No marque in the automotive world has spent more of its existence unsure of what it wants to be than Spyker. The Dutch company traces its lineage to 1880, when Jacobus and Hendrik-Jan Spijker opened a carriage works in Hilversum, and since then it has built coaches, automobiles, aircraft, aero engines, and—most improbably—some of the strangest supercars ever to leave a European workshop. The through-line has never been a product. It has been an obsession with craft so intense that it periodically overwhelms the business of actually selling cars.

The founding generation set the template. The brothers' Golden Coach, built for Queen Wilhelmina, remains one of the most ornate vehicles ever constructed in the Netherlands, and their 1903 Spyker 60 HP was the first car in the world with permanent four-wheel drive and a six-cylinder engine. Then came the pivot that still defines the brand's mythology: during the First World War, Spyker built fighter planes and the 200-hp aero engines that powered them, a heritage the modern company has never stopped invoking. After the Second World War, the original firm dissolved entirely. For decades, Spyker was a memory and a logo on old photographs.

A Resurrection Built on Instinct

Its resurrection in 1999 under Victor Muller was, in effect, a bet that the Golden Coach instinct could be transferred to a road car. The C8 that followed was unlike anything else on sale: an aluminium spaceframe, a mid-mounted Audi V-8, a manual gearbox with an exposed shift linkage so beautiful that owners photographed it like jewellery, and an interior of quilted leather and turned aluminium. It was slow to sell, frequently troubled, and utterly distinctive.

Spyker's detour into Formula 1 and its acquisition of Saab—a decade-long misadventure that ended in bankruptcy—nearly finished the company. By the early 2020s, Spyker was, in Muller's own framing, in a coma.

The Preliator XXV Arrives

The car that has brought it back is the C8 Preliator XXV, and its timing is not accidental. Debuting at Pebble Beach with a 789-hp Audi-sourced V-8, a six-speed manual, and a production run limited to 25 units, it arrives exactly as the rest of the hypercar world goes silent, automatic, and electric.

The XXV's detailing—quail green paint, rose gold accents, gold inlay inside and out—has drawn comparisons to a Fabergé egg, and the comparison is apt, though perhaps double-edged. It signals a machine built as an object of devotion rather than a tool of speed. That is Spyker's oldest problem restated in new materials: the company has always known how to make something precious, and never quite how to make it a business.

Substance Beneath the Ornament

There is real substance underneath the ornament. The Preliator XXV is genuinely fast, genuinely manual, and genuinely rare—the D12 Peking-to-Paris, Spyker's super-SUV concept from 2006, looked absurd at the time and prophetic in hindsight, which suggests the company's instincts about the market have often been right even when its execution has not.

But the same pattern repeats: a spectacular debut, a wave of press, and then the long, quiet question of whether anyone will take delivery. Debuting a car at Monterey Car Week, as Muller has noted, costs a fortune—and Spyker has never been a company with fortunes to spare.

The Most Interesting Thing About Spyker

What makes Spyker worth watching, even now, is that its identity crisis is the most interesting thing about it. Every other low-volume manufacturer has resolved the tension between craft and commerce in one direction or the other. Spyker has refused, for 146 years, to choose. It builds fighter-plane-named cars with aircraft-inspired cockpits, sells them as jewellery, and survives on the conviction that a handful of people still want a machine that feels made rather than manufactured.

Whether the Preliator XXV is the beginning of a genuine second act or another beautiful false start, it is at least unmistakably a Spyker—and after everything this marque has been, that is no small achievement.

