Few people have heard of it, yet many consider John Blankenbaker's KENBAK-1 to be the first commercial personal computer.
Build a Pixellated VW Beetle
By James Grahame
The VW Beetle's iconic silhouette presented a serious design challenge for LEGO. However, the Beetle is the classic car most requested by LEGO fans, so designer Steen Sig Andersen took three weeks to craft his interpretation of its rounded profile from angular LEGO blocks.
Andersen explains, "When you scale things down, it’s more difficult to achieve that rounded look when you’re working with squares and cubes. So a few square edges are inevitable." The square edges initially caused concern at VW's head office in Wolfsberg, although the Germans eventually grew to love LEGO's daring reinterpretation of the iconic 1960 'Charlotte' model.
The 16" (41cm) long two-tone blue model offers a stunning level of detail, including opening doors, hood and trunk, a spare tire in the front and reproduction air-cooled engine in the back. The 1,626 piece kit is recommended for patient adults and retails for $119.99. Follow the jump for more pix.
LEGO Volkswagen Beetle [via my son's latest LEGO catalog]
