Most collaborations between a carmaker and a fashion house stop at paint and upholstery. The one Alpine and Lacoste just revealed goes somewhere more interesting: inside the seats. Their one-off electric rally car, officially titled Beware of the Crocodile, Alpine Lacoste A290 Rallye, rides on rally-spec hardware, hides exactly 290 crocodile motifs in its design, and seats its driver in a bucket whose structural components were 3D printed as lattices by French additive manufacturer ERPRO. That last detail is the one making the rounds in the additive manufacturing press this week, and it is the one that matters most if you build, buy, or repair physical parts for a living.
One car, 290 crocodiles, and a seat you cannot buy at a parts counter
Announced at the end of June and now getting its close-up across the industry press, the project starts with the A290 Rallye, Alpine's customer electric rally platform: a rally-tuned chassis, reinforced brakes, competition electronic calibration, and the instant torque of an EV drivetrain. Lacoste layered its identity over that hardware. The seats and door panels are trimmed in the brand's petit piqué polo fabric, the embroidery comes from Potencier, the atelier behind Lacoste's crocodile logos, and those 290 crocodile references are scattered through the car in graphic and sculptural details. There is even a campaign film, The Test, starring actor Pierre Niney and Alpine F1 driver Pierre Gasly.
Strip away the fashion, though, and the engineering story is the seat. Instead of a conventional solid shell and foam stack, ERPRO printed structural seat components as open lattice geometries. The printed lattice is lighter than a solid equivalent, absorbs impact energy in a controlled way, and can be tuned zone by zone for comfort and support. Making that internal geometry with injection molding or CNC at one-off volume would mean absurd tooling costs. On a printer, it is just a file.
I need a lightweight custom part for my car build. Can 3D printing really handle structural jobs?
Yes: modern industrial 3D printing produces genuinely structural parts, and lattice designs like the A290 Rallye's seat cores are often stronger for their weight than the solid parts they replace. The trick is matching material and process to the load. Interior brackets, mounts, ducting, switch housings, and seat hardware are routine work in engineering nylons and carbon-fiber-filled materials. For parts that live near heat, high-performance polymers hold up where hobby filament would sag, which is exactly what our PEEK and ULTEM printing service is for. The same lattice techniques Alpine showcased are available to anyone: they are a design choice, not a factory secret.
Why print a lattice instead of cutting foam?
Three reasons keep showing up in projects like this. First, weight: a lattice puts material only where loads travel, so the part gets lighter without getting weaker. Second, energy management: engineers can tune how a lattice compresses, which is why it works for a rally seat that has to soak up hits all day. Third, zoning: one printed part can be compliant over pressure points and rigid at bolt bosses, replacing an assembly of foam, inserts, and brackets with a single piece. And because the geometry lives in a file rather than a mold, a one-off costs what a one-off should. That is the same economics that lets a small shop build you a custom anything without a production contract.
My car's interior trim is discontinued and I cannot find a replacement anywhere. Can someone recreate it?
Yes: a broken or discontinued part can be 3D scanned, rebuilt as a CAD model, and reprinted, usually without any original drawings. This is bread-and-butter reverse engineering. We see it constantly with vintage trim clips, dash knobs, brackets, bezels, and housings that the manufacturer stopped supporting decades ago. The workflow at our 3D scanning and reverse engineering service is simple: scan the original part (even a cracked one, or its mirror twin from the other side of the car), model out the damage in CAD, and print the replacement in a material suited to where it lives.
What this means for makers and engineering buyers
Three takeaways from a crocodile-themed rally car. Lattice structures are moving from research papers into parts that real people sit on. One-off economics keep improving, and the show-car world is quietly proving the business case for low-volume additive. And when a global consumer brand is comfortable putting a printed structure under a rally driver, a printed bracket in your product line is no longer the risky line item it looked like five years ago. When you want to test that on your own project, you can upload a part and have it built and shipped from our Rockville, MD shop.
One more note: if you make 3D printers, filament, scanners, or automotive restoration tools and want a hands-on review on this blog, we are open to it. Email info@dcadditivepros.com and tell us what you would like us to put through its paces.
Frequently asked questions
Is it safe to put 3D printed parts in my car?
Yes, for the right parts in the right materials. Interior brackets, trim, ducts, and mounts are routine, and high-temperature polymers like PEEK and ULTEM handle under-hood conditions. Safety-critical items like suspension and brake components need engineering review before anyone prints them.
How do I get a discontinued car part remade if I do not have the original drawings?
You do not need drawings: the part itself is the blueprint. A shop 3D scans the original, even a broken one, rebuilds the geometry in CAD, and prints a replacement in a suitable material.
What does it cost to 3D print a custom automotive part?
Simple interior parts often land in the tens of dollars, while scanned and reverse-engineered parts cost more because of CAD modeling time. The fastest way to find out is to send photos, dimensions, or a file for a quote; the minimum order is just $20.
Do I need a 3D model before I contact a print shop?
No: you can start with nothing but the physical part or a few photos. If you already have a CAD or mesh file the process is faster, and if you do not, 3D scanning fills the gap.