Could the Trabant ReMaterialise?

The Trabant, for those of you who aren’t familiar with it, was an automobile made in East Germany before reunification. For more than 30 years, the Trabant was one of the most popular vehicles in East Germany, and in fact when the wall came down in the late 1980’s, Trabants carried many migrating East Germans to the west.

However, as an automobile the Trabant lacked, well, a lot of things. As with many eastern European industries, it was unable to compete in a western setting and its production was discontinued in 1991.

And then at the 2009 Internationale Automobil- Ausstellung (IAA) in Frankfurt it was revealed that the Trabant might be resurrected! Called the Trabant nT (for “newTrabi”), the 21st century Trabant is a long way from its 1960’s ancestors, as it includes modern tech including an electric engine.

What does this have to do with fabbing? It turns out that one of the leading 3D print services, Materialise, is working closely with the manufacturer (Herpa) to build “both interior and exterior automotive parts with fused deposition modelling technology”. According to Materialise representative Patrick Lucht:

DNA technology was once touted as a way to resurrect dinosaurs. Could 3D printing be a way to resurrect dead automobiles?

Via Wikipedia and Materialise