With its previous investors back on board, Spyker has big plans
Company has sold fewer than 300 cars in 22 years since return
On again, off again Dutch automaker Spyker is back one more time. The sports car company is planning another revival with a Russian investor group helping front the cash required to bring vehicles from imagination to market.
Spyker was founded in 1880 before first going broke in 1926, then was revived by entrepreneur Victor R. Muller in 1999. From 2000, it built the Spyker C8 sports cars briefly, using Audi engines, and even had a Formula 1 entry for a few months in 2007 before the team was sold again to become Force India. In 2010, Spyker tried to buy Saab, with the deal closing in February of that year, but it ran out of money in early 2011. Spyker itself hit bankruptcy in 2014 and again in 2021.
That’s all in the past, the company said (via The Detroit Bureau). The same backers who had a falling out early last year are back, with investor Boris Rotenberg saying “we really look forward to become a part of this new chapter of the epic Spyker brand. Our group of companies will launch the Spyker brand successfully in the league of the world’s best super sports cars.”
“The collaboration agreement which we confirmed today is the starting point to rebuild Spyker as a sports car manufacturer with a more solid foundation than ever before, and with ample access to better technical and financial resources than we ever had,” Muller said in a statement.
Muller said that “the V-8 (internal-combustion engine) remains at the heart of every Spyker for many years to come,” though acknowledged that hybrids will join any model plans over the next years. Engineering for the future cars will happen in Russia and Germany with production split between Russia and the Netherlands.
