This American dad builds a 3D-printed Lamborghini Aventador SV.
Colorado’s Sterling Backus began the project five years ago with his son and has worked on it non-stop since then.
Backus said he started the Aventador build from the ground up, with “no frame, no engine, nothing”.
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YouTube was his main source of information.
“We didn’t even have a 3D printer so we bought one off Amazon, a small CR-10S,” he said.
The father-son team set out on a grand mission using just one 3D printer.
“We had our CR-10S going for a year and a quarter almost non-stop,” Backus told ‘3D Printing Nerd’ Joel Telling.
Backus, who said that the printer was only designed to print smaller projects, had to piece together the Lamborghini, as seen in the picture above.
“We would make small pieces, about a foot cubed, and then take all of the pieces and join them together in a single panel,” he said.
“But we didn’t want to just use 3D prints because we live in Colorado and it gets hot here, so having it exposed in the sun is not good or structurally sound.”
Backus has encapsulated the carbon fiber parts to give them extra strength.
Backus designed a steel frame to be placed under the 3D printed body panels.
Backus stated that the most difficult part of the build was the scissor door.
Backus made them look great, but they are also fully functional.
Part-way through his build, Lamborghini itself actually got wind of Backus’s incredible build.
When they saw how much progress he’d made, they wanted to donate some actual Lamborghini Aventador parts.
“These are headlights from a real Aventador and normally they go for about $5,000 a piece,” he said.
“I couldn’t afford them, but Lamborghini loved the project so much that they donated these and they look great.”
Lamborghini has also donated an Aventador steering-wheel.
Backus stated that this was the only part of a car that would feature a Lamborghini logo, as he wanted to show respect for the brand.
Backus removed the engine of a Corvette 2005 he found in a scrapyard and then began to rebuild it.
The Colorado father says his next step will be to “go through the panels one at a time and sand them ready for paint”.
Then, he said that he would adjust the electrical and mechanical parts of the vehicle.
Once that’s all done, Backus said he planned to show the car at the Bandimere Speedway show in August.