Steve Cropley: Don't block this Lego Bentley-makers dream

You can vote to help make Croot’s Bentley an official Lego design

18-year-old Lego enthusiast Ben Croot needs just 5,500 more votes to make his Lego Blower Bentley an official kit - give yours now

In this week's automotive adventures, Steve pulled out a pitcher of popcorn as he experienced an unusual drive-through film, caught up with a beaming Gordon Murray and explains why an amateur's Lego car design is getting his vote to become an official Lego product - and why it deserves yours, too.

*Monday*

A drive-in movie in daylight? This wasn’t what I and a dozen other hacks expected when we pitched up at a swanky lakeside venue near Heathrow for the UK launch of the beguiling baby Honda E, “the start of Honda’s electrification journey”. Instead of setting up some kind of socially distanced lecture hall for the tech presentation, Honda’s people sat us individually in the cars we would be driving, in front of a huge daylight screen, and showed us various well-edited presentations. The highlight for me was being in a car with a fascia packed with new tech while a clever bloke on screen explained it item by item. As a result, any impression of complexity was entirely absent, even in my slow-to-get-it bonce. This idea must persist post-pandemic.

I loved the car, whose four-star rating for once showed up the limitations of road testing. You couldn’t give the E a full five because of the price (£30k for the one you would want) and its short range. But I loved the styling and interior design and especially the ride and handling. Here was a nimble little car that rode with true suppleness and refused to crash into even the most inviting bitumen crater. Practicalities aside, I would just love one. Five stars for desirability.

*Tuesday*

Meanwhile, I’ve traded my Vauxhall Corsa 1.2 petrol eight-speed auto (one of the best small internal-combustion-engine powertrains going) for an electric Corsa-e, which performs at least as well and promises a 209-mile range. We put this to a stern test by driving a return trip from home in Gloucestershire to my London roost (97.9 miles each way). The car reached The Smoke promising an easy 120 miles by return but just squeaked home. No, it isn’t uphill all the way: the difference was a westerly tailwind outwards and a consequent headwind on return. As my flying club’s chief instructor always boringly repeats, weather in this country comes from the west. Amazing that it should make 20 miles’ worth of EV range difference, though.

*Wednesday*

You always know when Gordon Murray is happy. Even when you can’t see him, you can hear it in his voice. I couldn’t visit his Guildford emporium to hear about the new 3.9-litre normally aspirated V12 for his forthcoming ultra-lightweight T50 supercar, but Google Meet did a pretty good job, with Murray in upbeat form as explainer-in-chief.

No wonder: the engine absolutely bristles with features that make it the world’s most advanced V12 (the compactness and lightness, the amazingly low centre of centre of gravity), but what I liked best was learning that it can blip three times faster than the magnificently responsive BMW-derived bent 12 of the McLaren F1. I can hardly wait to try one, although competition from proper, card-carrying road testers will be intense.

*Thursday*

Uplifting chat today with 18-year-old Lego enthusiast Ben Croot, who has designed and created this magnificent Blower Bentley (above) from a random pile of bricks and is bidding to have it adopted as an official Lego design. The car, 40cm long, represents eight months’ painstaking research, trial and error. The baby Blower has so far attained 4500 of the 10,000 votes it needs via Lego’s Ideas website to get official backing – but there’s a time limit.

Ben, who has just left school and plans a career in architecture, has around four months to gather the votes he needs, and after an enthusiastic conversation, I can tell you that he definitely has mine. Want to help? Register at Lego’s website (it’s a faff, but please persist) and vote for Ben’s Bentley. You can find it at bit.ly/2WNq1XA. At the very least, you’ll be doing this keen kit buyer a favour.

*And another thing...*

Reader Stephen Wrench writes with good news that Brighton & Hove City Council, which has banned cars from its seafront Madeira Drive (a traditional motoring destination) for now, will still allow the place to be used for future events. “We fully support those events returning stronger than ever,” says a welcome council statement.

*READ MORE*

*Steve Cropley: Big praise for a small engine *

*Steve Cropley: The future of car launches is local - hopefully *

*Steve Cropley: turbulent times can still create excitement*