How to change the material for linked objects?

Hello,
I am trying to make a car shaded in one scene and use it for 3 different shots as linked object.
Problem is I can not assign or change the material. Does someone know how to do it?

Thanks!

When objects are linked, they also share object data because data belongs to the object. Materials can be associated with either object or data. When you link objects, there’s no option to differentiate materials because both object and its data are shared.

Linking only object data allows to set material association to object so you can change the materials. Note that the stack order matters with that, otherwise it wouldn’t know which parts of the mesh gets which material.

mat_link_ja12.blend (95.7 KB)

Cool! Thank you JA12! You are the Man!