Minotto is the story of Hans Teijgeler and Rutger Meijer. Both men who have spent their lives building things. Surfboards, sails, snowboards, bikes, motorbikes as kids. When they grew up, both Hans and Rutger have run businesses custom-building aircraft.

When Hans had a successful career as an IT manager, he bought himself a 1974 Ferrari Dino. And with that Dino came a number of new friends with much newer Ferraris. With them, he went on a yearly trek to Italy to see the Mille Miglia historic car rally. It was during these trips that Hans found out that he really preferred his old Dino over the modern cars. The latter being so incredibly capable, that driving them fast really has become too easy. In Hans’ mind, a car is much more fun when you have to work hard in it. It gives the driver much more a sense of accomplishment.

The other thing that happened in Italy is that Hans fell in love with the 1950s racers. To him, these were the ultimate cars. Stunningly beautiful, and hard work to drive. Unfortunately, the going price for them are in the tens of millions of euros. So he fell back to what he had always lived by: If you can’t buy it, then you simply build it. It was thus that Minotto was born.

From the outset, the aim was to do a limited production run, so all was done to do things properly. After building a team of good people around him, with Rutger as the linking pin, they set out to draw everything up in CAD and construct a prototype to the highest standards. After 8 years of hard work and a prototype that has gained the highest acclaims from the press, the ball started rolling.