Leepu Nizamuddin Awlia

Nizamuddin Awlia (; born 1 October 1968), commonly known as Leepu , is a Bangladeshi-born-American automotive designer and coachbuilder, best known for building imitation supercars out of old models.

Early life Awlia was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He studied at Dhaka Residential Model College until ninth grade. His father was an officer at the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh who moved to Saudi Arabia where Awlia attended college. Awlia's passion for cars also began when he was growing up in Riyadh. At the age of 16, he visited his first motor show in Saudi Arabia, where his father bought him a Mazda. He lived in Lalmatia.

Career In October 1994, at the age of 26, Awlia made the "Leemo-bil",

In the 2000s, after setting up business in Dhaka, Awlia made the "Leepu", a loose copy of another of his dream cars, a Lamborghini Diablo.

In 2006, Discovery Channel requested Awlia to build two cars in eight weeks for them. Awlia completed the cars within seven weeks with the help of cockney car mechanic, Bernie Fineman. In April 2006, the first car was unveiled during a three-day show at The Dhaka Motor Show at the Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Centre. It was one of Awlia's sports models, M26, it was made in four weeks using a 22-year-old Toyota Sprinter with an imported chassis. On 7 May 2006, the second car, The Peace Car, was unveiled at the Bangladesh National Museum. After the heavy modification, the 1979 Toyota Crown was difficult to trace.

Awlia worked with London-based Raw on two programs in 2007 and 2008: "Bangla Bangers", a pair of one-hour Discovery specials about his car-customizing business in Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka; and "Chop Shop: London Garage", a one-season sequel series that ran on Discovery overseas. In 2007, Awlia has featured on Discovery Channel's Bangla Bangers, a car transformation project with his partner Bernie Fineman building supercars out of old models The programme was later followed by sequel-series Chop Shop: London Garage, in which designers Awlia and Fineman created a range of modified cars commissioned by celebrities. Their challenge was to produce custom-built cars on a tight budget, while matching the requirements of each client. A 'gangster car' created for Martin Kemp, was purchased through auction shortly after it was created, where "it will be trashed and posted through the special VW Action 'shitheap' letter box, and then environmentally recycled".

In 2015, Awlia featured in History channel's Leepu & Pitbull, a reality show about Steve "Pitbull" Trimboli's Freeport custom-car garage. They transform "junk" cars into customized super cars via a cash-producing business venture. They completed seven cars over eight episodes, with the final car, a race car, split into two episodes.

Personal life Since 2013, Awlia has lived in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, with his wife and three children.