Maserati Ghibli and 228

Ghibli Hot wind that blows out of Libya, dropping grains of the Sahara onto ships that pass in the night.

While certain ugly brick buildings on the edge of Modena have been the birthing place for some notable street machines since the end of World War Two, it is well to remember that the history of Officine Alfieri Maserati SpA goes right back to 1926. More remarkable...the company started by that most enterprising of the five Fratelli Maserati never built a touring car until 1947. Well, that's not exactly true. There was one. In 1933, Ernesto, who assumed leadership of the company after the death of Alfieri, had this plan to produce a line of cars for sale to regular people for use on ordinary roads. The 25 guys who manned the Maserati works actually built one, then the racing season loomed, they got distracted, and the project languished.

Anyway, the Maserati brothers had absolutely nothing to do with the Ghibli and here's why: By 1936, a sales decline resulting principally from Benito Mussolini's madcap efforts to produce a New Roman Empire by making war on Abyssinia, found the brothers in deep trouble with creditors. Hat in hand, Ernesto went to industrial tycoon Adolfo Orsi, who owned everything in Modena worth having, and suggested an unleveraged buyout. Adolfo and his son Omer thought it a splendid idea, so the disconsolate Maseratis, hauling Neptune's trident-symbol of Bologna-with them, trudged up the road to the shops in Modena where the company is still going broke today.

The buyout contract called for the brothers three--Bindo, Ernesto, and Ettore (Carlo had died in 1911)--to enjoy job security with the new management for a term of ten years. That fateful decade included the entire period of World War Two and there was plenty of work for everyone, although blessed little to do with race cars.

To the astonishment of all, on the exact day that marked the 10th anniversary of Orsi management, the three Maserati brothers picked up their tools, returned to Bologna, and-having signed away rights to commercial use of their own name-opened Officina Specializzata Costruzione Autornobili.

Soon, OSCA 750, 1100, 1500, and 1600cc sports racing cars were dazzling enthusiasts on both sides of the Atlantic.

By 1956, without a single Maserati brother around, the company began to look fierce once again. The Maserati 250F would carry Juan Fangio to his fifth World Championship in 1957. Even more exciting stuff was going on in the back room.

For the mad horsepower race then underway with the outfit across town, a radical, new 4.5-liter V8 with gear-driven dohc, four dual-throat Webers, and twin magnetos firing two plugs per cylinder was bellowing its rage on the dyno.

Installed in a chassis already baptized in the fires of competition, multidisc clutch and 5-speed de Dion transaxle notwithstanding, the performance of this overdone sports racer was unimpressive. The car failed to qualify for the Indy 500 (where a Maserati had won in 1939 and 1940), and at the "Trophy of the Two Worlds," Stirling Moss did his best, receiving a terrible scare when his steering collapsed on the banking.

Finally, Behra and Fangio won the Sebring 12 Hours, and a pair of cars was prepared for the 1957 Mille Miglia.

One crashed in practice; the other was the culprit in that silly story of Moss and Jenkinson retiring with a fractured brake pedal seven miles after the commence of a 1000-mile contest. At Le Mans, the car snapped a halfshaft. So did the two entered for the Nurburgring 1000 kilometers. Moss and Behra won the Swedish Grand Prix (a Sports Car championship event), evening the points total with Ferrari. The final race of the season was still to run at Caracas.

And wasn't that a disaster. Four of the 450S roadsters were entered, along with one 3.0-liter car, just in case. Masten Gregory put his car on its back; Moss centerpunched an A.C. Bristol; Behra's car took fire in the pits, burning the driver sufficiently to sideline him. Moss took over Behra's seat, but did not finish. Harry Schell became Maserati's final hope, whereupon Joakim Bonnier (in the 3.0-liter car) rammed him, putting both cars out of action.

Fortunately, Fangio's championship in Formula One saved a lot of face and the little factory on Viale Ciro Menotti retired from racing with honor in order to concentrate on producing a few touring cars and maybe a little profit.

The first fruit of this labor appeared at Geneva in 1957 as the Maserati 3500 GT and it received race reviews.

