3D-printed sports car proves DIY is dead. Long live DIY.

Engineering enthusiast Kevin Kuehn has built a fully road-legal, open-top sports car using an unconventional material: 3D-printed PETG plastic. The body was assembled from 600 individually printed parts, heat-stapled together, and finished with a layer of carbon fiber. It's powered by the electric drivetrain from a Nissan Leaf, making it a functional and surprisingly viable vehicle, at least on California roads.

This project moves car hacking from the classic garage tinkerer using fibreglass and steel into the digital fabrication age. It demonstrates that large-scale, custom objects like car bodies are now accessible to hobbyists with 3D printers and custom software, potentially democratizing car design and custom builds. The real breakthrough isn't just the quirky car, but a novel and surprisingly robust manufacturing technique for large-scale, low-volume projects.