Audi Toolmaking has demonstrated its 3D printers by using them to make a replica half-size 1936 Auto Union Typ C racer.

AUDI BOFFINS HAVE used 3D printers to create a half-size replica 1936 Auto Union Typ C racer. As you can see in the picture, the Silver Arrow is true-to-life and has been built to showcase the use of metal printers in automotive construction.

“We are pushing forward with new manufacturing technologies at Audi Toolmaking and at the Volkswagen Group,” stated Prof. Dr. Hubert Waltl, Audi’s Board of Management Member for Production and Head of Toolmaking at the Volkswagen Group. “Together with partners in the area of research, we are constantly exploring the boundaries of new processes. One of our goals is to apply metal printers in series production.”

To build the Silver Arrow, Audi used “selective-sintering laser melted layers of metallic powder with a grain size of 15 to 40 thousandths of a millimetre, roughly half of the diameter of a human hair”. Audi said using 3D printers allows pin-point accuracy when constructing objects from complex geometries that couldn’t be produced without great difficulty from conventional methods.

Audi said it’s currently able to produce shapes and objects with a length of 240 millimetres and a height of up to 200 millimetres. “These printed components achieved a higher density than components made by die casting or hot forming,” Audi said.

That’s all great, but now we’re keen to go out and get a metal printer to make our own miniature racers.