Tuesday 7th January 2025

Raj Nair announced as new boss of Singer

Former Ford exec to head up Singer Vehicle Design leadership team

---

Singer Vehicle Design has announced that Raj Nair, best known for the 18 years he spent at Ford, is its new Chief Executive Officer. He will sit alongside Founder, Executive Chairman and Creative Director Rob Dickinson (that’s a big plaque on the desk) plus Chief Strategy Officer Mazen Fawaz on the Board of Directors. 

Nair’s most recent job was at Multimatic, where he was President and COO since May 2018. Having been instrumental in the creation and development of the last Ford GT, which was built by the firm in Canada, a role there made considerable sense following his time in Dearborn. He had been with the Blue Oval since 1987, working up from engineer to CTO and Product Development Vice Pres roles. 

His new job at Singer has been described as a ‘redefined CEO role focused on operational effectiveness; refining and amplifying Singer’s work of 15 years as the company moves into new areas of growth and global presence.’ With more than 450 commissions now built (and a quarter of Singer clients owning more than one), two facilities and in excess of 600 employees, SVD is now a very different company to the one that burst onto the SoCal classic Porsche scene 15 years ago. Once upon a time, the broader expertise of someone like Nair wasn’t strictly necessary; as Singer continues to expand, so he’s in ‘to drive excellence, company growth and operational effectiveness’.

Nair said of his new role: “I’ve watched from afar as Singer arrived on the automotive scene, defined a new sector and built a brand that has influenced the whole industry. My experience over more than 35 years has been all about making great cars and great companies even better and I’m tremendously excited about continuing that work at Singer.” As far as can be told Raj Nair’s work begins immediately; Singer being Singer, no doubt there’s something in the pipeline for him to sink his teeth into…

---

• 700hp Singer DLS Turbo pays homage to 934/5
• Singer Vehicle Design celebrates 300th restoration

[pacdes]

Is this Simon Cowell's new show?

[wistec1]

Could there be a wiff and prospect of a Porsche buy out in the future? Think Alpina.

[Jon_S_Rally]

One does have to wonder what Singer are going to do next. What comes next? As I understand it, they've stopped taking orders on the "Classic" model and, while they've got the turbo, I do wonder where they go from here. Do they have to move into 993s or even the 996-era cars? Do they start looking outside the Porsche brand? I love their work and, while the appetite for restored and modified 911s is clearly a big one, there is only so much you can do with modifying air-cooled 911s. They can do more specialised cars like the DLS, but the more special you go, the more expensive and low-volume you get. It feels to me like they're soon going to need a new "core" product like the Classic was.

[Familymad]

Just the wording of the announcement speaks to me they are heading off in the fluffy direction of failure. Shame, keep it small and reactive, keep it desirable and don’t bend to big auto thinking.

[Peterpetrole]

Familymad said:

Just the wording of the announcement speaks to me they are heading off in the fluffy direction of failure. Shame, keep it small and reactive, keep it desirable and don’t bend to big auto thinking.

Definitely. There will also be a load of disgruntled actual Singer workers beneath him now wondering what on earth he is for and why they are paying someone who's never held a spanner a fortune to swan off around the world networking.

[smilo996]

seems to have useful skills engineer, product developer, working with offshoots providing niche products.
Would guess Singer have realised they need to move to other restomods.

Obviously......

[anonymous-user]

I wonder about the sustainability of what is essentially a restomod company trying to move like this. Singer has done some incredible and really desirable work, but I believe we've reached a point where people are perhaps growing a little tired of seeing yet another reimagined 964. The DLS, ACS, and the Turbos were all very interesting, but it's hard for me to escape the feeling that Singer might be starting to overplay its hand in an inevitably diminishing market.

TLDR: A bit bored of Singer now

[rodericb]

Exasperated said:

I wonder about the sustainability of what is essentially a restomod company trying to move like this. Singer has done some incredible and really desirable work, but I believe we've reached a point where people are perhaps growing a little tired of seeing yet another reimagined 964. The DLS, ACS, and the Turbos were all very interesting, but it's hard for me to escape the feeling that Singer might be starting to overplay its hand in an inevitably diminishing market.

TLDR: A bit bored of Singer now

It'd be great to be a fly on the wall in there and see how how they are in terms of engineering to the dollar - that is, if they're extremely efficient and they're making absolutely shed loads of margin or if they're merely keeping viable. I think if it's the former then the next thing would be to make their own car. If the latter, then yeah there's only so many 964's to be reimagined.... They have done one or two other manufacturer cars haven't they?

