If you read my stuff you know I love an alternative build. That's when you take a Lego set and you build it into something completely different. There is even a whole internet community about it - centered around the website 'Rebrickable'
For pretty much every lego set released there is a suite of alternative designs that people have uploaded to the site - these alternative will include instructions. Some of the designs are free, some of them have a price attached. Some of them work, some of them require a bit of a redesign before they work.
So for me when I get a set it gets built into the original design, and then rebuilt four, five, six times, each time it's get displayed until I get bored with it and then it's off to build something else. So what are the current built sets kicking around the house?
Well lets start with the Fiat 500 set - It started life like this
It's currently a Caterham 7
This is one of those times when the instructions are fantastic (they are laregely based on the official Caterham Lego set) The biggest this with this one was pieces which had stickers on them in the original which just don't work on the rebuild (this is a pretty common problem)
I got around it this time but substituting the brown tiles at the back with grey ones (not from this set) as the originals where in the suitcase and had the 'travel' stickers all over them
The detail in the redesign is astounding - and it's not an easy shape to recreate out of lego, but it gets all the angles just right. The fenders and the downturned nose
I mean look at taper on the bonnet
Then there is the Aston Martin which started out life like this:
but currently is a lot more Rural
This is a design which is 'okay' - the set is probably not suited to this type of car, but I love me a pick-up truck so it had to be done
What does work better as a pick-up is the Volkswagen Beetle, which started life looking like this
and now looks like this
it's the wheel arches that I think make this combined with the huge vertical front grill, although the bed works as well.
And Finally the Volkswagen Kombi which is proving very versatile - It started as this
but is currently another classic - a Vespa
This is one of those sets that required a lot of a redesign - the front wheel was so unstable it was just ridiculous - to get it to work I had to completly redesign the front which I'm not that happy with, and the reality is most of the weights on the kickstand not the wheel but you have to improvise sometimes.
So if you have Lego sets I would advise heading over to rebrickable and seeing what else you can build with it - it's a fantastic way of turning a Lego set into about 6 or 8 Lego sets