'A true and honest car'
In the hushed white showroom at Aston Martin of Dallas, a tough new Dutch hooligan shares space with the sleek aristocrats. The pumped-up silver roadster crouched on the east end of the floor is a Spyker C8 Spyder, a highly unusual, strong and extremely rare sports car - qualities that should serve the $300,000 Spyker well in Dallas' thriving luxury-exotic car market.
Aston Martin of Dallas is the first Spyker dealer in the Southwest and one of only 13 nationwide. Built of aluminum and riding on a race-bred space frame, the highly stylized Spyker weighs about 2,600 pounds - roughly equivalent to a Honda Civic - and has a 400-horsepower Audi V-8 with a thundering exhaust. From some angles, it looks like a modern exotic with scissor doors that pivot straight up rather than out. But with huge, polished aluminum intake vents in front of the rear wheels and a flap covering a red starter button on the dash, the Spyker displays its vague aviation roots as well.
"There is absolutely no design like this car anywhere," said Carsten Preisz, vice president of sales and marketing at Spyker, which is based in the Netherlands. "It is a true and honest car for enthusiasts. But you can still drive this car downtown, and you will attract more attention than any Lamborghini or Ferrari." Sonny Morgan, managing partner of Aston Martin of Dallas, is counting on it. Mr. Morgan and John Eagle, th principle owner of the dealership on Lemmon Avenue, decided to acquire a Spyker franchise this summer. The first car arrived about three weeks ago, in a foam cocoon.
The Spyker should help the dealer retain well-heeled buyers who were previously attracted to the Aston Martin Vanquish, a 12-cylinder luxury coupe that also costs around $300,000 and is being discontinued this year. "We wanted a car in the $300,000 range to replace the Vanquish," Mr. Morgan said. "I just think with a dealership like this, you have to have something like this car. It's like an art gallery getting a Monet. It brings the level of what you do up a notch."
Profit Margins:
In the last decade, luxury and exotic car dealerships have enjoyed profit margins on their vehicles that are substantially higher than mainstream cars and trucks, which rarely generate a gross profit of more than 10 percent. Although dealers won't disclose their margins, some in the industry say high-end cars typically earn gross profits 20 percent or more. But competition is growing on the high end, with manufacturers such as Aston Martin, Bentley, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Porsche, and Rolls-Royce vying for affulent buyers of six-figure cars. As a result, the margins on many expensive cars are being squeezed, Mr. Morgan said, making it more important to retain customers who typically own three of four high-end vehicles and trade them often.
Some dealers are responding to the shrinking margins by marketing up their prices. "Aston, for example, went up 3 percent in prices for the new cars, but the cost to dealers went up more than that," he said. "What I will try to refrain from doing is mark them up over the window sticker." The window sticker on a Spyker - and there are no deals, incentives, low-interest financing, or other inducements - is $296,785. The buyer is likely to pay cash. "This is a guy who wants exclusivity, who has more than one exotic car in his stable.," Mr. Morgan said. "These are people with air-conditioned garages that have travertine floors. They will pull out a bottle of cab and let it breathe while they admire their work of art."
Born in 2000:
The Spyker Co., which recently reported its first operating profit, was formed in 2000, buying the name of a Dutch auto and airplane manufacturer that went of business in 1925, Mr. Preisz said. Spyker's charismatic cheif executive and founder is Victor Muller, a Dutch lawyer and car enthusiast who became wealthy buying and restructing companies in Europe. Mr. Muller, who was the company's primary shareholder, took it public two years ago. The company has 200 employees and builds four models of cars that sell for $300,000 to $325,000. The company, which recently gained certification for its vehicles in the U.S., expects to sell 100 cars a year worldwide. "We have 13 dealers now in the U.S., and I'm signing up two more," Mr. Preisz said.
Gavin Conway, editor-in-cheif of Automobile magazine, thinks the Spyker is credible and the company has good prospects for survival. He hasn't driven one yet but says he's familar with the company and its cars. "I think one of the interesting things about Spyker is they don't use anyone else's knobs," Mr. Conway said. "They manufacture their own. The attention to detail is superb, and the car is quite good, accoridng to those who have driven it. I think they intend to be in it for the long run."
-Terry Box.
). The interior is absolutley amazing, especially the exposed shift linkage. I did'nt know that there were only 13 in the whole country. This one was silver; naturally. I'll get some pics next time i go. BTW, there is a Ferrari/Maserati dealer directly next to it that has a Ferrari 365 GTB Daytona, my absolute favorite Ferrari next to the 250GTO.
