Lego Carbon Racers: Dark Grey Defender

Hello again, everyone! Meet the Dark Grey Defender, the first-of-its-kind (as far as I know) motorcycle/sidecar model. It's also probably the only Carbon Racer you're going to see oriented toward the bottom right in its "glamor shot" as opposed to the bottom left like all the rest. I would've oriented it like normal, but then the motorcycle eclipsed the sidecar.

It seems like the original Lego Racers Tiny Turbos line always had some kind of law enforcement vehicle every season, but I never saw a motorcycle of any sort. Me, I went with this vehicle type because, by the time I got to this color, I had two realizations: One, I hadn't made a police vehicle yet, and two, I didn't have the parts for a regular car.

OK, the whole motorcycle half is visible here, not to mention most of the police lights. That's the trouble with asymmetrical models; you basically rely on the 360 shots to show off the whole thing.

Speaking of which, here's the 360 gif. Does this look correct? There aren't any real-life police motorcycle/sidecar combos where I live, as far as I know, so I was kind of guessing about the design. If you have a better idea of what they resemble, you're welcome to modify this model yourself. Maybe send me pictures of your version when you're done.

I'm not completely sure why I put that cone thing there on the side of the sidecar. It just seemed like the model needed something in that spot. Maybe it's a police high-speed-pursuit cruise missile, IDK.

The way the front of the sidecar looks, I keep thinking this model is somehow British-based or something. Did British Bobbies ever use these? I really should do more research before making little Lego model cars.

Maybe the reason we never saw more--if any--motorcycle Tiny Turbos is because of all the intricate building processes needed to make them. I do have another motorcycle model in the Carbon Racers lineup (spoiler alert), and it's not much simpler.

See those two 1x1 flat plates in Step 8? For my model, I used the 2x1 flat plate that came with a police minifig; the plate had a badge printed on it and, in my opinion, it looked better than what I had to do here.

I love BrickLink's Studio program, but for reasons that are beyond me, it had the hardest time accepting this tire/wheel combination. I more or less had to brute-force it to make it work.

And so, we move from one attached segment and on to another attached segment that attaches to the already attached segment.

There's the motorcycle front handled. Nothing to see here, move along. (Get it? Police officers often say--forget it.)

After so much segment attaching, it feels good to have a few solid reinforcement pieces. Don't ask me to explain the feeling. If you're a Lego person, you know what I'm talking about.

The back of the sidecar used to look dumber. That's all I'm going to say about that.

One more segment, and that's it! Now that I think of it, a LOT of little pieces were used in this model...

That's it for the Dark Grey Defender, Carbon Racers' three-wheeled arm of the law! Tune in next time for another previously unused Tiny Turbos concept, because it's...

*inhales*

A STEAMPUNK RACER.