KAHN® Coachbuilding: Three Decades of British Craft
Aug 21, 2026
Three decades of hand-formed metal, extended chassis and one-off vehicles, designed and built in Britain. And one more about to land.
What coachbuilding actually means here
Coachbuilding is not a styling package. It is modifying the chassis, forming new panels by hand, and returning a vehicle to the road as something the factory never made. It takes years to learn and it cannot be rushed.
Every vehicle below was drawn, prototyped and built in the UK by our own team, in very limited numbers.
The Vengeance
Afzal Kahn's coachbuilt Aston Martin, and the clearest statement of what the studio can do.
Built on Aston Martin's bonded aluminium and composite VH platform, the Vengeance carries an entirely new body in hammer-formed aluminium. Widened front wings, doors, C-pillars and rear wings. A sculpted bonnet with a central bulge. A chrome roof halo, a redefined roofline, a bespoke rear bumper and a crosshair exhaust system designed specifically for the car.
The reference points were the wide-body Astons of the 1980s and 90s, the Vanquish and the V600 Vantage. The execution was pure modern coachbuilding.
It was built as a Coupe and as a Volante roadster, and it earned KAHN the 2015 Birmingham Made Me award for Best Newcomer to the West Midlands for Design and Innovation, in recognition of investment in British manufacturing.
Ferrari GTC4 Grand Edition
First sketched in 2019. Hand-crafted front wings drawn from the 1957 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa, headlight apertures referencing the Monza SP2, a new grille, driving lights and bumper, and bespoke forged wheels at 20 inches front and 21 rear. British coachbuilding applied to a Ferrari shooting brake.
Flying Huntsman
The Flying Huntsman, the coachbuilding arm of Chelsea Truck Co., took the Classic Land Rover Defender apart and rebuilt it at a scale nobody else was attempting.
6x6
The chassis extended 880mm to the rear, with a switchable third axle giving genuine six-wheel drive. A 6.2 litre General Motors LS3 V8 producing an estimated 430bhp, through a six-speed automatic. Hand-formed aluminium bodywork, a two-inch suspension lift, wide arches and a rear roll bar.
It debuted at the Geneva Motor Show in 2016 and became one of the most recognised British 4x4s of the decade. It was built as a pickup, as a civilian station wagon, and as a 6x6 Longnose.
105 Longnose
An extra 400mm of bodywork ahead of the windscreen, which changes the proportion of the vehicle completely. Widened front and rear wings with integrated vents, extended arches, bonnet vents, an X-Lander grille, shadow chrome headlamps and TRON ring bumper lighting. Same LS3 V8, same six-speed automatic, a stainless twin crosshair exhaust and an aluminium sump guard.
Built as a station wagon, a pickup and a widebody.
Homage II
An elongated '98 chassis with lengthened front fenders, an SVX-style soft top and a custom split-screen windscreen. Front lighting reconfigured to echo the Series 2. Hand-formed aluminium panels, stainless grille, bumper and exhaust, 1984 Heritage steel wheels.
Inside, a bespoke leather cabin with a hand-crafted wooden steering wheel and milled aluminium shifters. Built to carry the spirit of the original Defender rather than imitate it.
Beyond Coachbuilding
INEOS Grandmaster
The INEOS Grenadier reworked in exposed carbon fibre, with a Dakar central lamp grille, 40mm carbon arches, an F1-inspired roof light and a full Italian Nappa leather cabin in Volcanic Blue. One of several Grenadier programmes alongside the Heritage Remastered and Series II Expedition builds.
KAHN® Café Racer
Unveiled in 2014. A V2 motorcycle with hand-cut racing seats, machined handlebars, bespoke dials and signature lighting, built to order with a European partner. Under four seconds to 60mph, over 160mph, and at launch the only motorcycle in the world compliant with EURO4 emissions.
And the rest of the archive
Browse our Collection of Legacy Car Builds HERE
Coming next: the Flying Huntsman 90 Spyder
Everything above is history. This one is not.
The Flying Huntsman 90 Spyder takes the current generation Defender 90 and removes its roof properly, the way it would have been done in the golden age of British coachbuilding. The factory roof is replaced with a hard-wearing canvas top that stows into an elegantly designed cowl, turning the car into an open two-seat grand tourer without losing the storage of a standard 90.
The panels are hammer-formed by hand in lightweight NS3-grade aluminium, using traditional methods, in Coventry.
Each car takes around six months to build. Production is limited to eight per year, individually numbered. Wheels are fully forged and designed by KAHN® to the owner's taste, including genuine one of one commissions.
It is the first vehicle from the reopened studio, and it sets the standard for what follows.
We are opening the studio again
The Spyder is not a one-off. We are reopening our design studio to take on coachbuilding and manufacturing projects of this kind, and to work with others who want to build.
British automotive design and engineering once set the benchmark for the world. Much of that industrial capability has since moved overseas, and the market has changed faster still. Chinese manufacturers have expanded into the United Kingdom and Europe at extraordinary speed, backed by scale, investment and ambition, and are now moving decisively into the premium and luxury segments that British marques have long regarded as their own.
They did not arrive by accident. They arrived because they built, at pace, while a great deal of Europe deliberated.
The skills behind every vehicle on this page take years to build and moments to lose. Panel forming, tooling, leatherwork, and the eye of a designer who knows when a line is right.
Afzal Kahn's position is that the answer is not complaint, and not nostalgia.
"We cannot complain about new competitors entering our market while standing still ourselves. The answer is to become more innovative, more ambitious and more united."
"Britain has never lacked talent or ideas. What we have lacked is the willingness to bring those ideas together, invest in them, and turn them into products that can compete on a global stage."
"The skills we are talking about live in people, not in archives. If a generation retires without passing them on, they are gone, and no amount of funding brings them back. That is a decade's window, not a century's."
"I have spent thirty five years learning what works, what does not, where the opportunities are, and how quickly this landscape can change. I now want to put that experience to work for the wider industry."
His message is simple. Britain needs to start creating again.
We are not saying yet what comes after the Spyder. What we will say is that everything on this page was made by the same team, in the same studio, using the same methods, and the next chapter is already on the drawing board.
If you are a manufacturer, an engineer, an investor or a brand with real ambition, we would like to hear from you.
Create. Don't imitate.
KAHN®. Born to Disrupt.
Albert Bridge | Cheyne Walk, Chelsea | SW3 5HX
+44 (0)207 751 4555
kahn@kahndesign.com
