One of the most fun things to do after buying a car that you love is seeing if you can find a tiny version of it that you can put on your desk or dresser. It’s especially awesome if you can find a diecast or resin version of your favorite car that’s the exact spec and color that you have. But what if you own a car that’s so obscure that nobody has made a model of it? As it turns out, there are skilled creators out there who can more or less create a scale model of pretty much any car on the planet from scratch.
I’ve fallen deeply in love with my little 1997 Honda Life T-Type. Admittedly, I am a bit surprised by this. A Honda Life was never a dream car. I drove one at an Autopian reader meetup and liked it enough that I thought I’d import my own to play around with for a while and then maybe sell later. Instead, my little car has gone into my secret mini warehouse of my favorite cars. I’ve polished my little car’s paint, fixed its bad bearings, and given it brand-new tires!
Not long after importing the little guy, I found myself wanting to get a scale model of the car. I thought it would be so cool to have a tiny version of my tiny car to take to car shows and to display in my Hot Wheels dioramas. I figured that finding a Honda Life model in the United States would have been hard, but surely, there had to be some in Japan. I mean, the Honda Life was a popular model!
I searched the Japanese web pretty extensively and came up largely empty-handed. I found models for later generations of the Honda Life, but none for my second-generation car, which was sold from 1997 through the middle of 1998. Maybe I’m just looking for a model car that doesn’t exist anymore because it’s so old. Or, maybe, even though I set my browser location to Japan and my language to Japanese, I still just couldn’t find the model? Perhaps a model just doesn’t exist for the 1997 Honda Life since it was such a short-lived model.
The closest thing I was able to find was a plastic kit body to mount onto a 4×4 RC car. I had no interest in building and painting a kit, and I had even less interest in finding a chassis to mount it to.
So, what do you do? I searched everywhere for a Hot Wheels or Matchbox version of the Honda Life, but came up empty. Then, I searched the web for “custom Hot Wheels car.” At first, I got excited because there are lots of people online who are more than willing to make you a custom Hot Wheels. The catch is that the car has to already exist in diecast form. So, scratch that.
That’s when I found something interesting. On creator sites like Etsy, there are folks who make a 3D model of your car, and then print it out on a 3D printer. There appear to be four different ways to do this. One creator, 2ScaleReplicas seems to print out cars, and then “paints” them using the photos that you have provided.
These cars are “photorealistic,” so to speak, which I love. What I don’t love is the fact that all of these models have a sort of ghostly appearance to them, which appears to be an artifact of the printing process. I was willing to accept this, but at the time, the creator charged $275 for the smallest model. The pricing has since gone down, but at the time, I thought the price was a little more than I wanted to pay.
The second type of 3D printed model car that I’ve found, by creator vntj3D, involved printing out the car, painting it by hand, and then covering it in clear resin.
I liked the look of this a lot more than the method I noted above. But then, I noticed that the creator of these models didn’t separate the wheels from the rest of the model when coating it in resin. This is fine! I’m not complaining, but it’s not my style.
A third type that I’ve found, by MakingYourMinis involves a creator 3D printing a car or making a car out of resin. These models look to be pretty high quality and even have clear windows, which I love so much.
But the proportions of these cars are slightly exaggerated. Again, I’m not trying to bash the creator here. I mean, Hot Wheels cars are like that, too! But I was looking for something more exact.
Then I found one more creator, Manuel C, who lives in Italy and goes by Manu3DDD. He 3D prints cars like the other creators do, but I noticed that his models have separate wheels and separate tires. He then hand-paints each car.
Sure, this means that your car won’t be as perfect as one made by a model company in a factory, but it does mean that your model car has a one-of-a-kind, handmade look, which I adore.
I sat on this idea for a while, debating with myself over which one to get. Each method had its pluses and minuses, and none of them had the result of giving me a model car as if I might have purchased one from AutoArt, Minichamps, Norev, or similar. Ultimately, I went with Manuel, and I’m happy that I did.
How Manuel makes his cars is pretty neat. I sent him photos of every angle of my Honda Life. He then recreated the car in 3D software and printed it out.
