© Rico Mols / Apex One Agency
Automotive | Product designer | Coachbuilding
Niels van Roij
Niels van Roij runs an award-winning and eponymous automotive design studio, which specializes in coachbuilding: designing and building completely custom made cars.
Languages:
Employability:
Keynote Speaker,Keynote spreker
Employability:
Keynote Speaker,Keynote spreker,
About Niels van Roij
Niels van Roij is a leading Dutch car designer and founder of the award-winning Niels van Roij Design, based in Uden, the Netherlands. After more than ten years of design experience in London, including contributions to projects for Volvo, Ford, Car Design Research, the Helen Hamlyn Centre For Design and the Future London Taxi for Karsan, he returned to the Netherlands to focus on coachbuilding: designing and making fully bespoke, hand-crafted cars based on existing automobiles.
His studio develops exclusive one-off cars such as the Shooting Brake based on a Tesla Model S, Adventum Coupé on a Range Rover chassis, Silver Spectre Shooting Brake on a Rolls-Royce base and the provocative Breadvan Hommage, inspired by the legendary Italian V12 race car.
Each coachbuilding project is a collaboration between the Niels van Roij Design designers and clients (co-design), where months of intensive design research, experimenting with materials such as wood, metal, leather, aluminium and refining every detail — from rubber colour to teak in interiors — culminate in the design of a car.
In addition to practical work, Niels gives keynotes, masterclasses and theatre lectures worldwide on car design, innovation, technology and inclusive design. He regularly appears as a guest lecturer at various academies and universities in the Netherlands and abroad. His work has been exhibited in prestigious institutions such as the London Transport Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum. He also presented his vision at the 10 Downing Street Design Summit.
Niels is known for his passion for the human aspect of design. He uses a holistic and critical approach, in which design serves as a strategy of seduction and innovation. His lectures combine theory, practice and entertainment. An example is the theatre lecture “Blik op Wielen” (“A View On Wheels”), in which he, together with presenter Bas van Werven, explored the essence of car design in an interactive way.
Niels van Roij has an enthusiastic style, rich visuals in photography and video and in-depth structure. Niels brings two ingredients in any case: hard facts and a healthy dose of humor.
We build dreams – every line tells the story of the customer
Specialist Subjects
Videos
“Get him in, point him at the opportunity and benefit from the collaboration, I highly recommend Jacob!”
“Get him in, point him at the opportunity and benefit from the collaboration, I highly recommend Jacob!”
References
A wealth of insight and USPs to offer
Niels managed to inspire our Peugeot Scooter dealers with a new image of design. In four sessions spread over the day, he took around 200 dealers into the world of automotive design. With his beautiful, carefully chosen visuals and words, Niels extensively and inspiringly highlighted the brand value of Peugeot and Peugeot scooters in particular. With this, we Moteo Nederland BV, as an independent Peugeot scooter importer for the Netherlands, were able to offer the dealer a wealth of insight and USPs. In our special Peugeot magazine E#MOTION, published in the four countries in which Moteo Groupe NV is active, Niels provided an article in which his structure and inspiring words can be read again. I enjoyed working with Niels on the preparations and our dealer sessions Marketing and More.
Everything went well.
Niels was there on time and stayed for a long time to talk to our customers. We were very satisfied.
A very interesting story
A select group of Renova customers attended an exclusive Masterclass Automotive Design by Niels van Roij on January 28th. A very interesting story about the brand DNA of both Rolls-Royce and BMW. Our customers and we were very impressed and are looking forward to the next session!
A beautiful and complete picture of the how and what of ‘design’
On February 4, Niels gave the presentation and workshop Masterclass Automotive Design to a group of entrepreneurs. His style is very enthusiastic and his involvement in the subject, 'design from DNA to result', gives a beautiful and complete picture of the how and what of ‘design’. He presents the meaning of this using all kinds of designs that we encounter in daily life. Niels approaches this holistically and shows all kinds of examples to emphasize why good design is not an option but a necessity - in doing so he also emphasizes how design influences our thinking and doing. In short, a beautiful presentation that offers you insight and opening into the world of ‘design’ in general and in the automotive world in particular.