Spyker C1 13/30-hp Torpedo Touring

Three of the 330 Spyker C1 13/30 cars produced were delivered to Queen Wilhelmina. This luxurious Spyker is the first car model the factory released after the First World War.

However, this C1 with its 3.6-litre, four-cylinder engine was heavily underpowered and disappeared from the scene after two years. From 1915, Spyker was under new management again. The director of the company was now the aviation pioneer Henri Wijnmalen. As the First World War had broken out, there was little demand for cars, but considerably more for aeroplanes. Wijnmalen borrowed some additional funds and managed to convert the factory to build aeroplanes as well as cars; during the war the company focused on aircraft construction. This was also the time when the car was given its distinctive logo of an aircraft propeller overlaying a wheel, with the Latin motto ‘Nulla tenaci invia est via’ (no road is impassable to the tenacious).