Spyker

Spyker was a Dutch automobile manufacturing company that started in 1880. However, it is no longer a modern day company. Once the Spyker company did close its doors, another company called Spyker Cars took its place. However, the two are not related. The original Spyker company was viewed as a company that offers luxurious cars that many elite people loved to own. For example, Spyker designed the "Golden Carriage" which is still in use by the Dutch Queen today, which speaks to the quality of the vehicles that Spyker was manufacturing. Since the company started out as a coach building company, the Golden Carriage is actually a horse drawn carriage. However, the technique that these were made with are fundamental in their cars as well. Many of the parts of their carriages are hand made and were of the highest quality materials that were used to build them, which makes them top of the line.

Spyker did not start manufacturing cars until around 1900, this was the time in which they introduced their first 2 cylinder car. At this time, cars were something that many people do not trust, just because they were unfamiliar. Spyker did keep manufacturing coaches and carriages while doing this in order to make sure that the business remained successful, which is a wise business move on their behalf.

The cars that Spyker manufactured are regarded to today as classics, ancient classics to be precise. For those who have seen the first automobile designed by Henry Ford, then you can picture what the automobiles of Spyker looked like. For the most part, their cars ran a 2 or 4 cylinder, however in later years of the company, they did begin to produce six cylinder vehicles, which was extremely power for the time.

IN 1907, the founder of Spyker died, which led to the company declaring bankruptcy. But, a few investors took an interest into the company and tried to make sure that it bounced back from this tragic fall. The company was able to snap back when the war began because they took the plants and turned them into places that produced aircraft and the engines for these planes, even though the Netherlands were considered neutral during the war. It also helped that the company had the backing of a few wealthy investors to lean on. However, even with all the help, in 1922 the company once again had to declare bankruptcy. It was then that a distributor for Spyker from Britain, purchased the company and renamed the company Spyker Automobielfabriek. The company continued to produce cars, however, with the original leader gone, the cars were never really that well accepted by the public, thus the success of the company began to go downhill. The success of the company continued to plummet and in 1926, the funds that the owner had simply ran out since the cars were not selling that well, and even when they did sell it was for far less than what they were worth. This was when Spyker officially closed as a company.