It looks like any ordinary auto mechanic’s garage: a mint-condition classic Landy, another later model with the hood up and parts on the floor, racks of components, an old Volla Beetle in the corner, the smooth shell of a Karmann Ghia beside its chassis, and the inevitable wreck in the other corner.

But look closer and something extraordinary is going on in this small workshop south of Johannesburg. On the Karmann’s chassis, where the gearbox should be is a simple metal frame, and where the petrol engine once was is an odd cylindrical green plastic object, not a functional engine at all but a 3D-printed mock-up of an electric motor...

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