The people behind the Donkervoort F22

After studying architecture, Leenarts joined Peugeot as a designer, then moved to Ford, which took him to America until his return as Ford of Europe’s Head of Design. 

Leenarts has remained in close contact with Donkervoort since 2017 and sits on the four-person Donkervoort Advisory Board. 

“I have the honour to help continue the Donkervoort adventure,” Leenarts said. 

“Thanks to that connection, I was invited by Denis to join the Advisory Board, and it felt like a very special moment, and it closed the circle in one of my favourite brands. 

“I was inspired by Joop when I was very young, and I could never have dreamed of having that close connection to the brand and the family. 

“It’s beneficial that I am there as a design advisor and Joop and Denis embraced me from Day One as an expert in the field.” 

Leenarts’ role is advisory to in-house Donkervoort design head Jordi Wiersma, and the two have online meetings every Wednesday night. 

“I have plenty of energy, and I am as much inspired by them as they are by me,” Leenarts explained. 

“Donkervoort is a small, agile family company with an entrepreneur feeling, and it’s a bit taking on the world with the products and brands, and I like that.” 

The Denis Donkervoort era has given engineers and designers the freedom to find their niches, and none have been more successful than the head of Donkervoort’s design department, Jordi Wiersma. 

Wiersma started at Donkervoort during the development of the D8 GT, and the importance of drawing the first Donkervoort in the new era then is not lost on him. 

“It has been a really cool project. Everybody has come together and found their area beautifully,” he said. 

“It’s sometimes more interesting to see what a car does to the company rather than what the company does to the car. 

“Denis gives everybody their space and responsibility in the project to do what they were good at, and we really upped the game because of that. 

“It’s way beyond what we have done in the past.” 

While Wiersma pushed the design in direction and detail, he used Leenarts as he asked to be used - as an advisor rather than an extra designer. 

“It’s not a fine line about who designed what. The F22 was done in-house,” Leenarts explained.  

“There are a couple of things where I helped a lot, but larger ideas rather than pure design.  

“Things like the ambition-setting in the beginning, to what we have in the F22, for example. 

“I was pushing to make sure that what we did with the design was clean, with a more integrated design and fewer parts, which means we produced at a much higher quality rate.” 

Leenarts also helped Donkervoort access cutting-edge modelling tools and equipment to ensure higher build quality in production. 

“The second thing was getting the pieces much more proof-modelled by using all the CAD tools that we have at hand. 

“We had to build a digital proof of what’s coming out of the factory because the data is the truth. 

Register here for the Donkervoort F22 launch on YouTube on Saturday, December 10, at 4 PM.