MotorPunk July 2013 | Page 15

wife’s nipples to medium wave while he watched. All very...Dutch.\r\nPost dashboard fondle we put the kettle on and had some excellent Dutch coffee. I had half expected it to be served in an aluminium cup with a quilted leather handle, stirred with a propeller-shaped spoon. Sadly it wasn’t. Spyker talk about the influence of fighter aircraft on design - air intakes, toggle switches, controls all seemingly designed to deliberately confuse the Hotel parking valets in Monte-Carlo. These cars are clearly built to show off but MotorPunk is more “Romanes eunt domus” than “Nulla tenaci invia est via”. Behind the showmanship there’s a serious company with a proper car. The factory has an engine test-bed where Spyker once built a single Audi-based engine with a flat-plane crank to give it the evocative Ferrari sound, and then used it at Le Mans. You need deep pockets to race in F1, and Spyker aren’t Ferrari. But they stuck a car on the grid in 2007 anyway. It’s hard not to be impressed by all this. The F1 team was then sold on to Force India. Spyker’s bossman, Victor Muller, might not be the most popular chap in Trollhättan but he’s clearly a canny Businessman. It was too short a foray to get any drive-time in either Spyker’s new B6 Venator or the C8 Aileron (pictured), but there’s the best of British in there, roast beef garnished with edam amstel waffles chips with mayo something Dutch and tasty.\r\n\r\nWe rather like Spyker.\r\n\r\nI have no idea which hill The Duke of York marched his men up by the way. Northern Holland is as flat as a ‘pannenkoek’.