelf, Mocpages and Flickr, As they would be a great inspiration source.

There are only two good one's I found but they are the wrong Modelyear (meaning they have a different body shape, Making them useless as inspiration. Except for one)

Looks okay, But it's useless as inspiration. (And I think the details are all wrong.)

Wrong modelyear, But it is a source of inspiration. (Too bad the pictures are quite small.)

The second one is great, I've got four 8880's so I'm willing to use one as a base for my model.

Makes it a big model but it could be done, I think it might even stay withing my pricerange.

Could even make it a fully functional model (suspension, maybe a gearbox and so on.)

Typing this reply (And searching on brickshelf again.) Really helpt me a lot, Realising that for a great looking model it has to be bigger than i wanted at first.

Using an 8880 as base also provides me with the right kind of rims (6 spoke) and a lot of technic stuff to make it as realistic as possible.

Almost convinced myself to really get started on this project. If I do I'll make a topic for it, gonna need all the help I can get as I have never made a MOC before.

Ralph_S and DLuders, Many thanks for your help.

And Ralph_S, I really love your car models, And I'm sorry for going offtopic and posting about my soon to be started MOC Project in your topic.