What’s interesting is that he didn’t just print the car out in a single shot. A lot of the parts were printed separately, including axles, wheels, tires, windows, the grille, and the roof rack. Manuel then assembled the car and painted it by hand. The whole process took a couple of weeks from start to finish. Then, it was shipped from Italy to my home here in Illinois. Everything went smoothly until it arrived at my local post office. Then, the package got lost for a week or two before a postal carrier found it. Whew.
My little car is what I’d best describe as uniquely cute. Can you see that it is 3D printed? Sure. You can also clearly see that it was painted by hand. Some of the separate parts also weren’t glued in place perfectly straight. But in a weird way, I adore that. This car has a hand-made look because, despite having initially been 3D printed, it really is hand-made!
I love the little details, too, like the 3D headlights and the fact that Manuel even managed to stick a very tiny Honda badge on the hood. The mirrors are silver, and the roof rack looks great. Also cool to me is how the tires have tread marks and how the wheels and tires were printed as separate units.
Flip the car over, and the interesting details continue. The car has a cute exhaust pipe, and Manuel printed out his business name, Manu3DDD, on the underbody. I got this whole 1/32 scale car for $220, which included shipping and import duties. Yeah, that’s a lot of money, and honestly, the most I’ve ever spent on a single model car, but I’m happy.
What I’m most stoked about is just the fact that, thanks to the awesome technology of 3D printing, almost anything is possible. Now, there’s no need to be disappointed when you cannot find a model of your car – you can just have one printed! I’m sure I haven’t even broken through the surface of custom-made model cars yet. If you know of another way to get a completely custom model car made, I want to know! I have more cars and motorcycles I’d love to get models made for.
I would have never made it past feeling like this was a scam.
Printing the parts separate (like the windows) is kind of brilliant, since it cuts down on the painting efforts. I still can’t believe they can do all this work for the price you paid.
Getting a version of your personal car digitally modeled, 3D printed and hand painted for $300 is a steal. I own a company that creates custom work for the film industry using the same sort of processes, and what he’d doing can be very time consuming and labour intensive. Seems like a VERY reasonable price for what he’d delivering.
My problem is that no one modeled a “stock” version of my car (1983 Thunderbird). There were several NASCAR models produced. And the 1988 Turbo Coupe got a kit. I ended up having to modify an early 4-eye NASCAR body to mate with the Turbo Coupe interior and chassis. Close, but not perfect.
I swear Monogram had such a kit decades ago.
The NASCAR version, yes. The only factory stock fox-body Thunderbird kit I know of is the Monogram 87-88 Turbo Coupe.
I had a similar problem when I had a ’94. For some reason all of the big die-cast models and things were all the 96/97 facelift and anything from ’94 was NASCAR.
Remaking a car in Blender is really really time consuming unless you’re some kind of 3D modelling guru master 🙁 Tried to remake my car for BeamNG and it took me almost two months just to get the 3D model right, so honestly $300 isn’t that ridiculous? Still more than I’d be willing to pay for something like this though.
I’d probably try scanning my car with my phone, clean up the model for printing in Blender then paint on the details. It would probably resemble something made by pre-schoolers though!
Love it. I don’t think I’ve owned any cars obscure enough to be worthy of this treatment, but that doesn’t diminish the coolness of it.
This instantly reminded me of the couple of guys I keep seeing on Facebook doing miniature replicas of famous drummers’ setups. The level of detail is insane.
Carrera and Scalectrix have some fairly unusual slot cars that are more expensive than a Hot Wheels but cheaper than having someone make one from scratch. Scalectrix especially seems to do some rarer stuff, like Gremlins.
Cuuuute! 😀
For those of us with really obscure or low production cars in our collection, finding a model is almost impossible. These artists with their 3D printers are the only way to get a model. Not pushing or plugging, but this Manuel C guy does a great job, adding separate wheels and such. The $300 or so price tag is a bit steep, it’s that or nothing.
Prices seem to have jumped. His etsy site now starts at over $300 for these!
