Over the past few years, my son’s LEGO collection has grown quite a bit, and we’re running out of space! He has a few LEGO Speed Champions cars and several other cars, and I wanted a cool way to display them instead of keeping them in pieces or stored away. After looking around for ideas, I found that some fans had built garages for their cars—but none of them were quite what I wanted.
I measured all his cars and quickly realized that some wouldn’t fit in "standard" garages. With different widths and longer wheelbases, I needed to adjust the size. Plus, none of the designs I found really looked like they were built from LEGO! So, I sketched out a plan to make a custom garage that would match the LEGO aesthetic.
One thing I noticed was that the clearance under the cars wasn’t exactly a full LEGO plate in height, so I had to design custom pieces. Since I planned to 3D print them (instead of molding them like LEGO does), I had to be pay close attention to the dimensions to make sure everything fit perfectly. Even though there are LEGO dimensions available online, I knew I had to test and adjust as I went.
To keep the design flexible, I set up a number of variables and equations to control key dimensions on the LEGO bricks. With these variables in place, I created a parametric model where changing a few values would automatically adjust the entire garage structure. This allowed me to test different sizes without having to completely redo the design.
I modeled the garage as if it were built with real LEGO bricks, keeping all the small details like studs and cylinders. However, to reduce the number of prints, I combined multiple small bricks into larger subassemblies while still keeping the aesthetic of individual LEGO elements.
Once the design was complete, I knew that I would need to test the fitment with real LEGO bricks. Even though LEGO’s standard tolerances are precise, 3D printing isn’t as exact. To compensate, I printed test pieces with small variations in peg diameters, stud heights, and connection gaps. This might sound tedious, but because I used variables in my 3D model, I could tweak a few numbers and resize everything easily! After four test prints— adjusting the design each time— I finally created pieces that fit together smoothly with both my custom parts and real LEGO bricks.
Once I was happy with the test prints, I moved on to the rest of the parts. I wanted a colorful garage, so I split the parts into four colors before printing. Each print took between 4 and 9 hours, and after a few days, I had all the pieces ready to assemble.
The great thing about this design is that I can make it taller or wider as needed. Depending on where this garage ends up, I can change the overall size to fit where we choose to put it. Right now, we only have six cars to display but this feature allows me to future-proof for any new sets that we build.
Once it was built, all the cars fit perfectly on their lifts, and my son was thrilled! Now, the only challenge is finding space to display it—especially after four new LEGO sets arrived over Christmas! But really, can you ever have too much LEGO?
