Dad 3D prints his 11-year-old son a drivable Lamborghini Aventador
It seems you can make anything with a 3D printer these days, even an exotic sports car.11-year-old Xander Backus from Colorado, USA loved driving a Lamborghini Aventador in the Xbox game Forza so much that he asked his dad Sterling Backus to build him one.
Sterling Backus’ day job happens to be a laser physicist so he was happy to use his skills to give the challenge a go as well as watching a few YouTube tutorials to further build his knowledge base.
With a build budget of around $20,000, the project dubbed the "Interceptor" has taken the Colorado family almost two years to complete. So how do you build a $600,000 Italian super car replica with a 3D printer?
Piece by piece Sterling and his family put the car together. The steel chassis was built by hand while the body panels, which were 3D printed using plastics, carbon-fibre and covered in epoxy, were based off CAD designs they found online.
The 3D printer was just a desktop version, which they purchased off Amazon for $900 and not being a large commercial printer meant that body parts such as the front brake air intake were said to have taken 52 hours to print!
The coolest part of this whole project is the fact that this replica will be drivable with a fully functioning drive train and a LS1 V8 engine from a Corvette. With this engine as well as an array of junkyard parts from performance cars, Sterling Backus reckons his car is good to get up to 320 km/h. Now that would be impressive. Once the car is completed, they will look to get a vehicle identification number for it so the 3D Lambo can be street legal.
According to their Facebook page 3D Car Printing, the Backus family are hoping their little project will encourage families and kids alike to get involved with STEAM subjects at school so one day they might want to work in the science, technology, engineering, arts or mathematics fields.
“We are building a Lamborghini Aventador look a like we call the Interceptor as a STEAM project. The intent is to take the car to local schools to show kids how cool technology can be.”
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