Top five Lego cars

It takes genius (or craziness) to build a car from Lego blocks.

Leaving aside any other hurdles to overcome (like those closest to you threatening to have you committed), there's one major problem with building cars from Lego blocks: cars are usually organic shapes with compound curves and flowing lines.

Lego blocks are uncompromisingly angular.

Ever wondered why Pi has never been fully calculated? Why mathematicians (other than the egotists who can recite Pi to 100 decimal places) prefer to use an approximation, such as '22/7'?

It's because Pi is all about establishing some sort of relationship between a straight line (the radius) and a circle (the circumference). Building cars out of Lego is the three-dimensional analogue of that nightmare.

So a big thumbs up to those who choose to ignore practicality and common sense to build the car of their dreams with thousands of tiny little plastic blocks.

There is one 'cheat' available to these piecemeal modellers: the bigger the circle, the more squares you can fit without it looking like a hideously pixelated mess. So for this story we're focusing on Lego vehicles that are full-size – a scale of 1:1.

But before starting, let's consider one example, a 1969 Baldwin-Motion Phase III SS-427 Chevrolet Corvette, which has to be the best example we've seen of a scale model. Built from just 1500 Lego parts, the car is so identifiably a pre-1974 C3 Corvette with all its extraordinary curves and angles. A remarkable achievement for the hobbyist concerned.

Now, on to the full-size Legomobiles...

For full-on, money-no-object chutzpah, this Bugatti Chiron is without parallel. How can any other Lego modelling team compete with such a machine? For 'machine' it is. The plastic Chiron is driveable and will motor along at a speed of up to 20km/h – about 400km/h less than the real thing. Built by Lego, the Chiron weighs 1.5 tonnes. Although it rolls on non-Lego wheels and tyres by necessity, practically everything else has been replicated from blocks, including the steering wheel, or the Technic components for the powertrain.

Fast facts: Over one million pieces; assembly time 13,000 hours

See the Lego Bugatti Chiron 

It's the world's best known get-away machine for the family, so the T2 Volkswagen Kombi camper was the natural choice for commemoration in Lego form at a German leisure and travel exhibition last year. The real thing left the factory boasting a drag coefficient of 0.42Cd, which was pretty good at the time. Certainly it was much better than contemporary pony cars. We're tipping the Lego version isn't quite as streamlined. And the Lego Kombi doesn't drive either, but it does roll on conventional wheels and tyres, as the video reveals.

Fast facts: 400,000 pieces; assembly time six weeks (including nights)

Check out the Lego Volkswagen Kombi camper

It took artisans 15 times longer to build the Lego-based recreation of the McLaren Senna than the actual production time for the real car. The people assembling the Lego model were hamstrung by working on it without labour-saving production-line tools and techniques, but they were also building it from scratch – not from blueprints and a workflow process.

So perhaps it would be fairer to compare the production time of the Lego Senna with the hours required to build a road-going prototype. The Lego Senna weighs 500kg more than the production car and features some parts from the real thing, including driver's seat, steering wheel and tyres.

McLaren had previously built another Lego model in full-size scale, the Lego McLaren 720S. That car, like the later Senna version, rolls on conventional wheels and tyres, but is somewhat less ambitious.

Fast facts (Senna): 467,854 pieces; assembly time 4935 hours
Fast facts (720S): 267,300 pieces; assembly time 2000 hours

More on the Lego McLaren 720S and Senna

Up to this point we've canvassed hero sports cars in Lego and one icon from history, but this car is one man's labour to reproduce a current model of a humble family car in Lego. One might be tempted to ask why, but the sheer inventiveness of the creator makes this Toyota Camry art in the way a real Camry isn't. Unlike the other models mentioned so far, the Camry is built entirely from Lego. It doesn't roll, but it does feature working indicators.

Fast facts: Over 500,000 pieces; assembly time over two months

See the Lego Camry

As polarising as the styling of the Honda Civic Type R may be, who could help but love this Lego version of Honda's mighty hot hatch? A joint effort by Lego and Honda Australia, the Lego Type R is a static model like the Camry above, and it's built on a steel frame for support. To reproduce a design as prismatic as the Honda in Lego blocks without detracting from the real car's aesthetic character is, to put it mildly, astounding.

Fast facts: 320,000 pieces; assembly time 1300 hours

Check out the Lego Honda Civic Type-R

Maybe you don't have a team of Lego-certified professionals on hand to build you your favourite car in tiny blocks, and you probably wouldn't have any place to store the finished product anyway.

But there are scaled-down Lego kits you can purchase from toy stores and hobby shops if you're not inclined to muck around with polystyrene sprues, glues and paints.

Some of the great 'Technic' automotive kits that Lego offers include Chevrolet Corvette ZR1, Porsche 911 RSR, Land Rover Defender and the Bugatti Chiron – a smaller model than the full-size job mentioned above. The Technic range also includes a lot of earthmoving and construction equipment.

Non-Technic kits from Lego include Fiat 500, Ferrari F8 Tributo, Nissan GT-R Nismo, Audi Sport Quattro S1, Porsche 911 Turbo 3.0 and Ferrari F40 Competizione.