Spyker

Spyker was a Dutch car manufacturer. It started out in 1880 as Spijker, but to be able to market the brand better in foreign countries, the IJ was changed into Y. (Note by someone else: in 1880 they were an Amsterdam Coach Building Plant, it was not until 1898 that they started building combustion engined motorcars. They also manufactured airplane engines, an item which now returns in the new Spyker cars)

In 1929 the manufacturer went bankrupt.

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Spyker is also the name of a modern Dutch hand built car manufacturer, not related to the turn-of-the-nineteenth-century company. (Note by someone else: The Modern Spyker Car manufacturing Company is indeed not controlled by relatives of the founders of the original Spijker Company, JACOBUS AND HENDRIK-JAN SPIJKER, but they posess all the legal right so the brand is still the original Spyker). Current owners are VICTOR MULLER AND MAARTEN DE BRUIJN)

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Since the 1990's, Spyker is back in business, building exclusive sports cars like the C8 and the C8 Laviolette.

Spyker also manufactured the Dutch Queen's Golden Coach in 1898, as well as they built one of the world's first six cylinder engines, in the early twentieth century. See also http://www.spykercars.nl/home.htm