Send us your Spykers!

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We think most people reading this would agree that Spyker was the greatest car manufacturer ever to come from the Netherlands. Greater even than DAF, we would say... It's a marque virtually everyone will be familiar with thanks to the starring rôle of a certain 1905 Spyker phæton in Genevieve, but aside from that we'd wager that not many people outside of the Netherlands actually know very much about it.

In fact, it has a very rich history. Before it turned to car manufacture in 1899, Spyker had for many years been a very well-respected carriage-maker. In a surprising feat of innovation, in 1903 it unveiled what is understood to have been the world's first six-cylinder car, and later in the same year it presented an astonishing 50hp six-cylinder prototype with four-wheel drive which, alas, never reached production.

Later Spykers were more conventional but very well-built, the quality of their construction lending them the epithet 'the Dustless Spyker'. Spyker continued much in this fashion for the rest of its existence, its reputation making it attractive to motorists who wanted something tried and tested, which they knew to be fast, comfortable and dependable, but Spyker production ultimately came to an end in 1925.

Along the way, Spykers competed in reliability trials, hill-climbs and speed races, such as the 1903 Scottish Trial, Blackpool Speed Trials, Brighton Speed Trials, Filey Beach races, Bexhill Speed Trials, Shelsley Walsh hill-climb and Aston Hill Climb. In Britain, Spykers also appeared at the motor shows at Olympia and the Royal Agricultural Hall. Around 400 Spykers were sold in Britain from 1903 to 1908, but many families will have been running them up to the 1920s.

That is but a potted account. With such a rich history as it has, the Spyker story deserves to be told in full. Some of you may own Dr. Vincent van der Vinne's Dutch-language book which he published in 1998, but Dr. van der Vinne is now ready to publish an even more comprehensive history, and that's why he needs your help. He wants to see Spyker photographs which have never before been published, so if you have any in your collection, or you know of some in a local archive, he would very much like to hear from you.

Are you able to help? Any contribution you can make to telling the Spyker story will be greatly appreciated not only by Dr. van der Vinne, but by the world at large when his book appears, which it is scheduled to do by the end of this year or early 2024.

Feel free to comment below, or to be put in touch with Dr. van der Vinne directly, please e-mail us at office@prewarcar.com and we will facilitate contact.

Photographs: Van der Vinne Collection
 

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