The first 4WD car, the Spyker, was also the first with a 6-cylinder engine and it was to this element of Jacobus Spijker's creation that most attention went when it was introduced at the Paris Motor Show at the end of 1904. In its months as a demonstration vehicle it gained huge amounts of publicity for the Dutch marque, and this time the 'steering-wheel drive' as it was called back then took all the headlines. The Joseph Laviolette-designed machine was certainly the center of amazement at the Crystal Palace in the spring of 1905 when its 8.6-litre engine and all-wheel traction rocketed it up nearby Anerley Rise. Even more miraculously, it also managed to climb the steps in front of the exhibition building! In 1906 the Spyker had its competition debut in the Birmingham Motor Club hillclimb. Jacobus Spijker entered it to drive it himself, and on the boat to Harwich the entire Spyker crew prayed for rain. God must have had his Dutch channel open and answered their prayers, as the Spyker won the event quite easily. On a rain-drenched day it was in fact one of the few cars to reach the top of the hill