3-D-Printed Lamborghini Aventador Spider
Lamborghini has never been as overly-protective of their car designs as fellow Italian maker Ferrari — witness the '80s Countach-on-a-Fiero craze. This is good for laser physicist Sterling Backus and his son Xander, who have been working day and night on building a full-scale Lamborghini Aventador Spider with bodywork made completely on a 3-D printer. Sterling used models for the Aventador he found online and edited in Dassault Systèmes' Solidworks software. From there, every piece was printed using a variety of plastics, including carbon fiber-infused materials where extra strength is needed. The car's frame and suspension are a steel spaceframe design and mimic the racing-derived principles incorporated into the actual Aventador. So far Sterling estimates he's spent about $20,000 on the project, which is a drop in the bucket compared to the $650,000 Lamborghini charges for the real thing — and that's not including the learning experience and time spent with his son.
