Celebrating 50 years of Turbo with LEGO® and Porsche
To mark half a century of Porsche Turbo technology, Swedish artist Martin Palm has teamed up with LEGO® and Porsche for a special art project
In 1974, Porsche broke new ground by putting a turbocharged engine into the 911 for the first time. In one of a series of projects to mark its 50th anniversary, Porsche has teamed up with LEGO® and artist Martin Palm in a memorable collaboration
When Porsche first put a turbocharged engine in the 911 back in 1974, it wasn’t just an upgrade – it changed everything for the sportscar sector. The 3.0-litre Turbo engine fitted in the 911 (type 930) boasted a huge increase in power to anything the 911 had seen before as well as loads more torque. It all contributed to a visceral driving experience that left journalists and car enthusiasts of the day in awe. It means that 2024 is a landmark year for the Porsche Turbo engine. Porsche is celebrating the 50th anniversary of Turbo engines in its roadcars with a range of exciting events. One of them sees Porsche team up with Swedish artist Martin Palm and LEGO® to build a 911 Turbo made out of LEGO® bricks and set it in a scaled-down replica section of the Black Forest, the famous mountain range that’s situated a short drive from Stuttgart. Here, Martin explains how he teamed up with LEGO® and Porsche to create this playful and bold tribute to the mighty Turbo.A childhood spent in the flat landscapes of southern Sweden meant that artist Martin Palm developed a fascination for mountains when he was growing up. Today they are a feature of his work building miniature dioramas Photo: PorscheHow did you get into making miniature landscapes, Martin?“I actually come from a commercial background, and I’ve been doing product campaigns and environmental mood photography for years. But I’ve always been interested in social media and marketing my work, as well as car photography. “During the pandemic I started thinking about how I could capture and photograph cars in a different way. What inspired me to build these dioramas was the fact that social media is all about ‘fake it until you make it’, as well as surprising and impressing people – or just engaging them in a different way. I wanted my work to make people think that what they were looking at was a real car.”The 1,458-piece LEGO 911 Turbo model pack used in the project allows you to choose between building a 911 Turbo or a 911 Targa Turbo Photo: PorscheHow do you come up with the landscapes for your art?“It’s mostly my imagination. The landscape just pops into my mind, and they’re usually surreal. So I start working and then find a toy car that fits the scene. “I live in the south of Sweden where we have a very flat landscape, so naturally I love mountain views because I don’t see them very often. I enjoy working with mountains and nature, and I think that’s why I use this kind of landscape so much.”With his unique attention to detail, Martin’s model-making skills brings miniature scenes to life in a way that are captivating and thought-provoking Photo: PorscheWhat was the idea behind the LEGO® Porsche Turbo collaboration?“When Porsche contacted me, I was ecstatic. For me, it’s a brand that you associate with mountains, so I started sketching that kind of landscape. We tossed around a lot of ideas – we even briefly considered adding some famous architectural landmarks. Of course, the idea was always to use a German landmark or landscape, because that’s where Porsche is based. In the end, we decided to recreate the Black Forest near Stuttgart, where Porsche cars are, of course, built. “At first, I was nervous about creating a forest because the LEGO® car is quite big, so the landscape had to be big too – and I didn’t have much experience with that. I used balsa wood for the tree trunks, which is a very soft material that’s easy to shape with a knife. Then I used my laser cutter to make the base of the foliage into a star shape, so that I could add cotton balls to each protrusion, which then became the foliage. Finally, I added some plywood and diorama powder to give the landscape a textured feel, polished it up with hair spray, and now you get to see the final result."Whimsical landscapes are Martin’s speciality. For the LEGO Porsche project he set the model 911 Turbo in the Black Forest near Stuttgart, the home of Porsche Photo: Porsche“The model landscape I created for LEGO® and Porsche was about three metres by one metre and took about three weeks to make. I was actually building three models at the same time, so I was multitasking on three environments. I also had two LEGO® 911 Turbo cars – one for the behind-the-scenes timelapse and one for the final photos.”How did it feel to work on this 50 Years of Turbo project with Porsche and LEGO®? “I used to build LEGO® when I was a kid, and these models have been a big part of my life ever since. I’ve always been creative with my builds and have never followed instructions much, preferring to invent my own versions of the models. It’s funny how that has turned into a full-time job.”
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