Then came the shocker at the 1959 Turin Salon. Bought right off the stand by the Shah of Iran, the 5000 GT with the big V8 from the 450S and a body by Carrozzeria Touring simply overwhelmed the audience and critics alike with its sumptuous accommodation and 165-mph upper limit.

Notwithstanding a little backslide into racing with the Tipo 60/61 Birdcage, the next big street news came in 1963 with the Turin debut of a large sedan, body by Frua. The revised V8 of 4136cc had chain-driven overhead camshafts. Never before had the European public confronted a 4-door sedan with the performance potential of the Quattroporte.

Finally, the immediate forerunner of our featured car arrived as the Maserati 5 Litri, better known as the Mexico. Other than establishing an important benchmark for ugly, it helped raise the curtain on an automobile so graceful, so svelte, so chic as to render meaningless all those terms of approbation previously wasted on less sophisticated bodywork. Here was the proper blending of luxury and performance that the coachmaking community had been seeking. Although the Tipo 115 carried the Ghia badge, it was Giorgio Guigiaro who had refined other expressions, pulled together disparate elements, and given the Ghibli something that was his alone.

While the beauty of the car is undeniable, it is difficult to describe, hence the photographs. Chassis and suspension are quite conventional with unequal A-arms, coil over tube shocks, and anti-roll member up front. A live axle on lead springs is located and controlled by trailing arms and tube shocks at the rear. Wheelbase is 100 in., track 56.7/55.4, overall length 181, height 46, weight 3750 lb.

It is the engine which, while not beautiful, is the most interesting component of this spectacular car, hence our preoccupation with its history and development.

The first Ghiblis arrived with a 4.7-liter, 340 bhp version of the timeless V8, equipped with dry-sump lubrication, allowing quite low positioning of the engine between tubular frame rails, thus permitting the attractively flattened hoodline. Later cars came with a 5-liter engine (355 bhp at 5500 rpm). Standard wear included four dual-throat downdraft Weber carburetors, conventional Magnetti Marelli coil/distributor ignition, 340 bhp at 5500 rpm and all the performance anyone could reasonably expect from a luxurious GT car.

The wonderfully practical engine was used not only in race cars, the 5000 GT built-to-order coupes, two different Quattroporte sedans, the Mexico, Ghibli, Indy, Khamsin, and Kyalami, it was chosen for the Maserati Bora, perhaps the best expression of the mid-engined GT discipline. It got punched out to 6462cc and made to deliver 580 hp. Converted to marine use, it powered 11 world champions. It has been reported that one of these engines anchors a dhow to the shifting bottom just south of Male, in the Maldives, but the author has been unable to confirm this.

We thank owner Richard Groman of Los Angeles for his assistance in the photography of the Maserati Ghibli on these pages.

Maserati
By David M. MacFarlanePhotos by Les Bidrawn

When Maserati says "less is more"--and it's doubtful they say it very often--they mean it in a highly peculiar way. In providing the road-going world with a 2-door mate to its 4-door 430, they have designed a body with, granted, less doors, but more car. The new 228 is longer by 2.4 in., has a marginally greater wheelbase, stands 4 in. wider, and tips the scales 65 lb. in excess of the 430. It does, however, sit an inch and an eyelash closer to the ground, and, taken "in toto," the impression of increased sleekness is not lost on the naked eye...although it helps to have its partner standing next to it.

Much has been written over the last few years about the styling of Modena's latest issues, twin-turbo litters that have included the Spyder, the 430, the Karif, and the recently departed older cousin of the lot, the Bi-Turbo, nuzzled out by the 228. Certainly the Quattroporte, a 4-door sedan as daunting and bombastic as a Wagnerian opera, should not be excluded. Maserati has placed its reproachless reputation on the anvil of car history and boldly hammered all the voluptuous curves that helped fashion that reputation into Pythagorean angles and ruler-straight lines. From poetry to geometry, one might say. Not everyone is thrilled. To distill the comments of more than one nonplussed observer: "It's a Maserati, 228 but who'll know?"

