Day 46/84: Like yesterday's Peugeot, today's Mercedes 300CE is a duplicate of an earlier car, printed to test the quality of an updated version designed to be sold in my Shapeways shop. I don't usually paint cars black, but in this case I think it works well with the two-tone, and helps make the red interior really pop. I'm still delighted by the headlamp wipers, too. #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 47/84: My gazillionth Saab, but only the second one designed completely from scratch—not too far off from the story of the real Saab 9000, which was the company's third clean-sheet car. Matchbox did a nice first-generation 9000 Turbo in the ’80s, so this is the second-gen Aero version. #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 48/84: Besides being a quirky choice, this ’78 Volvo 262C Bertone is a landmark in my design history: the first of my cars designed to snap together, requiring no additional materials or adhesives to assemble. No more cutting axles—the wheels snap onto spindles on the base. And no more screws attaching body and base together. All of my subsequent cars have been designed this way, and a few earlier ones retrofitted to these methods. #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 49/50: probably the most outlandish proportions of any car I've modeled, but the sharp Giugiaro lines also made this Maserati Quattroporte a fairly straightforward affair. #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 50/84: For my 50th car, I had to do something very special, and I still consider this one of my finest. It is also the largest car I have made to date. This is a replica of the 1960 Bentley S2 LWB that my grandparents owned for many years. The two-piece whitewall tires were a neat touch, I thought—one that I haven't used again since. #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 51/84: I love that Mercedes kept the hardtop bodystyle alive for decades after everyone else gave up on it. This C123 300CD was designed with the bumpers as separate pieces—not because I ever expect to make a small-bumper version, just to make them easier to paint! #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 52/84: This one's probably best described as a prototype, as there were design flaws that required pretty major reworking, but I was able to assemble this Saab 96 anyway, and it's a real cutie. A reworked version will show up again in a few days. #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 53/84: My Saab 900/99 repertoire continues to grow...this time I backdated to a 99 two-door sedan, which is essentially new (or old, depending on how you look at it) from the B-pillar back compared to the three-door version I showed back on day 34. #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 54/84: An opening hatch is the big party trick for this Saab 9-3, but I also designed it so that the same body could be used to make a 1993-98 900, or mix and match bases, hatches, and bodies to do three-door versions as well. For now, however, this is the only version I've had printed. #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 55/84: A couple days ago we saw the first iteration of this Saab 96; this one was revised to make the rear fenders integral to the body rather than the base, as on the first version, which made assembly more or less impossible. This one went together no problem, and by keeping the body forward of the firewall as part of the base piece, I still have the option to someday do a version with the post-1965 nose as well. #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 56/84: this Saab 9000 Aero is familiar, externally identical to the blue one I showed on day 47. But while that blue version was the last car I designed before switching to snap-fit assembly, this red one is the first pre-existing design I adapted to the new method. Not as simple as it sounds; nearly every piece had to be altered, even the wheels and tires, which need a deeper hub to fit securely onto the spindle axles. #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 57/84: Way back on day 23 I showed a blue E39 wagon and mentioned that it was the only one of my cars I'd significantly modified after its initial build. That wagon donated its original wheels and interior (repainted beige) to this one, which became a replica of my first E39 wagon, a 2001 525iT, which I bought 17 (!) years ago. #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 58/84: This one's an anomaly in my repertoire: a modified car. This pre-facelift E39 wears M-Technic bumpers, just like one of my old full-size ones did, even though this look was only available Stateside in the final, 2003 model year. Other than the bumpers, it's a standard Sport-package 2000 540iT. #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 59/84: For this 1990 Ford Probe GT, I attempted a set of switch-operated pop-up headlights, which sadly didn't quite work, and designing for them led to the nose maybe being a little too squared off. But, if you look closely, you can see the big "GT" embossed in the rear bumper, so it's got that going for it. #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 60/84: Folks in other parts of the world will know it as the Piazza, but the bottom of this one says Isuzu Impulse. Somewhere under that Giugiaro bodywork is a GM T platform, meaning common ancestry with the Chevrolet Chevette (Vauxhall Chevette, too, for that matter). #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 61/84: This Nissan Pulsar NX was not only my first car with interchangeable body parts, it was also my first T-top. How's that for rad! Painting it red was a bit of a cheat, because there was no way I was going to be able to separately paint the awesome diagonal stripe taillights. #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 62/84: It's always been a little shocking to me that the DiamondStar triplets were overlooked in 1:64-scale in their early ’90s heyday. I went with probably the most obscure of the three; since I made my Plymouth Laser RS Turbo, Auto World has come out with a very nice Eclipse, so now we just need an Eagle! #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 63/84: The next few days will be about experimenting with color printing, with the most colorful car out there: a Volkswagen Harlequin Edition! This first one was my proof of concept, with a few rough edges I needed to work out—note the blotchy black trim, and I had to paint over the head and taillights. Note also that there are four different wheel designs! The body is composed of seven separate pieces that slide and snap together like a puzzle. #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 64/84: Today's Golf Harlequin looks a lot like yesterday's—it has the same color scheme, with a red unibody, but if you look closely, you'll note that it has a full set of Golf GL hubcaps. You may also note that I corrected the color problems with yesterday's prototype; everything you see here is designed-in and printed, which allows for a pretty impressive level of detail. #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 65/84: Today's Harlequin wears a Pistachio base, and a set of VW "Flying" alloy wheels. I noted before that the body is made of seven separate pieces; the rear doors are one piece, connected across the bottom, as are the front doors, with the front bumper attached. Both sets slide into the unibody from the front, then the interior slides in as well. Front fenders snap on, then the hood, which has a post that goes down through all the layered parts to clip into the base. #WeirdCarMastodon

