Spyker spent 146 years getting to this point. Founded in 1880 by two brothers who started with horse-drawn coaches in the Netherlands, the company built its first automobile in 1898. By 1903 it had produced the world’s first six-cylinder four-wheel-drive car. Four years later one of its machines finished second in the punishing Peking-to-Paris race. A 1914 merger with a Dutch aircraft factory left aviation permanently in its blood, and the 1919 C Aerocoque showed the world what streamlined bodywork could look like. After decades of silence the brand returned in 2000 with ornate mid-engine cars. Bankruptcy followed, legal fights over the name came and went, and now the C8 Preliator XXV Coupé marks the start of another chapter.
Only 25 will be built, and each one is meticulously handcrafted on an aluminum space frame designed by Spyker’s in-house expertise. The body panels are shipped from a specialized workshop in Coventry, England, to the Netherlands for painting and finishing. This arduous process takes about 2,100 hours to complete. Chassis numbers are, as predicted, stamped into the metal by a trained craftsman, ensuring that each one is unique. Even the screw heads within the cabin are being worked on to ensure that they all point in the same direction, demonstrating Spyker’s commitment to getting everything precisely perfect. To make the steering wheel seem the way it should, one artist must work with two needles for four hours.
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The exhibition car that arrived at The Quail during Monterey Car Week drew attention with its metallic Quail Green paint and rose-gold flakes, giving it a really show-stopping appearance. Rose-gold trim is used liberally on the car’s exterior and throughout the interior. The way the headlights hide the letters XXV when they are not in use is a brilliant detail that lends a pleasant visual flair to the car. You can’t miss the NACA ducts low down in the front bumper and rear fenders, and the taillights are shaped like a fighter jet afterburner, adding to the company’s quartet of quirky touches. The fin rising up from the roof scoop and continuing the line seen on all prior Spykers adds a sleek touch of visual flair, and the Isogrid lattice patterns, made up of interlocking triangles originally created for rockets, are a genuine eye-catcher. They appear on the grilles, vents, pedals, exhaust mesh, and even the seat fabric.
An Audi-sourced 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 produces 800 horsepower and 1,000 Newton-meters of torque. The gearbox is a six-speed Graziano manual, which allows the driver to feel the mechanical connection thru the lever as they change up and down the gears. There are no paddle shifters or automatic modes here; the driver is completely in control. With a top speed of over 217 mph, simply thinking about it gets your adrenaline pounding. According to several accounts, the period from 0 to 62 mph is 2.9 seconds, which is very impressive. The car weighs approximately 3,147 pounds, which is a very svelte figure given the beast that lurks behind the bonnet. The suspension is handled by unequal-length control arms at all four corners, and the brakes are big Brembo units with 15-inch front rotor.
Inside the C8 Preliator XXV Coupé, there is a strong emphasis on tradition. There is only one screen for the head-up display, and the rest of the controls and dials are rather old school. To put things in perspective, we’re talking about physical switches, gages, and a turned aluminum dashboard manufactured by a workshop that has been around since the 1880s. The leather color is a nice warm Tuscan Saddle, and it has been quilted and sewn with great care. The exposed gear linkage is unmistakably a Spyker defining feature. Moving the fuel tanks from the sills to a trapezoidal space behind the seats is a trick carried over from the company’s previous Le Mans efforts, and the front baggage room has shifted proportionately. With a single push of the ‘butterfly mode’ button, each panel opens to show the engine compartment, which is wonderfully set out like the intricate workings of a good clock.
Expect to pay around 1.6 million euros, although Spyker treats each car as a personal commission rather than just another manufacturing model. This strategy ensures that, like a bespoke suit, no two cars will be identical. After a century of coachbuilding, aircraft building, racing, declaring bankruptcy, and coming back from the brink, you’d think Spyker would have lost some of their edge, but they still insist on using aluminum, a manual gearbox, and, of course, a healthy dose of human input to ensure that every car that leaves the factory is a sight to behold.