一個荷蘭車廠，用146年去證明「唔知自己想點」都可以係一種風格

環顧整個車壇，冇一個品牌好似 Spyker 咁，花咗大半條命都未搞清楚自己到底想成為乜嘢。呢間荷蘭車廠嘅血脈可以追溯到1880年——Jacobus 同 Hendrik-Jan Spijker 兩兄弟喺 Hilversum 開設馬車工場，自此之後，佢哋造過馬車、汽車、飛機、航空引擎，仲有——最匪夷所思嘅——歐洲車壇有史以來最古怪嘅超級跑車。呢個品牌嘅主線從來唔係某一款產品，而係一種對工藝近乎偏執嘅迷戀，迷戀到一個程度，會週期性地壓垮賣車呢盤生意本身。

創辦人一代已經奠定咗呢個模板。兩兄弟為荷蘭女王 Wilhelmina 打造嘅「黃金馬車」（Golden Coach），至今仍然係荷蘭有史以來最華麗嘅車輛之一；而佢哋1903年嘅 Spyker 60 HP，更加係全世界第一部配備恆時四輪驅動同六汽缸引擎嘅汽車。然後就係嗰個至今仍然定義品牌神話嘅轉向：一次大戰期間，Spyker 建造戰鬥機，以及推動呢啲戰機嘅200匹馬力航空引擎——呢段歷史，現代 Spyker 從來冇停止過引用。二戰之後，原本嘅公司徹底解體。之後幾十年，Spyker 只係一個回憶，同舊照片上面嘅一個標誌。

靠直覺重生

1999年，喺 Victor Muller 手上嘅重生，實際上係一場賭博——賭嗰種「黃金馬車」嘅直覺可以轉移到一部道路量產車上面。隨後推出嘅 C8 喺市場上獨一無二：鋁合金空間陣式車架、中置 Audi V8、一副外露波棍連桿靚到車主會當珠寶咁影相嘅手動波箱，仲有菱格紋皮革同車削鋁材嘅車廂。賣得慢、問題多多，但辨識度爆燈。

Spyker 之後插足 Formula 1、再收購 Saab——呢場長達十年嘅災難級冒險最終以破產收場——幾乎玩死間公司。去到2020年代初期，用 Muller 自己嘅講法，Spyker 已經陷入昏迷。

Preliator XXV 登場

令佢甦醒過嚟嘅，係 C8 Preliator XXV，而佢登場嘅時機絕對唔係巧合。喺 Pebble Beach 首度亮相，搭載一副 Audi 來源嘅789匹馬力 V8、六前速手動波箱，全球限量25部——佢偏偏喺整個 hypercar 世界走向靜音、自動波同電動化嘅時候降臨。

XXV 嘅細節——鵪鶉綠車漆、玫瑰金點綴、內外金箔嵌飾——被外界攞嚟同 Fabergé 復活蛋比較，呢個比喻貼切，但可能係雙面刃。佢暗示嘅係一部作為奉獻對象而存在嘅機器，多過一件速度工具。呢個正正係 Spyker 最古老嘅問題用全新物料重新講一次：間公司永遠知道點樣造一件珍品，但從來唔係好知點樣將佢變成生意。

裝飾底下有真材實料

不過，喺裝飾底下，係有真材實料嘅。Preliator XXV 係真係快、真係手動、真係罕有——而 D12 Peking-to-Paris，Spyker 喺2006年推出嘅超級 SUV 概念車，當年睇落荒謬，而家回望卻係先知先覺，說明間公司對市場嘅直覺往往係啱嘅，即使執行力跟唔上。

但同一個模式不斷重複：一場盛大首演、一輪傳媒洗版，然後就係漫長而安靜嘅問題——到底有冇人真係會收車？喺 Monterey Car Week 首發一部車，正如 Muller 自己都講過，使費天文數字——而 Spyker 從來唔係一間有閒錢嘅公司。

Spyker 最有趣嘅地方

即使去到今日，Spyker 仍然值得留意嘅原因，係佢嘅身份危機本身就係佢最有趣嘅地方。其他所有低產量車廠，都已經喺工藝同商業之間嘅張力入面，揀咗一邊企。Spyker 偏偏146年都拒絕選擇。佢建造以戰鬥機命名、以飛機駕駛艙為靈感嘅汽車，當珠寶咁賣，然後靠一個信念生存落去——相信世上仍然有少數人，想要一部感覺係「被製造」而唔係「被生產」嘅機器。

Preliator XXV 到底係真正第二幕嘅開端，抑或又一個靚絕嘅假開始，佢至少係一部不折不扣嘅 Spyker——而對於一個經歷過咁多嘅品牌嚟講，呢點已經唔係小成就。