Urban Automotive and rise of bespoke modification – is it the ultimate way to drive the luxury car of your dreams?

For well-heeled motorists with money to burn and an itch to be individual, luxury car modification provides the perfect opportunity to drive something completely unique.

And in the UK, there’s one custom firm the rich and famous are flocking to for head-turning bespoke motors: Urban Automotive.

We were shown around Urban’s headquarters in Milton Keynes by founder and chief executive Simon Dearn to see first-hand why the likes of reality TV star Scott Disick, pop singer Olly Murs and football stars from the Premier League are falling for Urban’s ‘OEM Plus’ offerings.

‘There’s a stigma on modifications that I want to remove’, Simon – who’s also lead designer – explains as he takes us on a tour of the sparkling and minimalist Urban HQ.

While ‘modification’ might make Britons shudder at the memory of Paris Hilton’s rhinestone-bedazzled pink Bentley Continental GT and Katie Price’s Barbie-spec Range Rover, this isn’t Simon’s approach.

Urban wants its customers to drive custom cars that stand out in a way that’s sympathetic to the original design, with every modified motor hand-assembled in the UK. 

And the attention to detail is evident on the flanks of Urban cars dominating the white showroom, where bespoke Range Rovers and new Defenders are interwoven with gleaming one-of-a-kind Rolls-Royces.

During our visit, Urban’s 91-person team is currently working on a ‘classic’ Defender 110.

It’s a fortuitous full circle moment, given that the pre-2016 ‘roots’ Defenders were the cars that originally put the Milton Keynes company on the map.

Having spent years on the consumer side of the fence, no-one was satisfying Simon’s desire for tasteful, discrete modifications and aftermarket options, so he decided to pack in 20 years in IT and create the ‘OEM Plus’ mantra.

Spotting a gap in the market for turning the agricultural 4×4 into an ‘Urban Truck’ with city-based styling, Simon’s decision to beef-up the Defender around the same time Land Rover announced the end of the icon’s production in 2013 catapulted Urban from driveway startup into mainstream media and swanky business premises.

This particular Defender is owned by none other than chart-topping singer and presenter Olly Murs.

 It’s being dismantled before it gets a black floating roofline, gloss black parts, suspension and interior options added – taking it from agricultural to aggressive.

And in an old-meets-new contrast just next door is a ready-to-drive new Defender – another huge success story for Urban.

With the New Land Rover Defender L663, Urban’s just celebrated the milestone of 3,000 modifications and 2,500 Widetrack kits sold worldwide.

Defender customers tend to appeal to customer conversion clients who’ll already own the car and want Urban to add anything from one spoiler to a whole conversion. 

Defenders are incredibly popular – and fall on the tamer side of Urban’s modification spectrum. 

Less tame are the celebrity cars.

When LA comes calling it usually means muted options and black and grey paint choices are thrown out the window.

There’s definitely not going to be a dull upgrade for Little Mix’s Jesy Nelson, who’s G-Wagon was one of the most vibrant examples in action in Urban.

‘We’ve built the outside including, bonnet, lights and custom exhaust with every part made by hand across our five sites. It’s currently going through the interior gutting and re-build.’

‘The theme’s a dedication to Hermes: We’re doing an orange ceiling, orange dash, orange steering wheel – it’s orange, orange. While a new Defender will take two or three day’s Jesy’s car will take around four weeks because of the interior’, Simon tells us.

Celebrities might part with large sums of cash for a bespoke Urban, but the renown and brand acceptance they provide that can be invaluable.

All it takes is for one footballer to clock Marcus Rashford’s Urban Range Rover in the training ground and the Premier League comes calling.

Keeping up with the Car-dashians: How Urban broke America

Urban isn’t just well known on these shores – it’s broken the US too. 

Reality TV personality Scott Disick – who emerged on the scene in blockbuster Keeping up with the Kardashians series – is a large reason why the brand is known across the Atlantic. 

On the Urban homepage is Disick’s one-of-one Rolls-Royce Widebody Cullinan – a happy 40th birthday present to himself.

So blown away with his Cullinan, Scott’s looking to make the Rolls-Royce Ghost (Urban’s most recent unveil) part of a twinset on his Calabasas driveway.

It only takes Scott ‘gassing’ over the Cullinan and it’s forged car body kit to Simon on Urban’s YouTube channel, and a lot of traction is generated.

‘We sold a fair few Cullinan kits from that. […] Our approach is to say to people that we’d love to do some media with you and use your name and we’ll give you a discount, but there’s nothing contractual’.

Clever collaborations with other automotive businesses are another reason for Urban’s success: Performance wheels are designed by Urban and made in partnership with Vossen while Yiannimize industry-leading wrapping is now based at Urban HQ.

