Nothing on this car is painted.

A 1:16 open-wheel racing car that leaves the print plate as 17 separate pieces in 5 filaments. The red is the body shell; the green is the two wings; the blue is the floor and the halo. No paint, no stickers, no spray booth. The colour runs all the way through every piece, because every piece is its own print.

The assembled car from three-quarters front: red body shell, green front and rear wings, blue floor, blue halo over the cockpit, black tires on pale grey rims.

The colours are the parts list.

One cell below is one printed piece, drawn in the filament it prints in and laid out in the order it goes together: 5 pieces of chassis, then 4 wheels of 3 pieces each.

Chassis

Wheels

10 part files make 17 pieces, and the wheels account for 12 of them, because a wheel here is a rim, a tire and a cap that locks it on. Reprint one file in another colour and the car changes livery without anything else being touched.

It comes apart the way it went together.

Everything that hangs off the body is located by printed pegs dropped into printed sockets — the wings, the halo, the wheels. Pull the front wing and the nose is bare. Lift the halo and the cockpit is open. There is no glue in the joint and no screw through it: the fit is the fastener, so the car that comes apart on a desk is the same car that went together on one.

The car in pieces: body shell on the blue floor, both green wings pulled off, the blue halo lying beside the cockpit, all four wheels off their stubs.

The fits are where the work is.

A model like this lives or dies on a few tenths of a millimetre. Too tight and a wheel seizes on its stub; too loose and it rattles on the shelf. These are the sizes the mating parts are cut to.

Close on the nose: green suspension arms socketed into the red shell, layer lines running the length of the bodywork, a front wing peg standing proud in the foreground.
3.0 mmAxle stub, one per corner, printed as part of the body shell
0.3 mmRunning clearance in the rim bore, so the wheel turns without wobbling on the stub
2.5 mmFront wing pegs
3.0 mmRear wing peg
2.0 mmHalo pegs, 3 of them into the cockpit surround
0.2 mmFit clearance on every peg and socket — a thumb push to seat, a pull to release

Printed in PETG rather than PLA, which is the quieter half of the same decision: a peg this size wants a plastic that gives a little instead of one that snaps.

Big enough to need both hands.

12.0 × 4.9 × 2.6 in overall and 6.6 oz on the scale — long enough that it wants two hands off a shelf, light enough that it goes back up without ceremony. The wheels are 1.8 in tires on 1.1 in rims and all 4 of them turn, so it rolls rather than sits.

At this size the detail is something you find with a fingertip rather than a loupe: the open cockpit, the strakes under the floor, the layer lines running the length of the nose.

The car in side elevation, nose to the left: wings level with the floor, both near-side wheels standing clear of the bodywork.

From the side: 12.0 in wing to wing, 2.6 in at its tallest.

A child sitting on a wooden floor holding the car level in both hands, front wing towards the camera.

What you get.

10 files, 17 pieces, 5 filaments and a handful of printed pegs holding all of it together.

Overall size
12.0 × 4.9 × 2.6 in
Weight
6.6 oz
Scale
1:16
Printed pieces
17
Part files
10
Filaments
5
Material
PETG
Print time
19.9 h