Who will know? Categorically, anyone who's ever driven one, ridden in one, or been blown off the road by one. The 2.8-liter, twin-turbocharged V6 propels the 2-door sports sedan down the highway like nothing else in its class. Nothing even comes close. A scant 6.0 sec is all it takes to reach 60 mph. Maximum horsepower (225) is tapped at 5600 rpm, and peak torque (246 lb.-ft) at 3500 rpm, but those are simply numbers. You might as well count the brush strokes on a Michaelangelo. This car, more than most, encourages the driver to ignore figures' especially those composing the left front gauge.

While some great and not so great cars gobble up the asphalt, tires biting, engines chewing, the Maserati seems to cut a vortex for itself as it accelerates, knifing through both air and sound. The growl of the motor turns to a faint burble as you snick through the short-shifting gearbox, in throws that are at once mechanical and smooth, and sound and feel much like a wellmade lock clicking shut. Shifting is precise, once the Italian gearing is mastered (first-down and toward the right thigh), although a decisive hand is the better part of finesse in this case.

Inside the cabin, the 228's racing spirit bows in deference to luxury. The sumptuous leather and suede interior, handsomely adorned with rosewood trim, shifter and handbrake, inspires feelings of classicism. There is timeless quality here. Unlike many of its top-dollar competitors, boasting seats that can all but tap dance if the right buttons are pressed in sequence, the 228 offers only a comfortable seat that moves forward and backward manually, and a seat back that adjusts electronically. That in itself is no sin; however, for my liking, in a car that corners this aggressively, I would have preferred a more snug hold from the side bolsters.

It is roomy, front seat and rear. When traveling in the back, one feels not so much relegated to it-the way many 2-door sedans make you feel-as privileged. Few cars offer this kind of head room and outward visibility; unfortunately, those over six feet tall, who would most relish this benefit in the driver's seat, will find their view of the dials and indicator lights very much obscured; not even the telescoping adjustable steering wheel can remedy this. (I did say this car encourages ignoring the speedo.)

Ergonomically, there is nothing that fingers can't easily stroll to. Climate controls are push-button adjustable, and become simply one less thing to worry about when the new Automatic Climate Control is engaged. The stereo is nicely within reach, but, as usual for Maserati, is of such inconceivably low quality that you're better off using that hand to scratch your head. The recurrence of one bad audio system after another in these cars is simply perplexing.

But let's leave low fidelity and get back to high-performance. With the art of a veteran alchemist, Maserati has blended the right measure of performance and comfort into the car's suspension. Little is compromised on either side in the process. At touring speed, the fully independent front and rear suspension provides a smooth, refined ride. It is at its emphatic best on the open highway, where its wide stance and healthy-size tires produce a very secure feel. Road and wind noise are minimal, even as the speedometer needle race up toward 12 o'clock--100 mph--and beyond, to a claimed top speed of 146 mph.

Nonetheless, there is plenty of fun to be had without leaving double digits. This is a car with a decidedly aggressive disposition. And, while the suspension is, naturally, softer than what you'd find in a road-going sports car, the 228 feels fairly nimble and isn't thrown off stride in the least, tail out, rounding a big sweeper. Step on it too hard coming out of a turn on a rainy afternoon, however, and you'll find yourself looking into the back seat, eye to eye with your passengers.

Helping complete the feeling of total driver command are power-assisted rack and pinion steering and four-wheel disc brakes.

Then, of course, there is that old word, the adjective that has been tagged to Maseratis, justly or unjustly, and is often the second word out of anyone's mouth after "Wow!"--temperamental. It might be true that there is no better way to thumb your nose at someone in a BMW 635, Mercedees 300CE, Jaguar XJ-S or Cadillac Allante--all cars Maserati will be competing with in the luxury coupe arena--than from the driver's seat of this Italian super coupe; but doing it from the perspective of a service station just isn't the same. Our car behaved quite well, the only exceptions being a squeak in the steering, and an air conditioner that balked at delivering the goods several times--not a small inconvenience in Palm Springs, where this car was tested.

The price tag for the newest member of the Maserati clan will start around $50,000. Sitting behind the wheel of the 228, it's easy to see where that money was spent. It is luxury under glass. Power under foot. Whether that translates into dependability over time is still to be seen.