Jay Leno has a 3D printer that can replace old parts

We all know that Jay Leno loves his cars. After all, he probably has enough cars – modern and vintage – to make his own showroom. But despite owning a fleet of some of the most expensive and prestigious vehicles in the world, we still don’t know as to how much of a car fanatic Jay Leno is. That’s until we found out that our favorite ex-late night talk show host has his own 3D scanner, which he uses to scan and print rare and irreplaceable car parts from his vintage classics. Now, that’s something you’ve never heard before.

Leno’s revolutionary gadget is a NextEngine 3D Scanner, which can scan a fully-functioning auto part in 20 minutes at 160,000 dots per inch resolution. After doing so, he takes his scanned image and prints it into a plastic 3D model using his Dimension 3D Printer. While the resulting part isn’t the final piece of the exercise – he takes the plastic, which can be scanned and printed in three hours, and uses it to make a mold that will eventually produce the metal, which he uses on the car.

We know a lot of car aficionados the world over that would go to great lengths to restore their precious vehicles, but we’ve never seen anyone that has an device that can actually make a 3D image of a vintage car part. But that’s why Jay Leno is who he is.