Spyker Cars N.V. (Euronext SPYKR) is a Dutch
hand-built
automobile manufacturer, not
related to or controlled by the previous Spyker company that went bankrupt in 1929. The modern Spyker Cars
only has the legal right to the
brand name.
The company's motto is "
Nulla tenaci invia est via", which
is
Latin for "For the tenacious, no road is
impassable".
The company
The reborn company was founded by
Victor
Muller and Maarten de Bruijn in 1999, and since 2000 has been
building exclusive sports cars like the
C8
and the
C8 Laviolette. Spyker's history of
producing airplane engines is reflected in details in these new
cars as well as in the logo.
The C8 Laviolette has a 4172 cc Audi V8 engine delivering and
a top speed of .
On July 14, 2005 it was announced that the C8 was approved for sale
on the United
States
market.
In 2006 the
Spyker D12 Peking-to-Paris
high-performance
SUV was announced at the
Geneva Motor Show, which began
production in late 2007.
Spyker Cars is listed on
Euronext
Amsterdam. The
initial
public offering was on
May 27,
2004, at € 15.50, falling to a low of € 8.28 in April
2005. The stock rebounced sharply in early 2006 to over € 22 a
share. Early in 2007 the stock showed a sharp decline to levels
beneath € 13 because of financing issues. As a result, several
stock issues were announced to big investors. Notably, all shares
have been sold at higher prices than the market price at the moment
of announcement. On November 13, 2005, Spyker Cars and
Mubadala Development Company (a principal
investment company wholly owned by the Government of Abu Dhabi)
announced their strategic alliance with Mubadala acquiring 17% of
Spyker.
Mubadala has a strong relationship with
sports cars, they also control 5% of Ferrari
.
In 2005 the head
designer Maarten
de Bruijn left the company.
In
November 2009, Spyker announced plans to move production to
Whitley,
Coventry
in England
, in order to
be nearer its primary parts suppliers.
Cars
Motorsport
Spyker F1
On
September 9,
2006, Spyker bought
Midland F1 Racing, a
Formula One team from Russian businessman
Alex Shnaider. Spyker paid
US$106.6 million for the team which was re-named
Spyker MF1 Team for the last three races
of the 2006 Formula One season. As part of the deal, the cars had a
revised livery for the final three races of 2006.
The new Spyker F1 team used the
Dutch
flag from then on (instead of the
Russian flag), since Spyker is based in the
Netherlands. For the
2007
season the team was named Etihad Aldar Spyker Formula One Team.
Etihad (Airways) and Aldar (Real Estate Developers)
corporates were the main sponsors for the team, from the oil-rich
Emirate of Abu
Dhabi
.
On
September 30 at the
2007 Japanese Grand Prix, the team
scored its first championship point. Driver
Adrian Sutil finished 9th on the track, but was
promoted to 8th place and into the points-scoring position when
stewards ruled, post-race, that
Toro
Rosso's
Vitantonio Liuzzi had
overtaken Sutil under a yellow flag on lap 55; Liuzzi was
subsequently given a 25-second penalty that dropped his time below
Sutil's.
On
August 14, Spyker Cars announced that
it would have to sell all or part of the team due to a potential
split of the team from its parent company.
On
September 3 Indian
billionaire
Dr Vijay Mallya (Chairman and CEO of
Toyota sponsors Kingfisher
Airlines) and Dutch entrepreneur Michiel
Mol (Spyker’s Formula One Director), stated the Spyker board
has accepted their offer and will sign off within a month to become
the new owners of the Spyker Formula One team.
As a result of this agreement, the team was sold to a consortium
named "Orange India" led by Mallya and Mol after approval by
Spyker's shareholders. Contracts were signed quickly, and Mallya
attended the 2007 Chinese Grand Prix as team owner. The team is
named
Force India for the
2008 season.
Spyker Squadron
The Spyker
Squadron is the factory racing team, competing in events such as
the 24 Hours of Le
Mans
, the Le Mans Series,
occasional entries in the FIA GT
Championship, and the 12 hours
of Sebring. Spyker also supplies a car to Swiss Spyker
distributor, Speedy Garages, running under the name Speedy Racing
Team.
References
- Dutch car maker plans move to UK, BBC
News.
- Midland sells MF1 Racing to Spyker, GrandPrix.com,
September 9, 2006
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