Lone ranger
Niels van Roij, designer of bespoke cars
Niels van Roij is unusual in the car design world in that he has never worked in the studio of an established car manufacturer, serving his time at the drawing board and sketching relentlessly for years. Taking an unconventional route from the Royal College of Art (RCA), he has found himself in an almost unique position.
Aged 36, the Netherlands native now has a thriving business based in Greenwich, London, creating one-off coachbuilt cars for the kind of affluent collector who prizes exclusivity or wants to take the traditional ‘customisation’ offered by superpremium makers further. Indeed, Rolls-royce is now following the trail blazed by van Roij, with its new ‘whole car’ custom-build programme.
I first met van Roij eight years ago, when he was working with a company called Car Design Research. I had been invited to the RCA in London to take part in research for an undisclosed manufacturer, and van Roij was the inquisitor.
It didn’t take long to realise that the research was about attitudes towards Volvo and how the brand might reinvent itself after being acquired by Chinese company Geely. The Dutchman had just ended two and a half years working on one of the entries for a new London taxi competition. The project was being run by Turkish vehicle maker Karsan, and van Roij had been approached to work on the design after he graduated from the RCA in 2012.
He recalls: “I was based at the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design [an Rca-associated venture that has long specialised in projects emphasising accessibility]. We built a full-size styling buck and carried out a lot of research with cabbies. We interviewed them and went into their shelters, one of which is right opposite the RCA. We also held workshops with elderly, blind and pregnant people, all testing the buck for accessibility and comfort.”
Van Roij was recommended to work on the Karsan taxi because it was an ‘inside-out’ project, one that was driven by the interior package. His RCA degree project was a proposal for a car interior, rather than for yet another supercar.
“I’m the sort of car designer who has been drawing cars since the age of three or four, and my mum still has my drawings,” he says. “As soon as I knew of the RCA, I had it in focus, and my goal was always to go there.”
Van Roij says that his final project at the RCA was an “inclusively designed car interior; a working model made of foam that you could sit on”. He elaborates: “It was focused on people growing older and what to do with those who want to retain their mobility. It was a study in ergonomics. I also worked with an optometrist and conducted a lot of tactility research.”
After the Karsan taxi project was wound up, van Roij found himself in a difficult position. “I realised I had nothing to show in portfolio for two years’ effort [it being a confidential project],” he says. “Then the stars aligned. A friend in the Netherlands contacted me and said: ‘I have this weird question for you. I have a friend who wants to convert their Tesla Model S into a shooting brake. It’s probably nothing you want to work on but I wanted to share the message.’
“It was perfect timing. I had a couple of connections in coachbuilding, and the initiator of the Tesla project had already connected a coachbuilder that had built a Tesla hearse, so they understood how to work on it.” Coachbuilt one-offs seem an uncannily perfect fit for someone who had spent the previous few years primarily working directly with users and passengers, rather than turning out endless glossy renderings of an imagined future.
“The client is ultimately in charge, but the project is just you and the client,” says van Roij. “I approached the project by starting to find out who this person was and to meet with them in their homes and businesses. I asked questions like ‘Why a coachbuilt car?’ and ‘Why base your idea on a Tesla?’” The project went through “hundreds of ideation sketches” that were discussed together with
the client and the coachbuilder.
“In the end, the client directed towards the bold chrome ideation sketch, and that was developed into more refined renderings,” says van Roij. “We went for a specific design in these renderings. And then that was translated by the coachbuilder into hard points and drawings.”
When the 18-month-long Tesla estate project was finished, it took van Roij half a year to find his next one: “Two projects came in very close: the Ferrari breadvan homage and the Rolls-royce shooting brake. And then the Range Rover coupé, which was actually finished first.”
The Range Rover project was especially interesting, because it came about due to JLR’S cancellation of its Range Rover SV Coupé in 2019.
Van Roij says: “The client was disappointed when the SV Coupé was cancelled, so he got in touch. I said I wasn’t going to copy it. The JLR car was a bit more dynamic, so ours should be a bit more formal – a bit more linked to the classic three-door Range Rover.”
The execution of the design meant “the B-pillar was moved by about a foot, the door was stretched by 25cm and the rear fender was redesigned”.
But to my eyes, the sumptuous Rolls-royce Wraith-based shooting brake is the most successful in van Roij’s portfolio. “This was one of my biggest joys,” he says. “I started in England because I love Britishness, and to be commissioned to the most British of icons was a true honour.”
In fact, van Roij had previous in