As we had in the news a few days ago Spyker is in the middle of negotiations to sell the entire car business to a Coventry-based coachbuilder in order to focus on Saab. That didn’t stop the motorsport division from working on ambitious projects though.
They just announced development of the C8 Aileron GT racing car fro 2012 season. Based on Spyker’s new flagship C8 Aileron luxury supercar, the new GT racer will be designed and developed to the ACO’s new GTE specifications. That’s all we know abut this good looking race car for now. We have to wait and see how that deal will go down with the Brits. Spyker has a rather long history in GT racing with C8 Laviolette GT2R racer. We hope the new owners boost the brand’s motorsport activities!
Spyker Squadron Managing Director, Peter Van Erp, said: “We are taking a racing sabbatical this year to concentrate our resources on developing a new GT racer based on Spyker’s new C8 Aileron supercar, instead of continuing to spend money on a car at the end of its development cycle. For the long term future of Spyker Squadron, and for its role in the promotion and technical development of Spyker road cars, it’s a positive and strategically important step.
“We will develop the car for the new GTE class, although after its first season we will assess whether there is sufficient demand to develop a variant to FIA GT3 specifications. This would be relatively straightforward and would increase the potential customer base for the car and associated race support package. We are already attracting customer race teams wishing to buy an off-the-shelf car, with enquiries arriving from Europe and the Far East,” continues Van Erp.
