Classic Cars
From Italy
MASERATI S.p.A.
The 6 Maserati brothers who began
building cars in the early 1900s, sold their operations to the Orsi family in
1937. As
for road cars, it was only after 1957 that Maserati departed from its
successes on the race track, to concentrate more on high end road cars.
In both 1939 and 1940, Maserati won the Indianapolis 500 with an 8CTF.
In 1968, Maserati was taken over by Citroën and after Citroën was bankrupted in
1974, another change saw the amalgamation of Peugeot and Citroën with Maserati
remaining in the stable.
Further changes - In 1975, industrialist De Tomaso acquired the Maserati company;
in 1993 it was bought by Fiat; in 1997 50% of Fiat's ownership was sold to
Ferrari and finally in 2005, Fiat regained its 100% ownership. (*1)
It was never my intention to create this record of classical cars other than for
the "normal" person whose interest in the genuine classics of the world, could
temp him/her to consider purchasing a car to form or add to a collection.
There are other sites which can cater for your dreams. Not here.
The two Sebring models of
1962 to 1969 followed the first 2 commercial production cars, the 3500GT and the
5000 GT. The two models provided no exterior alterations This 3500GTi Sebring
introduced the subtle, gentle curves synonymous with Maserati.
Sadly, my list stops here.
Join my Forum and have your say.
The
Maserati Mistral 4000 was the largest of the 3 models of Mistral and the coupe
pictured outsold the spider variant by 830 to 120. First introduced in 1963, the
4000 is reported as being the most beautiful Maserati of all time
(*2).
There were 5 models of the Quattroporto between 1963 and 2009.
*
left -
the 2nd generation was very seriously effected by the 1973 oil crisis and only
13 were produced during the 4 years 1974 to 1978. No blame can be laid on the
car, its design, its engineering or even on the fact that during this period,
Citroen held the reins over the company. Approximately 730 of the first series
were made and over 3,750 over the later Series 3, all of which mostly shared the
same technology.
* left -
3,750 of this Quattroporto III were produced between 1976 and 1990 during the De
Tomaso ownership. A return to the square frontal was De Tomaso's preference over
the previous trend towards aerodynamics, and what could be said to be a
retro-step proved commercially successful.
The
Maserati Merak spanned the ownership of both Citroën and De Tomaso with
surprisingly little alteration in design. The Merak was produced between 1972
and 1982, the first 3 years under Citroën.
This 1976 Merak SS is one of only 652 produced before production stopped in
1982. I'm sure the heavily slanted front end had no intentional resemblance to
the Ferraris of the day.
Saving the best to last? The Maserati
Ghibli was a V8 GT produced between 1966 and 1973.
A Ghibli II came on line in 1992.
1,149 coupes, 125 Spyders and 25 Spyder SS were sold, outselling its Ferrari and
Lamborghini rivals by considerable margins.
Models excluded are either not produced in sufficient numbers to warrant the "road car" label
or very slight variants of others already listed.
there are many newer Maserti road cars waiting for their turn to be defined as a
genuine classic.
Nominate your preference; Take a poll.
See my Blog.