Ford's Rex Allen: VR and 3D printing cut clay car design to five days

Ford's design studio has long relied on full-size clay models because, as designer Shawn Fairall puts it, having the physical property in front of you lets multiple people have the conversation. That process used to mean about two weeks of handwork for one modeler to sculpt one full-size model, with every change adding more weeks. About six years ago, virtual reality and 3D printing began to change that. Allen now describes a hybrid workflow: rough out the car in clay, scan it in about 20 minutes, refine the shape digitally in a headset, then have a mill carve the new surface over a few shifts before hand finishing.

The time savings land inside a larger restructuring at Ford. The company sold about 650,000 fewer vehicles in the U.S. than GM last year yet brought in slightly more revenue, $187.3 billion to $185 billion, with the commercial arm Ford Pro earning $6.8 billion before interest and taxes at a 10.3% margin. Ford's EV unit, Model e, lost $4.8 billion. In December, Ford announced about $19.5 billion in charges and pivoted to a race against the calendar, including a plan to refresh about 80% of its North American portfolio between 2027 and 2029. Every week saved in the clay studio gets Ford to that refresh quicker.

Allen's own career traces the tension. He left machining as robotics spread, then found clay modeling and worked 100-hour weeks at Detroit model shops before joining Ford 24 years ago. He once steered his son away from modeling and into engineering, worried about where the craft was going. Now he says he is excited to train the next generation in both virtual reality and clay, and that he hops out of bed to come to work.