The Urbee is the first car in the world to be made inside of a printer.

The orange bodywork of the Urbee is made from lightweight body panels that were produced by a 3D printer.

The body panels were printed using additive printing, where layers of material are placed on top of each other and fused or bonded together to build the finished object.

At present, only the single Urbee prototype car exists, but its makers hope to start selling the printed car by 2014. The car makers plan to use more printed car parts in future models of the Urbee, using printed parts for the interior and parts of the chassis.

The Urbee's makers hope that ultimately 3D printing will make it easier to repair the car, as vehicle parts would not have to be shipped but could be printed out at the nearest 3D printing facility. They claim that printing is more environmentally friendly than traditional car manufacturing processes because it only uses the materials needed to produce the car.

The car is driven by an eight-horsepower ethanol-fuelled engine that the car makers say is capable of doing 200 miles per gallon.

Photo: Urbee