Built different: Girl Gang Garage leverages 3D scanning for Volvo customisation

What do you get by crossing a 1961 Volvo PV544 retro-look car with a 2019 Volvo S60 T8 Polestar Engineered sedan?

A head-turning hybrid vehicle that gets people talking, especially about women in automotive trades.

That’s because this blended vehicle project is being disassembled, redesigned, and rebuilt by an all-female team based in Arizona, US.

Girl Gang Garage is a learning space helping women to enter the automotive field and shining a spotlight on those who have already succeeded. They organise classes for women looking to expand their knowledge in the industry, regardless of their age and experience.

An important facet of their work is enabling volunteers to develop skills by participating in custom car builds. Their third project of this type, where they retrofitted the body of a 1961 Volvo PV544 on the chassis of a brand-new 2019 Volvo S60 T8 Polestar Engineered sedan, has made waves on the North American automotive scene. And 3D scanning played a part in its delivery.

Digital workflows for car customisation

Girl Gang Garage co-owners Bogi Lateiner and Shawnda Williams have been increasingly interested in the possibilities offered by digital tools. In early 2021, Lateiner reached out to Rapid Scan 3D about the opportunities for collaboration. Chris Strong, Rapid Scan 3D’s scanning specialist, and Hayati Dirim, lead application engineer, were immediately onboard. 

The team used 3D scanning data from the original vehicle and reverse engineered the front end with Geomagic Design X. Hayati was able to deliver a CAD-ready surface model to the team at Girl Gang Garage.

Lateiner and Williams were introduced to the technical capabilities of the different team members and the scanning workflow. The plan was to strip the PV544 down to bare metal removing every mechanical and electrical component in the process, disassemble the S60 down to the chassis, engine, drive-train and hybrid motor system, and figure out how to make the two sections fit.

Traditionally that workflow depended strictly on the classic tools of the trade, from cutting wheels and a Sawzall to hand-grinders and pneumatic drills. Those components are still coming into play on the current project under the skilled eye of the Girl Gang Garage leaders, but now digital processes were added.

3D scanning automotive parts 

In the automotive aftermarket space, opportunities to leverage 3D scanning abound. Scan data of a car, if exported as an STL file, could be sent directly to a surfacing package such as Geomagic Design X. This software tools let users convert the STL mesh into an IGES surface, which can then be brought into a CAD package as the basis for a new solid model. If CAD data were available for the actual vehicle, those files could be imported, overlaid on the captured data, and compared, alerting the user to deviations between intended and actual dimensions – a very common use in Geomagic Design X and Control X. 

For this project, the entire PV544 body was scanned. The resulting scan data was used in various ways in the course of building the custom Volvo, from making judgements from the visual shape, extracting useful “as is” dimensions and using the converted STL file to print actual parts.

Developing skills through car builds 

It took 18 months, some 160 women volunteers, and many all-nighters, but the all-female team pulled it off. The final car, named the Iron Maven, featured a resized, reupholstered dashboard, a re-used S60 sunroof, hybrid charging-port, extended fenders, new headlamps and a cool grill. While working on the PV544, the volunteers were also learning to use cutting tools, welders, sanders and other tools.

The project was well worth the effort. The car was unveiled at SEMA 2022 to much enthusiasm from the attendees and Iron Maven’s debut proved to be one for the history books.

Read the original case study on Rapidscan3d.com.