‘Henry II’ is a one-off Rolls-Royce Corniche shooting brake

A company in the Netherlands has completely stripped, dismantled, and torn down a classic Rolls-Royce Corniche. Fear not! The owner asked this company to do so, because said owner wanted something really bespoke and also really cool.

And lo, meet ‘Henry II’. It’s a 1981 Rolls-Royce Corniche refashioned into a shooting brake by shooting brake enthusiasts Neils van Roij Design.

“This car had been in the one family for more than four decades,” said NVRD boss Neils van Roij. “Coming to us, he said ‘Henry is showing his age a little bit, and he needs some restoration. But while we are doing that, I would also like to undertake some alterations to make Henry a bit more mine’.”

The ‘bit more mine’, um, bit refers to the owner desiring the coolest bodyshape of all. Once van Roij and his team had decided on how to incorporate the owner’s bikes and the need to fold the rear seats down flush to use it primarily as a two-seater (cut a massive hole in the boot floor, move the fuel tank, add an electrically extendable rear bike rack), they could get to work making it cool.

The team sketched ‘hundreds’ of designs first by hand, and then used CAD to determine the correct lines. “We were determined that our work remained intrinsically true to and fully respectful of the timeless, sumptuous lines crafted by the designers in the late 1960s,” said van Roij.

Everything from the B-pillar backwards has, as you can see, been ‘extensively reworked’. The original steel rear wings were kept, but fully refurbished. The new roofline and wider C-pillars were built by hand using steel and formed via wooden bucks. New brightwork was also added.

Naturally, the NVRD team gave the rest of the car a good going over, right down to sourcing the correct wood colour to match the original dash… whose wood was drawn from a tree cut down more than 40 years ago. There’s tweed and beige leather adorning the redesigned seats, along with lambswool mats and other bespoke detailing.

There’s also a handcrafted and redesigned centre stack featuring a Brantz rally meter, while a map reading light now resides in the headliner, along with a map pocket between the seats and even a fold-down wooden panel to store pens.

Why? Because the owner is actually going to use this Roller in historic rallies, like the Raid from Switzerland, Baiersbronn Classic, and the British Classic Car Meeting in St Moritz. Very cool.