Like the company bearing his name, Afzal Kahn has a somewhat divisive image here on PH. Well, perhaps not that divisive. People seem pretty united in their opinions about the firm's styling packages for Range Rovers under the Project Kahn brand, the Chelsea Truck Company
Defenders
, G-Classes and Wranglers and the standalone projects like the Aston Martin DB9-based Vengeance. The people who buy them don't come off much better either. For Kahn and his customers cars are statements, and not ones to be made quietly.
Weren't expecting this, were you?
Much of the stuff parked up outside Kahn's Bradford HQ isn't to what I'd call my taste. Far from it. But aren't we all out to say something with our cars? Whether you're putting S Line alloys on your A6 TDI to make it look like an RS6 or - flipping the idea on its head - debadging an RS6 to make it look like a TDI you're projecting something about your personality to your fellow road users. And the stronger the statement the stronger the response, for better or worse. That curious British relationship with class, money, success and the way they're expressed also plays a big part.
I write having popped by Kahn's Bradford HQ yesterday to see what's what. And I have to say, once you get past the line of matt black Chelsea Truck Company Defenders outside, you find some surprising things. First being the foyer full of Ferraris - a 328 GTS (OK, two...) and a 550 Maranello. And an old Rolls-Royce - a 1951 Silver Dawn indeed. Upstairs on the mezzanine the showroom is headed by three 512 TRs, with a 512 M at the back and more 550s, 575s and 355s along both sides. There's a stunning Ruf flatnose, a Pagoda SL, a Lamborghini Diablo and an Aston Martin Virage too. Proper tyre-kicking heaven however you cut it.
Centre-stage is the Kahn Vengeance, the coachbuilt DB9 Kahn is creating out of cars supplied directly by Aston Martin. Contrast this with the £600K asked for the Aston-alike (but Jaguar based) David Brown Speedback GT and all of a sudden Kahn's vision looks a little less crazy. It also helps that this particular car has a colour coded grille, taking some of the 'heat' out of the look. Whisper it, I actually think it looks rather good in the way some of the more unapologetic Aston Martin specials built by the factory and Zagato have done. At this point Kahn himself pops out and says it would have been easier to do what Zagato has done with the Vanquish and use carbon fibre but he wanted a more traditional metal-bodied car. I'm hoping to get the car out on the road soon to find how it goes - and looks - in the real world.
Downstairs in the workshop I get a look around a Chelsea Truck Company Wrangler with the full
Black Hawk
body package applied. It's a bit silly really. But, you know what, it kind of works. Because a Wrangler isn't a vehicle you buy for any reason other than liking the way it looks. And it follows that if you like the way it looks the idea of making it more so probably appeals. So it proves and a quarter of the cars Jeep brings to the UK pass through Chelsea Truck Company for some embellishments. Maybe I'm feeling the influence of my four-year-old and his love of 'bouncy trucks' but there's a cartoonish sense of fun, underpinned by some very serious and successful business.
Fair play to 'em I say. Or have I lost the plot entirely?