Back in the summer of the great year 2004, I was invited to the launch event of Dutch supercar maker Spyker in China. The company shipped in a beautiful Spyker C8 Spyder, painted in purple with a red-beige interior. It was unveiled to the media at the capital’s famous Zhengyangmen Gate.
There was lots of local media attention for the event, with journalists fighting for a good shot of the supercar. In 2004, the supercar market in China was just starting to boom, so Spyker was there at precisely the right moment.
The original Spyker was a carriage and car maker, in business from 1880 until 1926. Their most famous vehicle is the Golden Coach, which is used by the Dutch royal family until today. The new Spyker was founded in 1999 by designer Maarten de Bruijn and businessman Victor Muller.
The C8 Spyder was the company’s first car. Production started in 2000. It was built on an aluminum spaceframe chassis with aluminum body panels. Power came from a 4.2 liter Audi V8 engine with 395 hp and 480 Nm, good for 300 km/h and 0-100 in 4.5 seconds.
Since Spyker was Dutch and we were in China, Dutch-Chinese racing driver Ho-Pin Tung was hired by Spyker as a spokesman. It was the second time I met Tung in China, after seeing him racing at Goldenport a year earlier.
In the photo, from left to right: Tung, Muller (with hat), and deputy ambassador of the Dutch embassy in Beijing Karel van Oosterom (black suit, red tie, sunglasses). I too worked at the embassy back then, as a young research assistant, and whenever car-related stuff came up I had to ‘work’.
The Pekin Parijs stickers refer to the famous 1907 Peking to Paris rally, a 15.000-kilometer monster race where an 18 hp Spyker came second.
After the event at the gate was finished we moved on for a press conference elsewhere. Ho-pin Tung drove the Spyker with Muller sitting next to him. I sat in the passenger seat of the embassy’s Mercedes-Benz E280, with the Dutch flag on the front fender.
The media were packed into two blue buses. It was about half an hour through busy traffic, but we had a Buick Regal police car in front of us to make way.
Action! The Mercedes follows the Spyker following a camera van. On the far right of the photo, you can just see the police’s Buick.
On the Second Ring Road, at a rather high speed. The police car is better visible now. The whole ride was recorded on video and photo from the camera van, seen here on the right.
The press conference was in the prestigious State Guest House, which at the time was available for commercial events. It isn’t anymore. The Spyker C8 Spyder was parked on a red carpet with the doors up.
Muller, Van Oosterom, and Tung at the press conference table, hiding behind an enormous mountain of real flowers. They drank iced tea, tea, and water. Spyker went on the be rather successful in China, with dealers in Beijing and Shanghai. In the beginning, they sold at least a dozen cars.
But sadly, after all sorts of wild adventures with Saab and Youngman, Spyker went bankrupt in the Netherlands and that was also the end of the Chinese operations.
Van Oosterom and Muller share a smile.
Yours truly with my elephant tie. It was my favorite. On the right Ho-pin Tung with a microphone.
But the adventure wasn’t over just yet! The very next day was the start of the 2004 Beijing Auto Show, where Spyker made its public debut. Naturally, I had to work again:
Spyker had a small booth in the supercar hall, standing next to Porsche. They had three cars: a Spyker C8 Laviolette coupe, an incredible silver Spyker C8 Spyder T, and the purple Spyker C8 Spyder.
They also had booth babes, which was very much allowed at the time. Badly, it is forbidden now. The babes wore a somewhat strange black body suit-shirt leather skirt, and fishing boots.
The silver Spyder T was a beauty and the babe just loved it. Note the brilliantly shaped mirrors. The Spyder T model was an extra powerful variant of the C8 Spyder. It had the same engine but with an output of 525 hp. It had a wider track and bigger wheels, and ultra racy air vents in the front fenders.
The C8’s interior was truly a work of art. In 2004, it still had the original non-airbag steering wheel, shaped like an aircraft propeller.
The purple car from the day before.
Yours truly with brown shoes.
That was the end of my 2004 Spyker adventures.