Spyker C8 Double 12-R

“NULLA TENACI INVIA EST VIA;  FOR THE TENACIOUS NO ROAD IS IMPASSABLE”

When the young Dutch town and country planner Maarten de Bruijn started to turn his ideas of a sportscar into aluminium in a shed in his parents' garden, he could not have imagined that it would lead to the re-establishment of one of the most famous Dutch brands; Spyker, which after a glorious history went bankrupt in 1929. When his Audi powered prototype was nearing completion, De Bruijn bought the rights to the Spyker brand and logo to ensure his effort would grab attention. In 1999 he surprised the automotive world with the unveiling of the Spyker Silvestris V8. While the mid-engined machine still looked a little rough around the edges, the two-seater machine received universal acclaim. Dutch industrialist and classic car collector Victor Muller was completely taken by the Silvestris and he joined forces with De Bruijn to turn the backyard special into a production ready luxury sportscar, renamed to C8. The most beautiful touches of the C8 were no doubt the polished aluminium air intakes and the many references to the company's airplane heritage, dating back to the first World War.

The Spyker C8 Double 12 R, introduced late 2001, is a fully handbuild all aluminium sports car, developed for endurance racing in the LM GT and GT-N FIA class. It has a full aluminium space frame with integrated roll cage, making sure there is sufficient room for a dry sump based engine placing it as low as possible in the car. As the timing was crucial to go racing as quick as possible, they took a already excisting racing engine from Heini Mader. This is a BMW derived 4 litres V8, that was in turn coupled to a inverted Porsche gearbox. A safety fuel bag of 100 litres is situated centrally in the space frame, right between the driver and the engine.

This car, with chassisno.XL9CC13FX2K363009, has been build to above first specifications and was used during the second year of the race project. It only did 2 races, being the 12 hours of Sebring beginning of 2003 and the 2003 24 hours of Le Mans. The car was still in almost bare aluminium in Sebring, but for Le Mans the dutch company Orange stepped up as sponsor and so gave this car it’s current design.

Although intended for GT-racing, Spyker never managed to fully homologate the Double 12 R and as a result the car was forced to run with tighter restrictors and weight penalties. After two seasons of racing (2002 & 2003) in events like the Sebring 12 Hours and the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Double 12 R program was abandoned. Only 3 chassis’ where build. It’s racing program saw a new start in 2005 with the C8 Spyder for a few years and resulted even in a F1 team take-over. As known, this only for a short while and sounding in the end of the Dutch resurection of the marque…

Very special, as Le Mans 2003 was this cars final race, the car is a time capsule going back to that race… altough all mechanics underneath have been rebuild and restored, the body remains untouched since 2003.

We offer this car for sale, together with several sets of wheels and many 2003 Le Mans memorabilia. Feel free to contact us for more info on all the work done and pricing.