This is a vintage tipper truck from 1989. I pieced it together from parts that I had and others I ordered specifically.
The only thing I “upgraded” is a newer front grill (the part did not exist at Lego before the early 1990’s) and the safety beacon on top of the cab. I’m sure the original designers wouldn’t mind. Do you?
Despite its small size, the truck is capable of some pretty heavy duty work!
Pretending to keep the truck clean after having pretended to work.
Today we’ll have a look at two tractors, and among them one more specifically.
The red tractor on the left is one I got in 2009 when it came out. It has barely got modified since then, and I added a front bucket to it very recently.
The yellow one is a brand new custom model, in fact a backhoe loader I made based on the red tractor.
As you can see, it is also equipped with tracks instead of tires, giving it more off-road capabilities on mucky grounds, allowing it to stear more easily in tricky environements and even permitting it to U-turn on the spot, which can be invaluable to do on a narrow cliff-edge mountain road. Oh, OK, the true reason why it has tracks is because I love tracked vehicles.
Here it is again with all arms deployed.
As for the chrome chimney stack and the “50” sign on the rear, they’re here more for the looks than for anything else!
The tractor is able to do real work though.
To use the rear digger, you first have to rest your front bucket flat on the ground and lower the rear outriggers to add more stabiliy to the machine.
The cab is equiped with levers instead of the stearing wheel you’d find on a classic tractor.
Operating with the cab removed is by the way a very nice thing to do in summer, adding also a very different retro look to the machine, though I’m afraid modern health and safety regulations wouldn’t allow it on a work site!
At last, here we are off-road pretending to do some real work. (The backhoe loader belongs to my personal collection and not to my construction company and probably won’t see any real construction site any time soon.)
The old lady I met and her dog and myself posing in front of the backhoe with the shell we found when moving stones around.
I hope you enjoyed the tractor and the presentation!
Finally, if you’d like to see the machine in action in a video, here it is :