[The Pistonsdead]

smilo996 said:

seems to have useful skills engineer, product developer, working with offshoots providing niche products.
Would guess Singer have realised they need to move to other restomods.

Obviously......

Plenty of options there....

[BrettMRC]

Singer 914, 924, 944, 928, 968 etc coming soon?

[stuckmojo]

It all sounds very corporate.

Is that a good thing?

[ntiz]

The whole Singer thing feels like it's getting bit big now.

Surely falling into the trap that they are going to need to constantly come up with new products now to justify the 2 factories and management staff.

Are there really that many people looking to blow million quid on the latest 911 resto mod indefinitely into the future.

You would think with a product like this they should have tried to keep it relatively small making a handful of very special cars a year at mega margins. Just run it as a tidy business.

Feels like someone has seen the initial profits with big margins and decided they want to scale up for more and more out of it.

Saying that why do they need 2 factories to build 450 cars over 15 years? iS there another part to the company?

On a wider note I wonder if the resto mod thing will go out of fashion at some point a bit like the wild modified cars of the 80s.

[WPA]

Jon_S_Rally said:

One does have to wonder what Singer are going to do next. What comes next? As I understand it, they've stopped taking orders on the "Classic" model and, while they've got the turbo, I do wonder where they go from here. Do they have to move into 993s or even the 996-era cars? Do they start looking outside the Porsche brand? I love their work and, while the appetite for restored and modified 911s is clearly a big one, there is only so much you can do with modifying air-cooled 911s. They can do more specialised cars like the DLS, but the more special you go, the more expensive and low-volume you get. It feels to me like they're soon going to need a new "core" product like the Classic was.

Agreed

[Tommo87]

It’s a cruel observation to make, but I wonder how many versions of the original press article were reviewed before settling on something that told us very little, but in as many words as possible.

I can see who has been appointed, and what his background is, but the rest is delightfully hazy…

[Supersaloons]

WPA said:

Jon_S_Rally said:

One does have to wonder what Singer are going to do next. What comes next? As I understand it, they've stopped taking orders on the "Classic" model and, while they've got the turbo, I do wonder where they go from here. Do they have to move into 993s or even the 996-era cars? Do they start looking outside the Porsche brand? I love their work and, while the appetite for restored and modified 911s is clearly a big one, there is only so much you can do with modifying air-cooled 911s. They can do more specialised cars like the DLS, but the more special you go, the more expensive and low-volume you get. It feels to me like they're soon going to need a new "core" product like the Classic was.

Agreed

Same here, very nice reimagined product but hardly to be called original. Singer is not creating unique products, they use the most popular sportscar ever and apply their own little take on designdetails which they execute in the best possbile way one can imagine ;-0, thats it. I do respect their effort and entrepeneurship while defining a new subculture but don't see how ths is a sustainable businessmodel for the long term.

[griffdude]

Looking forward to seeing him in the Woodford Halse Coop getting his lunch🤣

[anonymous-user]

Supersaloons said:

Same here, very nice reimagined product but hardly to be called original. Singer is not creating unique products, they use the most popular sportscar ever and apply their own little take on designdetails which they execute in the best possbile way one can imagine ;-0, thats it. I do respect their effort and entrepeneurship while defining a new subculture but don't see how ths is a sustainable businessmodel for the long term.

And let's not forget that every single Singer produced makes every Singer slightly less special, and when you're selling something special, that seems like a doomed path.

[BOR]

600 employees? I always imagined 10 or 12.

That's amazing for the tiny volume of cars they do up.

Well, I love what they do and hope they can keep it going one way or the other.

Plenty of OEMs could do worse than employing Singer to do some makeovers for them.

[unpc]

stuckmojo said:

It all sounds very corporate.

Is that a good thing?

No

The corporatisation of company like this will be their undoing IMO unless they're looking to sell to an OEM. 600 odd employees is nuts too for their output so i do wonder what their profit margin is like. I work in a not too dissimilar company and our output is far higher with a lot less people.

[Nobody13]

BrettMRC said:

Singer 914, 924, 944, 928, 968 etc coming soon?

I agree this may be the way they have to go, but would depend at what price point and would someone be willing to spend £1M on a restomod 911 when you could have a Singer restomod [insert another Porsche model number] for much less.

I think worrying times for fans and owners of Singer 911s.