The heritage of Spyker: from Dutch coachbuilder to the C8

Spyker's heritage runs in two parts. The original Spyker was a Dutch carriage and car maker from 1880 to 1926, famous for the Golden Coach, the 1903 60 HP and wartime aircraft. The modern Spyker Cars, founded in 1999, is unrelated except for the name, motto and logo, which it used to build the C8 (Wikipedia).

The coachbuilders and the Golden Coach

Spyker began as a carriage business. In 1880, blacksmith brothers Jacobus and Hendrik-Jan Spijker started building and maintaining carriages in Hilversum, then moved to Trompenburg in Amsterdam in 1898 (Wikipedia).

That same year they built their most famous piece of work. The Golden Coach was a gift from the citizens of Amsterdam to Queen Wilhelmina at her investiture in 1898 (Wikipedia). It was first used for her wedding in 1901, and since 1903 it has carried the monarch on Prinsjesdag, the state opening of the Dutch parliament each September.

The coach is still in the news. After a refit announced in 2015, it was shown at the Amsterdam Museum in 2021. In January 2022, King Willem-Alexander said he would not ride in it for now, after debate over a panel titled "Tribute from the colonies" (Wikipedia).

The first cars and the 60 HP

Spyker moved into cars quickly. Production started in 1899, and in 1900 the company showed two-cylinder 3 hp and 5 hp models similar to Benz designs (Wikipedia).

The car that made its name came three years later. The Spyker 60 HP was built in 1902 and 1903 and shown in Paris in December 1903 (Wikipedia). It had an 8.8-liter inline six, drive to all four wheels and brakes on all four wheels. Wikipedia describes it as the first petrol four-wheel-drive car and the first with four-wheel braking.

It was built for the 1903 Paris to Madrid race but missed it. Belgian engineer Joseph Valentin Laviolette had already designed the six-cylinder engine and the four-wheel-drive transmission. The car survives at the Louwman Museum in The Hague, which bought it in 1993.

Spyker cars also went long distances. An 18 hp model finished second in the 15,000 km Peking to Paris race in 1907 (Wikipedia).

Tragedy, aircraft and the propeller logo

The company never had stable money. Hendrik-Jan Spijker died in 1907 when the ferry SS Berlin sank on his way back from England, and the original business went bankrupt (Wikipedia). Investors restarted production without Jacobus.

Aircraft kept it going. After more trouble in 1913, Spyker merged with the Dutch Aircraft Factory in 1914 and was renamed Trompenburg in 1915 (Wikipedia). The Netherlands stayed neutral in World War I, but the company built about 100 fighter aircraft and 200 aircraft engines.

That period gave Spyker its badge. Around 1915 it adopted a logo combining a spoked wheel with an aircraft propeller, along with the motto "Nulla tenaci invia est via," Latin for "For the tenacious, no road is impassable" (Wikipedia).

The C4 and the end in 1926

Spyker's last great car was the C4. The first one was finished on November 27, 1920, with a 5,742 cc Maybach six (Wikipedia). It beat a Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost long-distance record by about 6,000 km, covering 30,360 km in just over a month of Dutch winter.

In 1922, Selwyn Edge drove a streamlined C4 at Brooklands for a "Double 12" record of 1,782 miles at an average of 75 mph (Wikipedia). The company went bankrupt again that year, and its British distributor bought it.

It didn't last. The final products were the C4 car and the C2 two-ton truck, and the money ran out in 1926. Wikipedia estimates total car production at no more than 2,000.

Spyker Cars and the C8

The name came back in 1999. Victor Muller and Maarten de Bruijn founded Spyker Cars and took the old motto and propeller logo with them (Wikipedia).

The first car was the C8 Spyder, shown at the 2000 Birmingham Motor Show with a 4.2-liter Audi V8 making 400 PS (Wikipedia). Its claimed top speed was 300 km/h, or 186 mph. The design leaned on aviation, with an aluminum spaceframe and, on the later Aileron, wheels styled like jet turbine blades.

Several model names point back to the old company. The C8 Laviolette shares its name with the 60 HP's engineer, and the C8 Double 12 S echoes Edge's 1922 Brooklands record.

Formula 1, Saab and two bankruptcies

The modern company aimed high. It bought the Midland F1 team in September 2006 for $106.6 million and raced as Spyker F1 in 2007 with Ferrari engines (Wikipedia). It scored one point, at the 2007 Japanese Grand Prix, then sold the team to a group led by Vijay Mallya. It became Force India.

Saab was the bigger gamble. Spyker agreed to buy it from General Motors on January 26, 2010, for $74 million in cash and $320 million in Spyker shares (Wikipedia). Saab filed for bankruptcy on December 19, 2011.

Car sales never covered the ambition. Spyker sold about 290 cars from 2000 to 2010, with a peak of 94 in 2006 (Wikipedia). It was declared bankrupt on December 18, 2014, won that ruling back on appeal in January 2015, and showed the C8 Preliator in 2016. It went bankrupt again in early 2021 (NL Times).

Spyker today

The motto has earned its keep. In September 2025 the bankruptcy trustee sold the Spyker trademark rights, and a month later Muller said he had secured them through a settlement that paid €350,000 into the estate (NL Times). Carscoops reported the deal in October 2025 as the release of all Spyker IP and trademarks.

The comeback car arrived in August 2026. The C8 Preliator XXV has a mid-mounted 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 with 800 bhp and 738 lb-ft, and a manual gearbox with exposed linkage (Top Gear). Spyker plans 25 cars at €1.5 million each, and NL Times reported 19 sold at the Monterey Car Week reveal. Ukrainian businessman Volodymyr Nosov is the investor.

Whether this version lasts is unclear. On past form, the cars tend to outlive the companies that build them.

Where to see Spyker history

1. Visit the Louwman Museum in The Hague to see the 1903 Spyker 60 HP (Wikipedia).
2. See the Golden Coach when it is next on public display or back in service. In 2022 the king said he would not ride in it for now, after it was displayed at the Amsterdam Museum in 2021 (Wikipedia).
3. Look for C8s at Monterey Car Week and similar shows, where Spyker revealed the Preliator XXV in 2026 (NL Times). Our tuner event calendar lists more shows worth the trip.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Spyker
• Wikipedia: Spyker Cars
• Wikipedia: Spyker C8
• Wikipedia: Spyker 60 HP
• Wikipedia: Golden Coach (Netherlands))
• Top Gear: Spyker is back with a brand new 800bhp manual hypercar
• NL Times: Dutch sports car manufacturer Spyker makes comeback with €1.5 million car
• Carscoops: Spyker has just returned from the dead

Featured image: Spyker C8 Aileron by Laszlo Daroczy, CC BY 2.0. Source