All of our development is done in stages. We decide on the vehicle, do tons of research, then start putting pencil paper. Literally, kinda. Its a whiteboard and tons of back and forth on what we need to accomplish. Then its 3D scanning and CAD engineering the solution. But its not always perfect. You have to prototype to make sure you have the fit and finish you were going for. Now more than ever you will see development shops using 3D printing to help in this process. We are no different in that respect. You have the freedom to make mistakes using 3D printing because it may cost $15 in PETG filament and 14 hours of printing overnight, but for a prototype JUST to check for fitment, it beats waiting a week or more that 15-20x the cost to have a metal prototype made.
Before we do ANY prototyping in metal we always do prototyping with our Bambu X1-Carbon 3D printer and have a 3D printed facsimile so that we can test for fitment, placement, installation, aesthetics. Everything. For THIS application we are finalizing the last 3D print after we found a few areas that could use some adjustment actually to both form and function. From here we will KNOW if we got everything right. Once it gets installed and tested and confirmed, we are off to the races and we can send out to have the first production run. 5th Gen 4Runner mounts are another step closer.