Niels van Roij Design is a European coachbuilding firm known for creations like modern Ferrari Breadvans and Rolls-Royce Wraith shooting brakes. But complicated conversions aren’t the company’s only focus—sometimes it does smaller projects, like offering bespoke trim pieces.
That’s what the company is doing now, although the pieces may not be the sort of upper-crust, coachbuilt touches you’d expect. Sure, NVRD will make the trim on your new Defender pretty much any metallic finish you want, but the one it chose to highlight here is a bit different. Let’s not beat around the bush: it’s rust.
Rust-ifying these trim pieces isn’t as simple as you might think. On the Defender, many of the pieces the company wants to make rusty are actually plastic and not ferric metal. In order to oxidize the parts, NVRD had to find a way to spray powdered metal onto a material like plastic and get it to adhere. Needless to say, it did that and offers oxidation as an option if you go for a ferric metal.
The company will also offer pretty much any metal you like—here comes the upper-crust, coachbuilt part. It offers “aluminium, brass, bronze, titanium, zinc or even gold,” so yeah, quite a few options. It can also control how much rust you actually get based on your preference. If you would just like some rust, the company can put a layer of sealant on the metal when you think your trim is oxidized enough. It’s sort of like choosing the level of pulp when buying orange juice. Actually, it’s not at all like that but I figured I would say it anyway.
How much does a little extra rust cost? Right around €1395, or $1,700 USD. That’s for all of the trim pieces in whatever finish you want. Actually not a terrible price. We’re just going to need a Land Rover to put them on. We’re, uhh… between Defenders right now.
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