I have about 75 1:64-scale (Matchbox/Hot Wheels size) cars that I’ve designed and had 3D printed, mostly through Shapeways. Back when Shapeways had a marketplace, I offered many of them for sale. They were printed as kits, with all the pieces on sprues, so you’d get a separate body, base, interior, wheels, tires, etc., all printed as one piece. They required painting, and early ones required cutting axles and a little glue (later models were designed to be assembled 100% by snapping the pieces together, no additional materials or adhesives required), but I thought they weren’t a bad value for something you couldn’t get anywhere else at about $30-35 a pop. A few had opening parts; designing the clamshell hood for a Saab 900 was fun, and I beat Matchbox to market with a Corvair Rampside pickup by about three years.
Sales were dismal. Shapeways doesn’t pay you until you’ve earned at least $30, and in over two years I think I got paid twice. Granted, my markup on each model was usually under $2.
I can believe that people would be more interested in commissioning their exact car than in choosing from a set list of available models, but that’s a lot of work on the creator’s end for something that likely won’t have any economies of scale, because you won’t be able to sell the same thing twice. I haven’t printed anything since Shapeways shut down last year, but I have a couple models more or less ready. But at this point, I’m just making them for me.
oh hey, it’s you!! i love your work and always enjoy seeing your development process, you’ve inspired me to try doing custom scale model cars myself!! i’ve got nothing to show for it yet, but i hope to eventually. i love when you post pics of your collection of tiny cars that you personally made!!
As an owner of many little cars (and 3-4 real ones depending on the year), $220 isn’t bad for that level of handmade detail. We have a large die-cast collector show twice a year in Dayton OH that takes me a few hours to make my way through even if I skip all the generic current Hot Wheels. I look for imports, obscure rally cars and the like.
Try buying a Red Line Hot wheel these days.
That is a lot of money. I seems like decent value, but I’m not obsessive enough to spend that much on the two Hotwheels sized cars I need to finish my display of all the cars I’ve owned.
I can sort of live with the AX GT being represented by a non-GT in a smaller scale, but the lack of a 2006-on Europa is galling. I’ve got a 1:43 model instead which looks huge.
Before I realized that my ’64 F100 crewcab was coach-built, I spent way too much time perusing shops with model cars looking for one of my truck. I don’t think I ever even found one of that generation of F100s either. Just not popular enough I guess.
haha yeah you’re definitely going to have to get something custom made to find your big blue beauty!
This is awesome and I love it 😀
To all wannabee scale model makers: Beware getting a cease and desist from a car maker. All car manufacturers license the use of their cars to model makers. You can get a way with it if you only do a few here and there, but once you start advertising them on a website expect to get a letter from a lawyer.
What is the process for getting a license to manufacture scale models?
You negotiate directly with the manufacturer. They set the price, or refuse if they think what you’re doing would negatively affect their brand.
I used know a guy who knew the head of licensing at an OEM. You know it’s not going to be cheap when they run a full time department for it.
I don’t think any car manufacturer would go after one of these artists for essentially creating one-offs. They’re certainly not mass producing. Additionally, if they left the painting (car emblems off) to the buyer, it would be more difficult to prove a relationship with an actual vehicle produced…generic model.
Very cool! And $220 isn’t horrible for the amount of work involved to custom make a model like that.
I have 1/18th scale diecast models of a couple of my cars – my Spitfire and my BMW wagon. And one of a car I used to have, my Peugeot 504. The wagon model was a gift from my friend who went with me to pick the car up at BMW Welt in Munich, from the gift shop – they have a large selection of diecast models. I had looked at it, drooled over it, and decided 250 Euro was WAAAY out of my budget, so it was a heck of a nice surprise when he gave it to me when we got in the car. It’s even green, though it’s the older “Pre LCI” version. But close enough, and looks really cool in my display case with my other favorite 1/18th scale models.
The Spitfire model is a pretty close match – right color (red on black), just lacks the aftermarket wheels my car has. Won’t be as close a match if I ever get my new interior installed though – going to be biscuit inside at that point, LOL.
The detail afforded by a 1/18 model would be great. I can’t imagine the price tag looking at what they charge for slightly enlarged Hot Wheels sized models.
I have a 1/18 scale of my ’71 mk4 Spit (BRG) on my desk at work. The detail is so good that the things that have broken off on the original (side mirrors, aerial, headlight lenses) have also broken off on the model! Although the model does have a wood dash vs the black plastic it is supposed to have.
