Firas Abu-Jaber: The Man Behind The Cars
/This is a BrickNerd exclusive interview folks! Firas Abu-Jaber has authorized the first peek at his new Toyota Supra to take place right here on BrickNerd! How cool is that?!? Although I was hoping he’d make a spaceship, this is actually a pretty nice compromise.
So start your engines because we are about to take a nerdy drive around the track.
Bart: Hey, Dude! After all these years, it’s nice to be able to get some more info about your background and motivation. You’ve got a lot of fans here at BrickNerd and all around the world.
Firas: Thanks once again for this great opportunity, I really appreciate it!
Bart:You’ve been at the LEGO car thing for quite a while now. In fact, your Mercedes-Benz Rennwagen Schnelltransporter was my first post for BrickNerd back in the spring of 2015. But your photostream goes back to ’08. Was there ever a time that you weren’t awesome at building cars? Basically looking for an origin story here. Bit by a spider? Gamma radiation?
Firas: My story of building with LEGO goes for as long as I can remember, or actually I can’t remember! I was a very young kid when my parents got me my first LEGO set, probably I was two years old—of course that set was Duplo. My parents used to travel a lot at the time, so I was getting lots of LEGO sets from duty-free markets at the airports!
I remember I used to build trains from Duplo by attaching lots of Duplo cars with each other with some random bricks on top. Things changed when I became around six years old though, that’s when I got my first real System set...
It wasn’t a car or any kind of vehicle that runs on wheels—in fact, it was space set from the very famous line then, the M-Tron series. Since then, I became a very huge LEGO Space fan, almost all my sets from that era were space sets, mostly from the M-Tron and Space Police. So yes, I was originally a space fan!
Bart: I knew it!!! I knew there’d be something about spaceships! Okay, I’ll be quiet…
Firas: Things changed again when I got a bit older, that’s when LEGO decided to release some cool new Model Team sets (5590 in particular). I instantly became a huge LEGO car fan, not to mention the love of cars that I already have from my childhood, so the love of LEGO met the love of cars back then.
In that period, I still was building official LEGO sets using the given instructions—that continued for several years, until I decided to build my own car from what pieces I already had. I remember my first car was a black Lincoln Town Car. It wasn’t anything special, but it meant the world to me at the time!
In later years, my interest in LEGO in general has decreased, until I stopped playing with LEGO altogether. That was probably around the age of 16 when I entered my Dark Age regarding building with LEGO. Regardless, something deep inside me knew that I’d return to those lovely bricks someday.
I wasn’t wrong—around 10 years later I discovered a whole new great community of LEGO fans through finding MocPages, a great LEGO fan website that made me want to build again and show the world my creations. Around a year later, I found Flickr, which actually doubled the fun since I found even greater builds and builders with high-quality images.
Actually, the support and encouragement from the LEGO community through the years made me want to build even more and show the world my designs.
In the beginning, LEGO was just pure fun to me and there were no intentions to make money out of it. This continued for quite a long time, but then I changed my mind especially with all the requests I got from people about selling instructions for my designs.
Bart: I know you do commission work and sometimes build a copy to keep for yourself. Does that occupy a lot of your LEGO time? Is it a career? Do you still build just for fun? Do you keep a list of cars you want to build, or do you see an episode of Top Gear and say, “I’m gonna build that!”?
Firas: Yes I did some commission builds in the past, and I still do from time to time. But now I mainly build my own models inspired by the cars I love in real life and make instructions and offer them for sale on my website and Rebrickable. It was a hobby at the beginning with a nice extra income, but it actually became more important to me because of the huge changes that happened to the world due to the Coronavirus. Our main work has been affected drastically so the income I get from selling my instructions has become a bit more important, to be honest.
And yes, I still build for fun. There are still some of my models that I don’t share publicly and keep for myself and for the LEGO shows I attend. But I might change my mind in the future and share some of them.
Bart: You were featured in the book The Art of LEGO Scale Modeling. Any plans to do your own book? Any other special projects or displays in the works?
Firas: Being featured in “The Art of LEGO Scale Modeling” is a great honor—being featured with all those great builders and designs in that book is something exceptional. Unfortunately, there are no plans to produce anything similar, at least in the near future.
Bart: I know I’ve joked with you about this in the past, but there are those of us in the LEGO community who, in spite of how awe-inspiring your builds are—not to mention the level of photography, that maybe your talents could be used to build spaceships? Maybe a spaceship-car? Just for fun? I’ve got access to BrickNerd swag... You name it!
Firas: Spaceships are really tempting—I’m sure it would be fun building them, but to be honest I prefer to look at spaceship MOCs from other great builders! Believe it or not, I’m not any good at building anything with LEGO other than cars and other vehicles on wheels. But never say never—I might change my thoughts and build some in the future! Let’s see what the coming days hide.
Bart: Well, I suppose KITT is kinda like a spaceship. He can fly, so that counts for something…
Firas: Finally, I’d like to say that I still love and enjoy every moment of my LEGO time and with my LEGO friends in this lovely community. I’m a part of many different groups on social media, and I can tell you with confidence that the LEGO community is the best of them all. It seems like building with LEGO gives people great times and peace of mind that reflects on their social life. I’ll hopefully never stop playing with LEGO.
I’d like to thank you for this great opportunity for being featured on this great site, not to mention all the great support that this and all the other LEGO blogs have given to us LEGO builders!
Bart: Thank YOU, Firas, for taking the time to answer my questions and giving us the opportunity to show off your new build! And let’s see one more shot:
So there you have it, gang! How’s that for in-depth, exclusive content? Let us know what you think in the comments section below!
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