Inside the photo studio, the supercar we’ve viewing is a resplendent green color that’s hard to place. It’s a bit bluer than jade green, but just as solid and deep. The CEO and founder of the company behind the car whips out his iPhone: “It looks much better in the light,” showing us a photo he snapped a few hours ago, as the $1.6 million supercar was unloaded from a cargo plane, fresh from Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands. And indeed, in the sunshine, sparkling rose gold flecks in the paint lighten it to a shade more akin to the Poa annua putting greens of The Quail golf course.
Not coincidentally, Quail Green is the name of the color applied to the third modern supercar from Spyker. Meet the mid-engined 2027 Spyker C8 Preliator XXV Coupe, which marks the Dutch firm’s comeback with its world debut at The Quail, a Motorsports Gathering.
Also sparkling in the light: all of the rose-gold-plated jewelry of the Preliator, from the staggered 20-inch front and 21-rear wheels to the windshield frame and ducts, vents, and trim. All that rose gold is available as a $67,000 option. Standard Preliators will have polished aluminum brightwork, but if you want some more special, Spyker will customize the brightwork to your liking.
Preliator Power
Spyker has long associated its brand with airplanes and Latin, as exemplified in its logo, which features a propeller coaxially mounted on a wheel, and with the phrase “Nulla Tenaci Invia Est Via” debossed along the lower radius—meaning “for the tenacious, no road is impassable.”
As for the car’s name, Preliator means “warrior” and XXV equals 25 in Roman numerals, a nod to the modern roots of the company that began in 2000 and the announcement of this vehicle in 2025.
Powering this tenacious Dutch warrior is a 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8 sourced from Audi, producing a claimed 800 horsepower and 738 lb-ft of torque. Spyker says the car will top out at 217 mph. But unlike most modern supercars, the C8 Preliator XXV features a manual transmission.
“A six-speed Graziano manual gearbox, and I mean a real ‘manuale’ gearbox transmission,”says Muller, taking an obvious shot at the recently announced Ferrari 12 Cilindre Manuale, whose gated, shift-by-wire electronic “manual transmission” has sent more than a few enthusiasts into a doom spiral.
“When you are actually shifting the gearbox and you make a mistake, you blow up your engine, because that’s what we think a manual gearbox is all about, “ says Victor, with a twinkle in his eye.
Also twinkling are the polished pivot points and shafts of the exposed transmission linkage. Along with the turned aluminum dashboard, an homage to Spyker models built before 1925, it forms two of the most recognizable design features of modern Spykers. And perhaps adding to that DNA going forward is a largely screen-free interior.