Urban also hand-makes its world-leading carbon fibre in-house in a 19,000 square foot purpose-built production space, where thousands of man and machine hours are put into the CAD based design and manufacturing process.

But with bold designs and big success comes haters, and that’s not just in the form of ‘purists’: Simon makes no qualms about admitting most manufacturers don’t appreciate Urban stepping on their turf. 

‘Dealer groups do like us – we’re there to buy vehicles and we do our best to adhere to the rules. 

‘We do our due diligence to customers, and we toe the line when it comes to non-exporters, but manufacturers don’t like us’.

Yet Urban has had progressive collaboration from one manufacturer – the new 4×4 brand Ineos Automotive. 

The Land Rover disruptor off-roader brand owned by petrochemical billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe has been unusually forward-thinking.

Head of Marketing, Thom Bateman, is full of praise for Ineos’ collaboration on Urban’s Grenadier modifier programme, with the manufacturer lending Urban a vehicle for mapping the upcoming Grenadier kit.

Taking advantage of the booming luxury car market

Whether a skeptic or a convert, the rigorous Urban build process prides itself on being OEM level as Simon clarifies each car goes through multiple rounds of quality control (QC).

‘From weave checks to body shop, to installation, and final QC – there are so many stages someone can pick up if something’s wrong. Then its road tested before being fully signed off,’ he explained.

‘Our processes are stringent – the brand’s high level and quality speaks for itself.’

When you look at the value of the bespoke and luxury car market, jealous competition from manufacturers makes more sense.

By 2031 McKinsey expects the mainstream car market to have little to no growth. The luxury car market by contrast is predicted to grow between eight and 14 per cent annually during the same period.

The growth of all the four luxury segments – vehicles priced from £63,000 to £392,000 and above – is driven by the continued increase of ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNWIs) who have £24million and above in investable assets, and high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) who have £785k to £24m in investable assets.

Entering in the third highest luxury segment is the most expensive Urban build currently available to buy direct from the website and drive away today – a Mercedes AMG G 63 4Matic coming in at a cool £234,975.

Even if the buyer has already purchased their car before they come calling to Urban, they’ll likely have already spent at least £100-to-£150,000 on their vehicle of choice. It could easily be double that.

But off-the-lot modification isn’t enough for a growing number of motorists with this kind of net worth – it’s the bespoke 1-of-1 market where the big money is really spent.

In 2018, Torsten Müller-Ötvös, chief executive of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars revealed that 90 per cent of all Rolls-Royce cars sold are personalised to a level that equates to them being one-offs.

Bugatti’s Sur Mesure programme offers total customisation, sometimes taking years, while Lamborghini’s Ad Personam customisation programme gives customers a chance to create their own personal Lambo. And these are just a few variants on OEM luxury bespoke offerings.

According to Simon, these are the kind of customers who want the entire journey to be handled by Urban: ‘They ask us to pre-order their car for them to their exact spec wishes and then we’ll add on our parts too’.

And thanks to HNWIs and UHNWIs, bespoke modification is a pretty future-proof model with margins that are much more enticing than mass market car manufacturers’.

‘We can write the margin into the car which gives us breathing space if the market changes. Say the car’s £120k retail, then plus our parts it’s £150k – we’ve written some security into that car to get us out of it if we need to’. 

With McKinsey calling luxury ‘ultraprofitable’ and the ability for luxury vehicles to ‘generate outsize margin numbers’, it’s not surprising that Urban’s 2,231 per cent growth in turnover since year one would make many manufacturers guard their patch.

So, what does the future of bespoke look like?

Urban’s now modifying 1,000 vehicles a year. ‘It just doesn’t stop’ – a good position to be in as Simon says.

Urban’s just finished the Range Rover Sport programme. 

Currently it’s juggling the Grenadier package (which will be similar to the Defender kit), as well as the facelifted G-Wagon and the Mercedes EQG.

Another electric vehicle (EV) the Rolls-Royce Spectre is going on behind the scenes too.

The release of two EVs adds to Urban’s Mercedes EQC, Tesla Model 3, X and S catalogue – there are far fewer Urban EVs than gas-guzzling builds on offer. This is due in part to the fact that modifying EVs is much harder because of the smooth lines and aerodynamic features, something Simon explained to CEOcast in 2022.

But electric enthusiasts will be happy to see Urban continue to take on the EV challenge with two big-ticket EVs.

Predictions and potential customisation trends for 2024 and beyond include flat face alloys, bold interiors (Jesy Nelson-esque), pastel wraps and increased use of carbon fibre. 

With more adventurous looks coming through, expect to spot an Urban on a road near you this year.

This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk