What the Heck Happened to Rezvani?
Turn back the clock with me to a decade ago. It's 2015. Obama is still president, nobody has heard of COVID-19, and Corvettes still have their engines in the front. A nobody outfit called Rezvani is about to release the Beast, a custom car itself based on a kit with a Honda engine and a manual transmission. Was anybody asking for such a thing? Nope. But Rezvani managed to get the attention of enough buyers to sink its teeth into the automotive landscape, and it hasn't let go since.
The original Beast was little more than a Double-Stuf Ariel Atom with a no-name custom body and an astronomically high price tag. The new, Lamborghini Urus-based Knight is no less ridiculous, but it's built on a far more ambitious platform and with a very, very different mission. What a difference a decade makes, eh?
It was remarkable enough at the time for Jay Leno to set aside an example for his personal collection, and even invited Ferris Rezvani to promote it for Jay Leno's Garage, where he talked up the custom carbon fiber exterior and even received kudos from Jay for keeping the price of the Beast in check—a challenge for a 'boutique' builder.
But now, it's 2025, and those early teething years are behind the custom builder. The Beast nominally survives, but it has transformed from a svelte, kit-car-based performance toy to a comparably massive, Corvette-based symbol of excess after a few years of Lotus-Elise-based shenanigans. But these days, Rezvani is far better known for its ridiculous trucks and SUVs. Enter the Knight.
This monstrosity packs 800 horsepower and a zero-to-60 time to rival supercars, and you can ruin augment that with an armored package that includes a bug-out kit complete with a first aid kit, a hypothermia kit, gas masks, and a pepper spray dispenser—for the zombies, of course. Rezvani
It's very on-brand for Rezvani in 2025, and far from the company's first apocalypse cruiser; that role has been filled by multiple offerings over the past few years. The company started with the Tank, which was Wrangler-based, before unleashing the Gladiator-derived Hercules 6×6 with a Dodge Demon's V8.
Still, it's a little weird to think that this company came out of nowhere a decade ago with nothing but a kit car and a dream. Who will be the next Rezvani? And maybe more importantly, what will they pitch us first?
Got a tip? Send it in: tips@thedrive.com
Byron is one of those weird car people who has never owned an automatic transmission. Born in the DMV but Midwestern at heart, he lives outside of Detroit with his wife, two cats, a Miata, a Wrangler, and a Blackwing.
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