Camry now a plastic fantastic

Stuff to do with Lego now includes a new feat: Making a replica of New Zealand’s top-selling taxi.

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IN terms of piece count, it’s one of the biggest Lego projects ever – in respect to ‘wow’ power, well perhaps it stands a little lower than, say, a replica of the Sydney Opera House or the Millennium Falcon.

Still, for sheer visual impact, you’d have to agree the sight of the latest generation of the Toyota Camry, about to come on sale in New Zealand, created entirely to one-to-one scale out of the world’s most popular plastic bricks is captivating.

The red replica of the taxi stand staple debuts tomorrow in Melbourne, at the Brickman Awesome exhibition.

Consisting of more than 500,000 Lego bricks, the Toyota Camry replica weighs two tonnes, an astonishing 0.4 tonnes more than the working car.

The replica features signature details of the Toyota Camry such as Toyota logos on the alloy wheels, hybrid lettering, working headlights, indicators and brake lights.

"We're so excited to introduce the all-new Toyota Camry in a fun and interactive environment to Melburnians," said Toyota Australia chief designer Nicolas Hogios.

"It's amazing to see how quickly the car was put together in such a streamlined approach - much like our own design process locally in Australia."

"The dedication and time that has been put into this one-of-a-kind project really meshes with Toyota's dedication to the quality, durability and reliability of our respective products. It also provides us a fun platform to showcase the stylish Camry design in a different and interactive way."

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The Lego car was designed by Ryan 'The Brickman' McNaught, the only Lego-certified professional in the southern hemisphere and one of only 14 in the world.

Says McNaught: “It's taken over two months to build and comprises more than 500,000 bricks, but I'm really pleased with the outcome and can't wait to see what everyone else thinks of it!” 

The replica took 900 hours to assemble over eight weeks, more than 40 times longer than Toyota takes to make a single car - which includes stamping panels, welding, painting, assembly and inspections.

While potentially the largest Lego car ever made, it’s not the largest Lego structure. That’s a 13-metre high replica of the London Tower Bridge created in 2016, ironically enough for Land Rover, which wanted a prop for the launch of its Discovery Sport. The bridge used an astounding 5,805,846 individual bricks, beating the previous record by 470,646 bricks.

The Brickman Awesome exhibition is in the Melbourne Museum Plaza until April 29.