It all begins quite simply, in a living room, in front of an Xbox. On the screen, a Lamborghini Aventador. Next door, his son, fascinated by the car, asks a naive question: «Dad... could we build one?» For many parents, the discussion would have ended there. For Dad, it was the beginning of a project that would last for years... and attract the attention of Lamborghini herself.
A Lamborghini born from a video game
Sterling Backus is not a carmaker. An engineer with a passion for mechanics and new technologies, he enjoys taking on technical challenges. The idea seemed crazy at first, but he soon found a way: 3D printing. Together with his son, they took a digital model of the Aventador, enlarged it to real scale and then cut the car into hundreds of parts that could be printed using household machines. In their Colorado garden, the printers run for months. Some parts require more than fifty hours of continuous printing.
The project began in 2018. Four years later, almost 1,000 parts have been manufactured for around 6,000 hours of operation. Little by little, the silhouette of the supercar is taking shape before their very eyes.
A real car, not just a model
From a distance, the car deceives the eye. The proportions are right, the look immediately recognizable. But underneath the Lamborghini Aventador-inspired bodywork, nothing is standard. The original V12 gives way to a Chevrolet Corvette C5 LS1 V8, combined with a Porsche 911 manual gearbox and twin turbochargers. The result: between 550 and 600 horsepower. Power worthy of a true supercar.
To avoid any legal problems, each panel is slightly modified. No official badge, no commercial objective: the car is a one-off, built to learn, share and drive. The replica quickly attracted crowds at exhibitions. A $100,000 offer is even on the table. Immediate refusal. For Sterling Backus, the value of a car cannot be measured in money: «building gives you a much stronger feeling than buying».
Lamborghini's unexpected appeal
The story could have ended there. A wonderful family adventure that went viral on the Internet. But it eventually reached Sant'Agata Bolognese. One day, the phone rings. Lamborghini.
The brand then prepares a surprise worthy of a Christmas movie. The idea: exchange their replica for a real Aventador... in the middle of the night, without warning. While the family slept, the Italian supercar arrived discreetly. A project born in a garden finally meets its real-life inspiration.
A father-son story
Beyond the mechanics, it's the relationship between Sterling and his son that really stands out. Years of trial, error and success shared around a common passion. At the end of the video produced by Lamborghini, the child sums up the adventure quite simply: «I love my father.»
English 
French 
Italian 
Spanish 
Portuguese 
German 
Japanese 
Turkish 
Dutch