CARROS Magazine – deBruyn Ferox V8: Repeat offender

First let’s refresh the collective memory. It felt like a long time ago that we received a call from a certain Maarten de Bruijn at the offices of an unnamed car magazine I worked for at the time. He had studied urban planning, but it turned out that he had built a sports car with the prototype name Silvestris V8 in the shed of his parents’ house in Gorssel. He thought it was good enough to be tested by perhaps the most feared motoring journalist of his time. It was 1999 and just looking back you can see how brave Maarten was at that time. The (complimentary!) article was titled ‘Tough as nails’. An innocent reference to the revival of the old Dutch name Spyker, for which Maarten had bought the rights together with his then business partner. Years later the headline on the story turned out to be terrifying. In their joint attempts to bring a forgotten car brand to the mainstream, the mild-mannered inventor/builder clashed with the aggressive lawyer/businessman. More than enough has been said and written about this adventure – not to mention that it was a crazy ride. For Maarten, this is perhaps the most exciting book for the boys, a decade after the production of Spyker was finally stopped, and after the recently declared bankruptcy of Spyker NV, it is now finally completely closed. There is real and figurative room for something new.

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You can read the whole article and more pictures in CARROS Magazine number 3/2023. Have you ever missed anything? Get a cheap additional annual subscription now (8 editions).