Coachbuilding Returns To Form

From a legacy marque to boutique independents, these automotive art houses are shaping a new era of custom bodywork.

- Basem Wasef, Tim Pitt

AHEAD OF THE CURVE Icon 4x4

Back in 1996, Jonathan Ward anticipated the demand for meticulously restored Toyota Land Cruisers when he founded TLC4X4 along with his wife, Jamie. His Los Angeles-based Icon 4x4, launched a decade later, was similarly early to the spare-no-expense restomod market, predating a number of high-profile outfits including Singer Vehicle Design. Which might suggest a man keenly attuned to trends, yet the 53-year-old former actor insists the business was sparked by a simple case of creative restlessness. "I sequestered (with) a key employee in a 1,200-sq-ft part of our old shop in Van Nuys, locked the door and played killer music," Ward recalls. With the goal of working a nagging idea out of his head, he transformed a Toyota FJ40 into a rigorously executed and exquisitely detailed postmodern take on the workaday sport ute.

The passion project succeeded at blowing off steam but left him emotionally and financially depleted. He asked his mentor, former Gap CEO Mickey Drexler, whether it was better to market his creation as a one-off or dumb down the process and manufacture for the masses. Drexler urged Ward to stick to his original instinct with a pep talk straight out of Field of Dreams: “If you build it,” he said, “they will come.”

Perhaps to prove himself correct, when the first Icon was eventually built, Drexler bought it. But the sale was followed by commissions from David Letterman, and it soon became clear that Ward had once again understood a nascent demand. “There were lots of people who wanted the personality, the function, the charm, the design character, the individuality (of a classic) but had no patience for the martyrdom that goes with vintage cars,” Ward explains.