Ok, while the car that Local Motors built using 3d printing at the IMTS show was pretty impressive, this car is officially bad ass. I can say official, because President Obama and VP Biden checked it out, so it’s official. Really. The folks at Oak Ridge National Labs (“We don’t just make things glow in the dark!”) are doing a lot of investigative work about uses for new manufacturing technologies, like 3D printing. As a test case, they decided to build a replica Shelby 427 Cobra for the Detroit Auto Show, which is still the largest show in the world, I believe. Video from their site.
Another interesting use of 3D printing technology they highlight briefly here is to make large molds and forms. In this case, they use one to make a carbon fiber hood layup form, I believe, but the application could be used in a lot of different industries. Vacuum forming, for example. The mold they make would have taken weeks and cost thousands of dollars, but instead, they made it in a few hours. Very impressive.