We Won’t Do Hybrids Or EVs, Says Company Behind Ferrari 355 Restomod And New Ford RS200

Something increasingly defining parts of the automotive landscape is nostalgia. As a whole variety of factors conflate to make cars ever more homogenous and – let’s be honest – dull, the industry is looking more and more to the past to help produce cars that actually excite people.

It’s something we’re seeing from big companies and boutique manufacturers alike. Take Ford, which has recently given newcomer Boreham Motorworks the green light to create new, low-volume versions of the RS200 and Mk1 Escort, with more heritage reimaginings to come.

Approaching things another way is Evoluto, a recent arrival to the ever-swelling ranks of restomodders, which is producing a carbon-bodied, 420bhp modernisation of the Ferrari F355. What you might not have realised unless you’ve done some digging on Companies House is that these two firms – Boreham and Evoluto – are united under one overarching brand, DRVN Automotive – and there’s likely more to come.

During the Goodwood Festival of Speed, we sat down with DRVN’s CEO Iain Muir to find out a little bit more about the 355, and where the company might head next.

DRVN – pronounced ‘driven’, in case you were in any doubt – is the brainchild of chairman, businessman and prolific car collector Darren McDermott, Iain explains. “[Darren] set a target for us to go and build an infrastructure of businesses which were capable of remastering some of the most iconic cars from history, with a focus on ‘peak analogue’.”

That’s a term that crops up a lot in the material around the 355 by Evoluto. “We’re looking at that visceral experience of driving, and the things that made us all fall in love with cars in the first instance. [We’re] trying to minimise driver aids, focus on manual gearboxes, petrol engines, and that experience of driving.”

Sounds like a noble aim to us, and what we’ve seen so far is promising. Evoluto is a sub-brand created specifically to rework Italian cars, although it’s tight-lipped on its plans beyond the 55 355 restomods it plans to create.

Why that car in particular to kick things off? “It’s such an iconic car,” says Iain. “It’s a beautiful car, that V8 engine is one of the best-sounding V8s ever, so it’s such a great canvas to start with. What we wanted to do was some sympathetic enhancements, bring some 21st-century engineering into the vehicle.”

Visually, those enhancements were handled by Ian Callum, the much-lauded ex-Aston Martin and Jaguar designer who now runs his own design consultancy. “He’s one of the greatest car designers of all time,” says Iain. “He worked very closely with Darren… I think he’s done it very sympathetically.”

Everything else, though, has been done by DRVN’s Advanced Engineering division, and done thoroughly – over 200 new components in the engine alone, lifting power from the 355’s glorious 3.5-litre V8 to 415bhp, and a full carbon body keeping weight down to around 1250kg.

Naturally, given DRVN’s remit, the 355’s open-gated manual gearbox is pride of place on the interior. The company will happily manual-swap a car originally fitted with the clunky ‘F1’ semi-auto ’box, but if you want the full Evoluto treatment with paddles, you’re probably out of luck, says Iain: “We’re focusing on that manual gearbox. It’s one of the things that made the car pretty special… it’s fully refurbished, it’s got a great feel to it, and that’s something we want to celebrate.”

The 355 is just the first full product we’ve seen from DRVN’s portfolio of brands, which also includes air filter manufacturer ITG and Koenigsegg’s London dealership. What’s caused just as much of a stir is the announcement that another of its companies, Boreham Motorworks, has official backing from Ford to rework a selection of its iconic classic performance vehicles.

We don’t know much about this programme beyond the fact that it’ll begin with reimaginings of the Mk1 Escort and RS200 Group B rally car. The company’s not giving any hints on what might follow these. Iain, though, says two of his childhood favourite cars that he’d love to see reworked are the Mk1 Volkswagen Golf GTI and the Mk2 Ford Escort RS1800. He doesn’t duck away from the suggestion that he now has an outlet for at least one of them.

Technical details of these new Fords are still very much under wraps too, although when the RS200 and Escort were announced, certain corners of the internet huffily assumed they’d be electric. What does Iain have to say about this? “One thing I can tell you about the DRVN group is there’ll be no hybrid, there’ll be no electric. It’ll all be fire-breathing petrol engines.” This, we suspect, is a sentiment that rather a lot of people will get behind. But then that’s the power of nostalgia.