Spyker

Spyker has been making things of exceptional quality since 1880. Founded in Hilversum by two Dutch brothers, the company built carriages, moved into motorcars, won races, and in 1914 merged with the Dutch Aircraft Factory to produce fighter planes. The motto ‘Nulla tenaci invia est via’, dates from that era. It has not changed.

Each Spyker takes eight hundred hours to build by hand. Forty of those are spent on the interior alone. Eleven hides cover the cabin; the steering wheel is stitched with two needles at once by a single craftsman over four hours. The screw heads inside are aligned by hand to face the same direction. No one will notice, which is precisely the point. 

The C8 Preliator XXV is the latest expression of this. Twenty-five cars, each commissioned around its future owner rather than configured from a menu. Preliator is Latin for warrior. Its chassis and bodywork are formed from high-grade aluminium. Power comes from a mid-mounted twin-turbocharged V8, resolutely mechanical and analogue, made to be experienced with all the senses.

Spyker is the world's only Dutch luxury sports car. It does not belong to a larger group. It has no interest in volume. What it has is 145 years of documented history and the conviction to build the way it always has: by hand, in the Netherlands, one at a time.