This Man Crafts Chairs Inspired by Iconic Vintage Cars

“I own a 1966 Mustang,” Williams says from his workshop in Shepton Mallet. “I was staring at the grille on that car and thought, This almost looks like a chair. I immediately thought, Oh, that’s pretty neat. You don’t often stumble across something that’s never been done before…”

The diving tailfins of the Bentley Continental R served as inspiration for another jaw-dropping creation.

Despite that Mustang-sparked idea, it was a different Ford—the Le Mans-winning GT40, with its brutal yet beautiful lines—that inspired Williams’s first car chair. Standing just 40 inches tall (hence the name), the “Squat Racer” and its road-going cousins are at once lithe and muscular.

“You can’t really put it into words,” Williams admits. “Sixties and early seventies cars have something truly special. It was the era of engineering daring and carefree racing spirit. I love that kind of madness that went with racing back then.”

Drawing on his uncle’s classic-car expertise, Williams found muse in some of the most recognisable shapes ever built—among them, arguably the world’s most coveted car, the Ferrari 250 GTO.

A GTO recently sold for a record $48.4 million. “There’s always something unusual about a car—at first glance you lock onto one feature, whether it’s the air intakes or the wheel arches. The vents on the GTO were its most identifiable trait, so I used their shape to form the sides of the chair,” Williams explains. “The backrest is based on the GTO’s rear end—probably at exactly the same angle.”

Every car chair Williams has made is modelled on a vehicle he’s seen in the metal. Once he zeroes in on the form he wants, he sketches every detail. Then his small team of Somerset craftsmen begin building—it can take months.

Williams’s GTO chair is crafted in steel, though he’d love to sculpt one in aluminium, as those sleek car panels once were.

So far, he hasn’t sold any: the owner of the 250 GTO received the chair based on his Ferrari as a gift. But Williams would sell the others he has or accept one-off commissions from fellow car enthusiasts.

Price tag? “Roughly £10,000–£15,000,” he estimates. “But that’s for a chair that’ll never be made again.”

Williams hasn’t yet found that “eureka” moment in modern car design, but he believes his skills can translate: designer Marc Newson, for instance, has created cars, furniture and gadgets.

Williams’s real dream, however, is to design his own car. “I’d absolutely love to do that,” he says, even offering to design Adam Williams’s first car and send it over. “And of course, I’d love for you to drive it too.”