With the boom in the popularity of 3D printers in recent years, it's no surprise to know the motoring industry is jumping on board too. Jaguar Land Rover's been 3D printing prototype parts since 2008, and even the tiny British sports car maker, Morgan, has used this clever production process to assemble entire concept cars. However, Nissan's taken the three-dimensional trend even further by sketching out a full-sized car exterior using 3D pens.

Done to promote Nissan's new 'Black Edition' of the popular Qashqai crossover we're bizarrely denied access to in the States, this PR stunt is quite an impressive feat. Granted, it's highly unlikely Nissan will ever consider adopting 3D pen technology in the design and development of its future cars, but the fact a huge sculpture like this exists is a testament to the team led by the talented British 3D pen artist, Grace Du Prez. According to Nissan, it took 800 man hours to craft this incredible sculpture, with over 8 miles of the super-heated plastic used to 3D draw this clever piece of Nissan Qashqai artwork.

As we said earlier, it's highly doubtful that this 3D doodling process will be adopted by Nissan on a professional level (why throw human error into the mix, when you can use 3D printers to eliminate almost every possible imperfection?). That said, creating a 1:1 scale - and incredibly accurate - replica of a car's exterior is still a phenomenal achievement, and we hope that the popularity of 3D drawing will increase enough to the point where we see more publicity stunts along these lines in the near future.