I don't know about you, but I kind of "hate" when an ad works on me.
I feel like I am "immune" to them, and that they only work to "fish the unsuspecting".
But in this case it's different, and I am happy it caught my attention. I would not have known about this event otherwise.
Welcome to Wheels Mariënwaerdt 2025.
But what is Wheels Mariënwaerdt?
That is a great question, my friend.
I was always bummed about "all the cool car events on this side of the world being in the UK" but internally I knew that the problem was my lack of knowledge or exposure to the Dutch automotive culture.
I have a ton of social media friends from the UK, and many less so here in NL.
This leads me to understandably "get to know" much more about these kind of events in the UK than here, but I'm trying to change that and get to know more about the local events too.
Wheels Mariënwaerdt is fundamentally a Concours d'Elegance for classic cars, and then they have a varied offer around that.
Car releases
Brand stands
Club gatherings
Used books sales
Used classic car sales
Anniversary celebrations
and more.
All throughout a 3 day event that's very well organised.
In my mind this was like a "Baby Goodwood Festival of Speed" and even if not 100% correct, I would say it gets quite close!
I'll tackle the topics above in different chapters, so let's go with the first one.
Chapter 1: Car presentations
Bugatti Brouilliard
Let's get the painful part out of the way first.
Due to my own ignorance, I was present at a world premiere and didn't know about it.
The 1 of 1 Bugatti Brouilliard was introduced to the public at this very event, and the only picture I got of it was this one with the car covered up.
To be fair, I really like the photo, especially because of the silhouette and the nice cover (opposite to an ugly rain cover, for example).
Why did this happen? Because:
I was too early at the event, so the car was not yet presented.
I saw a modern Bugatti covered and was distracted by all the classics around.
Didn't actually know about how special it was or anything.
This is where I felt the event fell a bit short from my media visit at the Goodwood Festival of Speed 2024.
I went there as media for Motor1 Argentina, since I had written for them a while back.
When I did that, I got media press releases online, and also when I got there.
My invitation to Wheels Mariënwaerdt 2025 was a very proud moment for me (Thanks Charlie!), since it was the first time I got invited as media for Creating Lightly/The Living Cars newsletter.
That itself was already huge.
Unfortunately, this was not accompanied by a media kit of any kind, neither online nor on site.
I asked about that when I showed my ticket at the gate, to see if there was a media section, but the person there could not direct me to one, which might mean there was not one.
It would be very nice to see this on 2026 (and I hope I can be there!).
If you want to see (and read) more about the Bugatti Brouilliard launch, please check this article with beautiful photography by the great Rudolf van der Ven.
Niels van Roij Design
Another debut, this time by Niels van Roij Design.
You might know their work from previous coachbuilt cars, like the Silver Spectre Shooting Brake (Rolls Royce), the Henry II Shooting Brake (Corniche with an embedded bike rack), and the V12 Breadvan Hommage (based on a Ferrari 550 Maranello).
Worth looking them up if you have not seen them yet!
Niels van Roij (who was also present) shared the Guida Touring Sport and a sneak peek at the in-development Daytona Shooting Brake Hommage.
Guida Touring Sport (Ferrari Testarossa Targa)
You can read everything about the project in their website.
As one knows, Ferrari is very quick on getting lawyers to work, so as all previous work by Niels van Roij design, this one has no mention to the Ferrari, or Testarossa name, logos and badges whatsoever.
They call it "Guida Touring Sport" but we all know what it is, so I will call it Ferrari Testarossa Targa.
The main reason is because that's a much easier way to explain what this is.
They got a very wealthy client to provide a donor Ferrari Testarossa and pay for a good 3000 hours of bespoke design, plan and execution to get this vision to reality.
Niels van Roij Design prides of the fact that they specifically took structural rigidity into account for this conversion, which we might suspect suffers a bit when removing such an integral part of a car like the roof.
I was lucky enough to be able to see the mechanism for putting the roof back on in action, since it started raining a bit just when I was around the car with the top off, and you can see a bit of this below.