The Dutch manufacturer Spyker was founded as early as 1880 as a manufacturer of luxury carriages. 19 years later, the company began to produce cars and in 1903 even claimed the lead thanks to the production of the first racing vehicle with all-wheel drive . However, in 1926 came the crash. The name Spyker was brought back to the automotive world in 1999 by Victor R. Muller , but the reborn car company did not find much luck either.
At the same time, in the early days of production, things looked, if not rosy, at least very good with Spyker Cars , as the renewed car company was called. The extravagant and hand-built C8 supersport was received very positively and customers have heard about it relatively well. The first bad step came in the second half of 2006 , when Spyker decided to buy the failing Formula 1 team Midland F1 for about 106 million dollars (about 2.3 billion crowns).
Under the designation Spyker MF1, the team completed the remainder of the 2006 season and entered the following season under the name Spyker F1 Team . Due to poor performance , however, he did not make a big dent in the world, with Adrian Sutil's 2007 Japan WC point and Markus Winkelhock's 6-lap race lead at the rain-marred 2007 European WC forever remaining the biggest achievements. Before the 2008 season, the team was sold to Indian investors and renamed Force India, under which we still see it today.
The second bad and actually fatal step was taken by Muller in 2010, when he decided to take over and save the failing Saab car company . This acquisition of Spyker actually brought only debts, and even the subsequent sale of the car company to China, thanks to the intervention of GM, the former owner of Saab, failed to materialize for the Dutch manufacturer. In the end, the Swedish manufacturer ended up in the hands of the NEVS consortium and is still fighting for survival.
Spyker eventually lost his fight. Speculation about his financial problems began at the beginning of the year, while in August several cars, as well as a single-seater Formula 1 car, went up for auction due to unpaid taxes. At the beginning of December, Spyker fell into a controlled restructuring , during which Muller hoped to find new investors and pay the owed salaries to employees, as well as other claims. Failing to do so, the Midden-Nederland District Court declared the car company bankrupt on 18 December.
Nevertheless, the head of Spyker Victor R. Muller does not lose faith in his project: "I will try to resurrect Spyker as quickly as possible. And if we are successful, I will try to connect the car company with an electric aircraft manufacturer and thus develop the revolutionary electric Spyker project." However, he also admitted his mistakes : "In 2000, we started the super sports car business from scratch, including global distribution. And we succeeded in this project. Over the years, however, we have embarked on several bold projects that have left their mark on the car company. And they contributed to today's demise."
Source: Spyker
