Coachbuilder Bakes A Modern-Day, One-Off Ferrari Breadvan

The coachbuilders over at Niels van Roij Design have revealed their take on the famous 1962 Ferrari 250 GT SWB “Breadvan”. Called the Breadvan Hommage, it is based on a Ferrari 550 Maranello and is a project that was a long time coming.

The original Breadvan was created as a one-off to take the fight to Ferrari’s 250 GTO at Le Mans back in 1962, and its nickname comes from its Kamm tail. The car was commissioned by Giovanni Volpi of the Scuderia Serenissima racing team and was designed by engineer Giotto Bizzarrini based on a modified 250 GT SWB Berlinetta.

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The Breadvan Hommage is also a one-off, ordered by an unnamed customer after he saw an original Breadvan racing at Goodwood. Pricing wasn’t mentioned, but we suspect it’s not cheap, given the extensive customization the London-based coachbuilders have done to the car. The Breadvan Hommage was designed and overseen by Niels van Roij himself, whose notable projects include the Tesla Model S Shooting Brake, Range Rover Adventum Coupe, and Rolls-Royce Silver Spectre Shooting Brake.

As for why they chose the 550 Maranello as a donor car, van Roij said they wanted to stick to the original formula of using a GT car as a base and the 550 was the first front-engined, V12 manual Ferrari GT since the Daytona. However, he says that where his project differs from the original is in its purpose. While the Breadvan was a GT car converted to race-spec with a function over form attitude, the Hommage is supposed to be mainly an exercise in design. As such, it retains most of the 550 Maranello’s GT character, and the only feature directly replicated from the original Breadvan is the Kamm tail’s angle, as that’s what makes the Breadvan what it is.

That’s not to say that this is just a body kit, as every aspect of the exterior has in fact been modified or replaced, save for the windshield, which was retained so it could be easily replaced. The process of making the bodywork was done in a series of steps, from sketching, to making frameworks, to full-size size clay models. Only after all that was done could the coachbuilders start working on the car’s hand-beaten aluminum body panels.

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Some notable exterior features hearkening back to the original Breadvan are the gills on the car’s sides, the clear bubble over the engine and of course, the Kamm tail. Regarding that rear end, you won’t be seeing any awkward cut lines, as it was crafted into one continuous aluminum shell. Incredibly, even with all the extra bodywork, the car’s weight is actually thought to have dropped slightly from the original 550 Maranello’s 3,783 lbs (1,716 kg).

Moreover, the car gets a set of bespoke race-spec Koni shocks, as well as a custom-made exhaust system that mimics the look of the original Breadvan’s. The engine, on the other hand, remains largely the same, but frankly, there’s not much we’d want change about it in the first place, as it produces a respectable 478 hp (485 PS / 357 kW) and 419 lb-ft (568 Nm) of torque from its naturally aspirated V12.

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Lastly, for the interior, the Hommage’s carbon fiber bucket seats were finished with blue Alcantara and feature the silhouette of the original Breadvan embroidered in the headrests. The door panels feature the same hand-beaten treatment as the exterior, while the lower door cards are finished in quilted leather along with much of the rest of the interior. Sitting along with the silver-inlaid monogrammed dials is milled aluminum switchgear in place of the Maranello’s original plastic.