Day 66/84: Harlequin Golf, variation three, with a Ginster Yellow unibody and "Rondo" alloy wheels. Ginster Yellow was usually exclusive to the GTI in the US; Pistachio was otherwise not available at all. #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 67/84: The final Harlequin Golf wears the only set of aftermarket wheels I've ever modeled, but how could I not: the iconic Ronal teddy bears! They're a perfect fit for this car. Color printing has some drawbacks—you can't get a true black, and the material's not quite as strong—but the level of detail you can get is pretty intoxicating. Check out the VW roundel; the strokes of the letters and the ring around them are probably each about 0.25mm wide. #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 68/84: Is this Facel Vega FVS the most glamorous car I've ever done? I'm going to say yes. I also still love the olive over pimento color scheme, and check out those wire wheels. #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 69/84: We're back to hand-painted models for a bit, but I think I did an okay job with this Audi 5000 S. I'm always surprised by the size of this one—for an ’80s Eurosedan, these C3s were BIG. Aero styling hides the bulk reasonably well. #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 70/84: I've done some mildly obscure cars before, but this was the first one for which I had no reference drawing or photograph to start from, and I had to draw the car in profile freehand. Fortunately, the Dodge 600 ES is so rectilinear that I was able to draw it directly in SketchUp using their basic line tools! A nearly forgotten car, built on the stretched-K E platform. #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 71/84: I've never gotten a set of opening doors to work totally to my satisfaction. The doors on this Cressida open no problem—but, thanks to an unsuccessful attempt on my part to replicate the springy resistance of vintage Matchbox or Majorette doors, they don't really want to close or stay closed. Oh, well. #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 72/84: Here's a variation on an old friend, a wagon-to-sedan conversion of my very first car to make a 760 GLE. Everything under the skin was updated in the process to my newer snap-together assembly standards, but if I similarly updated the wagon body and interior, this sedan could share its base. #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 73/84: This Datsun Maxima sports one of my better paint jobs. The main body color was a special blend of multiple spray cans, so I had to be very careful painting the details, because I had no touch-up paint to cover any goofs! #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 74/84: This Pontiac 6000 STE is one of a few cars I've done with a sort of "sandwich" construction, where the rub strip around the center is integrated into the interior piece, with everything below part of the base and everything above forming the main body piece. This makes it super easy to get clean lines on those otherwise hard-to-paint rub strips, and, as seen here, makes two-tone color schemes a snap. #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 75/84: This is the last Saab I've done to date, an ’83 Turbo sedan variant on my original 900 model, updated to snap together. The theme of the last several days has been mid-range 1983 sport sedans (plus an early 1984 Audi); all of these—Audi, Dodge, Toyota, Volvo, Datsun, Pontiac, Saab, plus tomorrow's car—were the contenders subjected to *Car and Driver's* infamous "Baja Torture Test" comparison from the July, 1983 issue, well worth a read. #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 76/84: Last of my Baja bunch is this Volkswagen Quantum GL5, known as the (Passat) Santana in most of the world. This was a charming little box to build; I integrated the bumpers into the base to make it easy to get a clean color separation between them and the body, but even so, I think I did a decent job of the details on this one. #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 77/84: For sheer detail, this Audi is probably one of my best demonstrations of what color printing is capable of. Pardon the grain, but I thought it worth showing the two-tone green and gray interior as well, with wood trim throughout. #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 78/84: It's Thanksgiving for us Americans, so here's a car many Americans would be thankful to have owned in the 1990s: a Seville, one of Cadillac's few late-20th century bright spots. One of my favorite things about this model is that color printing enabled me to perfectly capture the mega third brake light (sorry, GM, CHMSL) across the rear decklid. #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 79/84: This Chrysler LHS has one of the most elaborate sets of wheels I've ever attempted, and I didn't really expect them to print out well. But they came out pretty amazing! #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 80/84: Here's where we run into one of the limitations of color printing: the material's not quite as strong as what I'd been used to. The A-pillars on this Oldsmobile LSS were probably too thin no matter what, but they were much too thin for this material, and both driver-side pillars are broken, which also led to some deformation of the roof. Lesson learned. #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 81/84: This one and the preceding three were my SLSLHSLSSLSC collection, inspired by their similar three-letter model designations and status as "sporty" big American cars. The Lincoln Mark VIII LSC is perhaps the least well-remembered of the group; it's identifiable by the absence of chrome trim on the bumpers. It was also the first American car equipped with HID headlights. #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 82/84: One thing I like about older cars is the color palette available to use. This Renault Caravelle is already a cutie; doing it up in robin's egg blue over navy is just the icing on the cake. #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 83/84: I couldn't bring myself to make it gray, and the geometry of trying to model dents would probably make me crazy, so my Peugeot 403 Cabriolet is not a replica of That Famous One. Instead, it's a sunny yellow, and I nicked the wire wheels from my Facel-Vega (day 66) to make it as classy as it deserves to be. #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 84/84: From a Volvo wagon to a VW wagon...here's a car that was printed as a single piece, with all the components of the model connected on a framework of sprues; that was designed to be snapped together, no additional materials or adhesives required; that's printed in color, fully detailed inside and out—a model that can go from a sealed box to what you see here in five minutes. That's a pretty satisfying evolution! #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting

Day 85/84: Quelle surprise! In the two and a half months it took me to post all my cars, one or two new ones may have appeared. This DS21 Décapotable was one I unsuccessfully attempted to print in color last year; the material couldn't support the windshield header. So I printed it in gray and painted it. My paint skills may be a bit rusty, but check out the working height-adjustable suspension! #WeirdCarMastodon #164scale #3dPrinting