Specifically, the “car” I’m referring to in the headline is the new Spyker C8 Preliator XXV that will be showing its face at The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering, this Friday. I had a chance to see the car and to speak with the company’s CEO, Victor Muller. He broke down the economics of car week, telling me how much he’s paying to debut his company’s new car, and enlightening me on how it’s possible for there to be enough customers for so many supercar manufacturers.
Victor Muller is a fascinating person. A dutch lawyer and car-lover, he started Spyker Cars back in 1999 along with Maarten de Bruijn, who had spent years building a mid-engine sports car that the two would ultimately morph into the Spyker C8, a vehicle that revived the brand name of an old Dutch carriage and aircraft company that went out of business in the 1920s. I’ve got a review of the Spyker C8 coming tomorrow, but suffice it to say: It’s a remarkable supercar whose combination of driving engagement/performance and build quality/attention to detail may be unparalleled in automotive history.
I love that car, which is why I was excited to have a chance to preview the newest Spyker model slated to make a bow at Monterey Car Week’s “The Quail.” The preview took place in a studio in Long Beach, and while I’ll show you what I saw when the embargo breaks on Friday, for now I’d like to direct you to a short Monterey Car Week Preview podcast that Victor (again, an interesting guy; I’ll talk more about that when I show the new car on Friday) was kind enough to host with me.
It was a great look at what Car Week means to car manufacturers like Spyker, and an opportunity to learn from the Dutch CEO, who has been attending this magnificent automotive celebration since 1990.
One thing I’ve been wondering about for a while is: How does it make sense that there are so many supercar companies attending events like Monterey Car Week and the Goodwood Festival of Speed? Surely there can’t be that many ultra-rich people to buy all these cars from all these companies, right?
“How many billionaires are there?” I asked Muller. “Are there too many cars for the buyers?”
“The opposite is true; there are too few cars for the buyers,” he replied, going on to say that Spyker C8s have been selling for way over MSRP, indicating more demand than volume.”The prices of these things are going up. Same thing for the Bugattis, same thing for the Koenigseggs, same thing for the Paganis. And look at the Gordon Murrays; those cars are off the charts!”
Muller clarified that, while some brands cannot make enough cars to satisfy demand, there have always been some flash-in-the-pan brands in attendance that come and go, and whose cars’ values depreciate quickly. He told me he’s probably seen 100 brands come and go from Pebble Beach, but “for [the big-name] brands there are more customers than there are cars.”
Am I surprised to hear this? A little. While I realize the income distribution in this world is getting more and more lopsided, with the middle class shrinking and the uber-rich class growing, I didn’t think there could possibly be enough demand to justify the rows and rows of supercar-makers at these events. But apparently there is.
“If you add up what we make — we’ll make 50 cars a year…Koenigsegg makes 60 cars a year…Pagani, something similar…Bugatti, a little bit more than that…it’s a total of maybe between 300 and 400 cars maybe in total…and the number of billionaires that is being added every year is higher than that. So the number of people that can actually buy one is going up.”
This socioeconomic trend, the fact that social media is able to bring the world of supercars to more people than ever, and the death of traditional car shows like the Geneva Salon have combined to make Car Week larger than life, per Muller. So large, in fact, that Spyker has decided to spend some heavy coin to launch its new model at The Quail, a Motorsports Gathering. And I mean seriously heavy coin. I asked how much.
“The launch? $700,000…easily. But we’re still going, because I think it’s important that you don’t see the car just in digital form… it is a completely different experience [in real life],” Muller told me. “In order to appreciate the leather and the attention to detail and the craftsmanship that goes into a product like that, you really have to see it. So, we think that it’s still important to bring a car to an audience in order to allow them to see the product.”
Victor Muller is going to give a short speech introducing his new C8 Preliator XXV on Friday. He claims to have sold 19 of the 25 the company plans to make. “I guess that by Sunday, we’ll be sold out anyway. So I’m not there really to show people that they can buy the car, I’m actually much more interested in showing them the new way that Spyker has chosen for the future.” Muller has just seven minutes to communicate that new way to the audience at The Quail.
“You’ve got 7 minutes to tell your story,” he told me. “It’s $100,000 per minute, if you think about it…Oh my god I have to nail it for $100,000 a minute!”
Watch my full chat with Victor Muller via the podcast link above in this article. Expect more Monterey Car Week coverage, and more Spyker content later today and also tomorrow.
