The South African-made RoboBeast 3D printer and the VW Beetle have a lot in common – they’re both extremely resilient, almost bulletproof machines that excel at their jobs. That’s why the folks over at RoboBeast have endeavoured to combine the two for 3D printing on the go in the form of the BeetleBeast.

We first heard of the “printing on the go” idea from RoboBeast founder Richard van As at the 2015 3D Printing Meetup. Since his printers are some of the only in the world to be able to print in the rough conditions movement in a car would introduce, some rough plans were thought up.

“[We] discussed taking a car and making the back seat a 3D printer. Especially since you can print on the run with a Robobeast,” said van As, “The Beetle is also going to become a single seater as we will use the passenger seat for our Robobeast regular delivery vehicle in Johannesburg.”

The BeetleBeast had its first outing this past weekend when it visited the Living Room in Joburg. If you missed that and want to see this beast in person, it will officially be unveiled at The Rand Show 2016 which runs from the 25th of March to the 7th of April at the Nasrec Expo Centre in Johannesburg.

Keep up with the project on its dedicated Twitter account @beetlebeast as well as the # beetlebeast hastag on your preferred social media.

[Source – RoboBeast on Facebook