It all started with a 1962 Ferrari 250 GT Breadvan. Now it’s an Italian design-inspired, V12-powered gran truismo coupe with coach building by Niels van Roij Design.
“We see it as a great privilege that we can celebrate the ’62 Breadvan through this Hommage commission,” said Niels van Roij. “It was a complex task to translate the essence of the legendary car into a contemporary design. We intended to be inspired by the original, but ensured we were not limited by it in our creativity. The Breadvan Hommage is a new original.”
The Niels van Roij Design Breadvan Hommage started as an idea. A sketch by hand. Then, the company moved to fit the design over the technical layout of the base car, refining as they went. This included the bespoke exhaust and unique headlights.
Breadvan Hommage – official video – our one-off V12 coachbuilt car design | Niels van Roij Design
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Renderings were then turned into a clay model. A framework was installed onto the donor car, to which clay was applied. As this occurred, the design was ironed out.
“A car is a complex, three dimensional sculpture, which has to look right from all angles and under different light circumstance,” said Roij. “Like sketching, the clay modeling process is iterative and the Breadvan Hommage was reshaped many times, to get it spot on. After establishing the correct proportions the search for sophistication in the surfacing, or skin, started: finding the right subtleties for transitions from one element to another. It includes the exterior graphics like the richly sculpted air vents on the front fenders.’
From there, the body of the car was beaten into shape by a coachbuilder by hand. By the time he was through, only the windscreen of the original vehicle remained as an OEM part.
Moving from the outside to the inside shows off a handmade interior. The outline of the exterior design has been embroidered on to the blue Alcantara carbon fiber-backed seats and there’s a monograph on the dials, which have pure silver inlays. All switchgear is made out of milled aluminum, as is the gated shifter. Door panels feature an unpainted, hand beaten aluminum element. A small embroidered Italian flag in the corner of the aluminum insert highlights the design roots of the vehicle.
The original 60s Breadvan was outfitted with KONI single adjustable shock absorbers. The design team asked KONI to create a modern set of absorbers for the Breadvan Hommage. KONI’s engineers used the double adjustable 8211-series as a basis for the parts. This series has been used in Formula 1 for years and the result is a model that is racetrack-ready, just as the original Breadvan was.
Vredestein contributed the tires to the build. Each wheel is wrapped in an Ultrac Vorti+ tire, an ultra-high-performance summer tire.
