14 DAY TRIAL // Ford has 3D printed a car that will only be released next year, in 2015. Don't be too hopeful though, because it's just a 1:125 scale model of the actual thing. A toy car, for all intents and purposes.
You see, a certain event recently took place in Detroit Michigan, namely the RAPID 2014 slot race, where tiny cars raced against each other through small and narrow tracks.
Ford decided to attend and make some early publicity for its upcoming Mustang at the same time. And what better way to churn out a little car really quick than 3D printing?
In truth, Ford has been using 3D printing technology in its part prototyping for a long time. It still wants to 3D print entire vehicles though.
However, this won't happen for years, if not decades, and the scaled down version of the 2015 Mustang is a small consolation. Still a consolation though.
In fact, this year's race (sponsored by Materialize who also deals in things like 3D printed hearts) only featured 3D printed cars. It was like an ad for 3D printing technology in general, only more fun.
Maybe Mustang will step on it and prevent the world from having to wait that long for actual, fully 3D printed cars. If EDAG was able to 3D print an entire car frame for races, Mustang can do it for a consumer vehicle. On the flip side, so can everyone else in the field, so the competition isn't likely to swing either way.