ROFL – probably the same model as my red one.
I wish my car was BRG. I actually hate red, but beggars can’t be choosers when buying an old sports car with no money. I have owned the little bugger for nearly 30 years now. More-or-less a ’74, but a real mongrel. ’69 dual-carb motor, ’79-80 cooling system, ’77 O/D transmission, and mostly ’77 interior trim. Works very well, though, quick for a Spit. The guy I bought it from built it to autocross, taking the best bits from the range.
I don’t hate the red, but I agree that it’s not the best color for the later body style – fitting more on a round tail spit IMO. Sounds like you have the best mix of mechanical components for practical driving! I’m hoping to work in some upgrades into my 71 over the winter, sadly my engine is a 1300 big bearing so not as good as your ’69 but she’s due for a rebuild so maybe I can squeeze a little more juice out.
I really got lucky with this car. Cost me $3500 in 1996, complete other than a ratty interior. The one bad thing that happened was when the PO mated the ’69 engine with the ’77 transmission, he used the wrong flywheel. You need a ’74 flywheel, or you need to do some machining of custom bolts. The holes are too big, so the only thing holding the flywheel in the right place was the index pin. Which eventually sheered off. At that point, the flywheel started moving on the crank, causing vibrations that caused the crank to break right behind the pulley. Luckily, my parts car was a ’74 with the right flywheel, but it cost me nearly what the car did to have the engine rebuilt with a new crank. But I got some go-faster bits and the thrust washers shimmed, and a few other nice things done. That was back in 2002! I think on a good day it’s good for 75hp or so. I really need a 4-2-1 header to make the most of the setup, and then I really need HS4 carbs instead of the HS2s – slippery slope! But runs great, and other than the broken crank has been VERY reliable over the years.
I redid the interior around the turn of the century. It needs doing again, and this time I am replacing EVERYTHING and changing the color from black to biscuit. I even bought gen-u-whine leather seat covers this time from a supplier in England. But that was two years ago, and the “round tuit” to actually DO anything with the big pile of interior bits hasn’t happened yet. And this summer, I am only spending a couple of weeks in Maine due to my new house build in FL.
A couple of pics:
https://flic.kr/p/23QrVky
https://flic.kr/p/23QrVDj
Nice, thanks for sharing! Looks sharp.
Before shapeways stopped having a marketplace there’s a creator called Jahn3D from Germany that has created literally hundreds of mundane US car models, I got a few from shapeways in matchbox scale, I need to paint them but way cheaper, Jahn still prints them himself too, has a website, probably a little costlier now.
I like the separate wheels too and such too, nice detail.
So I need a Pontiac Sunbird model…
The 2ScaleReplicas method seems particularly ideal for printing game models. Imagine having one of the more obscure Gran Turismo 4 cars or something from Burnout or Ridge Racer on your desk.
This is amazing!
I wonder just how many pictures Manuel needs to make this. I sold my old 84 Ford LTD LX and my USDM Galant VR4 years ago but have always wanted models of them (could not find any for the LTD and the VR4 ones are all JDM spec). I have TONS of pictures of both from various stages of modification, and I would really want to capture the mods I did as these did not look stock (drag racing wheels/tires, lowered, big intercoolers, side exit exhaust etc).
I also wonder if there is a bulk discount 🙂
ZEE Toys made a 1/64th ish Fox-body LTD police car that could be used but it’s a pretty poor casting. There are a few on ebay.
Good catch, the police variant was very similar to the LX, if the desire ever hits me hard enough I will probably go that route just to have it. Thanks!
That is very nice Mercedes and Manuel’s craftsmanship looks great.
This takes me back to when I was dating my wife and asked our oldest daughter what she wanted for Christmas. Her response was “a Porsche”. I scoured every store in the area until I found a Hot Wheels 911 and put it in a little box wrapped inside a bigger box. When she opened it she grinned and said that yes I did get her what she asked for. That car sits in her dresser in her house now all these years later.
Excellent work! I’m impressed. Looks great.
That’s awesome, great job Manuel!
Of the options, it feels like Manu “gets” it – it looks like a diecast model car even down to the flat plastic bottom side.
That is really cool