Ever Wondered If You Could 3D-Print A Car? One Man’s Doing It
- Scott Woodard is 3D-printing a Jaguar D-Type body for a Mazda MX-5 chassis.
- The body panels are made with a Neptune 4 plus printer using ABS plastic.
- He plans to share a method to strengthen 3D-printed panels for the car community.
Genuine Jaguar D-Type examples are the kind of cars that make auction house prices look like the price tag on a luxury yacht – seven figures, no big deal. But what if you want one, but your wallet isn’t quite as flush as you’d like?
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Well, apparently, you just 3D-print one, provided you’ve got the chassis to slap it onto. That’s what one genius body swap enthusiast is doing, one 3D-printed panel at a time.
More: This Guy 3D-Printed His Own Tesla Cybertruck Scale Model And You Can Too
Scott Woodard loves building cars so much so that he couldn’t hold back from showing others what he’s working on. In a Facebook group dedicated to body swaps, he posted about his new 3D-printed Jaguar D-Type replica. That’s right, all of the body panels you see here started out as a spool of ABS plastic.
Talk about an affordable way to build a car (minus the whole “having to actually build it” part, of course).
For the 3D printing, Woodard uses a Neptune 4 Plus printer, which has a build space of 320x320x385 mm³ (12.59×12.59×15.15 inches). Each panel is barely over one square foot in size.
What’s the hardest part of the build so far? According to Woodard, “Everything has been a challenge. This is about the third thing I have 3D printed, and I’ve only had my printer for a couple of months prior to deciding to start this project. Hours of research and brainstorming are the only things that gave me the confidence to take on something so foreign.”
For Woodard, this is sort of old hat to a degree. He recently finished and then sold a completely bespoke Karmann Ghia. What most wouldn’t know from looking at it is that the chassis and drivetrain were from a modern Mercedes-Benz SLK.
How does body swapping one car onto another car’s chassis differ from what he’s doing now with the 3D-printed Jag? Woodard says that “In a way, they are similar because you end up needing to cut and move stuff the same way I did on the steel Ghia shell. The advantage is that I knew most of my clearance problems before starting this project.”
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Here’s the coolest bit for the rest of the car community here.
The work isn’t going to stay within Woodard’s mind alone. “I’m really excited because I think I have come up with a new method to increase the strength of ABS and ASA prints that will probably help a lot of people with their projects, such as spoilers, body kits, and hardtops. I am making a video for it that I will post on YouTube,” he tells us.
Get ready for a new era of car building. The future is coming fast.
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