How JigSpace Brought an F1 Car Into Your Living Room

When JigSpace’s spatial computing app launched alongside Apple Vision Pro in 2024, it needed a demo—or, in the company’s parlance, a “Jig”—to unveil their new evolution of 3D presentations. This was a unique challenge: How do you encourage consumers to make your complex productivity utility a day-one download?

The answer: Give them a full-scale, intricately detailed Formula 1 car to sit in—or pull apart—right in their room.

Deep red with a matte coat, that F1 car—Sauber Motorsports’ Alfa Romeo C43—became the unofficial emblem of JigSpace, a demo so realistic that many had to be reminded they didn’t actually have to step over its sides to “sit” in the virtual seat.

It’s an accessible introduction to an app that has been used in manufacturing, the medical field, and other industries to walk users through technical topics. Using 3D models, presenters can highlight specific parts of an object—like a car’s wheels—with descriptions and additional animations.

“Sauber’s car is the pinnacle of engineering,” says JigSpace cofounder and CTO Numa Bertron. “They look really pretty, but they’re also super complex, so it’s a great demonstration.”

Bringing the car to JigSpace on Vision Pro took years of collaboration. The two began working together in 2022.

“Sauber put QR codes on their merch so people could scan the code and have the car in their living room using their iPhone,” Bertron recalls.

But it wasn’t until the JigSpace team got their hands on Vision Pro that the car became integral to the app itself. “We were blown away,” Bertron says.

“If you want to get close to the car, you have to work in F1 or be gifted a pass,” he adds. “We’ve seen people around the world making car noises as they sit down.”

All the fun is rooted in realism, however.

“The airflow is based on the actual aerodynamic airflows from their computational fluid dynamics team,” says JigSpace’s CEO and cofounder Zac Duff. “It’s as authentic as we can get. We even consulted with the Pirelli team on the tires.”

Even if you get an opportunity to see a real F1 car, “you never see the engines,” Duff says. “But that’s where a lot of their secret sauce is. Being able to lift the cover off in JigSpace gives people access as if they were there.”

Among JigSpace’s models of jet turbines, Mars robots, and anatomical human hearts, the Alfa Romeo C43 is still one of the most popular Jigs to load first. So when Sauber debuted a new car for the 2025 season—the Kick Sauber C45—the JigSpace team gave the Jig a fresh coat of paint to match the black-and-neon-green machine.

“It’s an optimized version of their actual CAD files,” Duff says. “It’s the real car down to the millimeter.”

As it turns out, this level of accuracy is useful for more than just admiring a cool car in your garage.

“People have expensive, complex machines that need to be explained and sold,” Bertron says. “One of our customers put a big QR code on the side of their machine that opens in JigSpace. With Vision Pro, you can see inside—and you can do this with SharePlay with multiple people remotely or in the same room. They’re losing their minds over this.”

For Duff, there’s as much immediate benefit as long-term opportunity.

“It’s such a fundamental change,” he says. “Our customers can go to market differently. They can do more training remotely; they can qualify prospects with Vision Pro rather than having to fly them to a central location to look at a machine.”

The possibilities—whether a multimillion-dollar manufacturing machine or a Formula 1 car—are massive for JigSpace and Vision Pro.

“Suddenly, the boundaries of time and space are kind of let go because you can just be there,” Duff says. “That’s the most powerful thing.”