Maserati

Italy, 1926 to date

(1) Officine Alfieri Maserati SpA, Bologna, 1926 – 1938

(2) Officine Alfieri Maserati spA, Modena, 1938 to date

The famous Italian Maserati car marque gained its international reputation largely through the successes of Maserati racing cars, rather than its sports models. The Maserati brothers from Bologna – Carlo, Bindo, Alfieri, Ettore and Ernesto – had links with motoring going back to pioneer days when Carlo Maserati, the eldest, raced motor cycles and cars and worked successively for Fiat, Bianchi and Junior, while Bindo and Alfieri joined Isotta-Fraschini. Carlo died in 1911 and Alfieri opened a tiny garage near the Ponte Vecchio, Bologna, in 1919. During World War 1 the Maserati brothers began to manufacture Maserati sparking plugs, and in the early 1920s Alfieri successfully raced a fast ‘special’ Maserati car he built, using one bank of an Isotta-Fraschini V8 aero engine. Next he began racing Diatto cars which he modified extensively, and in 1925 the Maseratis undertook production of two 2-litre supercharged twin-ohc straight-8 Diatto GP cars. A year later Diatto withdrew from racing so the Fratelli took over the cars, reduced their capacity to 1½-litres to comply with the current Formula, and the Officine Alfieri Maserati was founded, using Neptune’s trident, the traditional symbol of Bologna, as their trademark. Driven by Alfieri himself, the new Maserati car won the 1½-litre class in its first race, the 1926 Targa Florio. More Maserati cars were built for private customers, and in 1929 they combined two 2-litre units in one chassis to produce the legendary 16-cylinder Maserati – the sedici cilindri – which exceeded 152mph at Cremona in 1929 and, with a sister 5-litre Maserati car, did well in racing. 1930 brought the famous 2½-litre GP Maserati car which won five major races that year; while more powerful derivatives added further laurels, including the 1933 French and Belgian Grands Prix. When Alfieri Maserati died in 1932 Ernesto took over the reins of the Maserati cars, and with German domination of GP racing obvious after 1934, turned to the 1½-litre voiturette class, producing neat 4- and 6-cylinder twin-ohc single-seater Maserati cars which gained numerous successes. In 1938 the big Orsi industrial group acquired the Officine Maserati car company, and the three remaining brothers became privileged employees, producing a new 16-valve 4-cylinder Maserati car and the 3-litre straight-8 Maserati 8CTF which won the Indianapolis 500 Miles in 1939 and 1940. The Fratelli’s last effort was the Maserati A6G sports car, with new 6-cylinder single-ohc engine in 1 ½- and 2-litre forms, this Maserati car made its debut at the 1947 Geneva Show.   The brothers who started building the Maserati cars left to form the OSCA concern in Bologna late that year, but the Orsis developed their 4CL voiturette design into the 4CLT/48 with 2-stage supercharging and tubular frame; this Maserati car won races when stronger opposition was absent but was far from fault-free. In 1952 they laid down a new Formula 2 Maserati car, based on the A6G; in 1953 they improved this Maserati car so that Fangio owns the Italian and Modena Grands Prix with a Maserati car, and in 1954 came the highly successful GP 6-cylinder 250F Maserati car built to the 2½-litre Formula. This Maserati car gained more honours for the Trident between 1954 and 1957, and gained for Fangio his fifth World Championship in 1957. By then, however, Maserati cars were expensively involved in Championship sports car racing as well, and the destruction of four highly costly 4½-litre V8 Maserati cars by crashes during the 1957 Venezuela Grand Prix, combined with default on cash payments by Argentina for goods supplied by the Orsi combine, caused the withdrawal of Maserati cars from racing. Thereafter they built expensive sports Maserati cars, but by 1960 were indirectly back in racing with the famous ‘Birdcage’ Types 60 and 61 Maserati cars with multi-tube space frames, and 2- and 2.8-litre 4-cylinder engines respectively, these Maserati cars were raced by private owners. The Maserati 61 won the Nurburgring 1.000km race in 1960 and 1961, and was succeeded by a rear-engined Maserati car with a 3-litre V12 engine. The engine in this Maserati car was the forerunner of the current racing Maserati engine as used in the 1966/1967 Cooper formula 1 chassis.   Since then the Maserati car company has concentrated on high-performance luxury and sporting Maserati cars, developed from the dohc 6-cylinder Maserati 3500 series made until 1966, with servo-assisted 4-wheel disc brakes and semi-elliptic rear suspension. Latterly buyers of Maserati cars had a choice of two power units, a 3.485cc version with 260bhp and a bigger one with 3.692cc and 270bhp; both had Lucas fuel injection as standard and thise Maserati cars could be had with 5-speed all-synchromesh gearbox or Borg-Warner automatic transmission. Since 1964 there had also been a 4-door Maserati car saloon, the Maserati Quattroporte, powered by a dohc 4.136cc V8 engine with four dual-choke Weber carburetors, retailing at 7.500.000 lire. The Maserati cars of 1967, the 6-cylinder Maserati Sebring and the Maserati Mistrale models had 4-litre engines, and a new 4.7-litre V8 Maserati car was introduced with the Maserati Mexico 2-door saloon and the Maserati Ghibli coupé; this latter had four retractable headlamps and did 174mph on 340bhp. A spyder version of the Maserati car was listed in 1970, when both the sixes and the Quattroporte were dropped. In 1968 the Maserati car company had become associated with Citroën of France, subsequently making a V6 engine for the latter’s high-performance SM model. The 1972 Maserati car range included the Mexico, Ghibli and Indy, and the V8 engines, used in their Maserati cars, extended from a 260bhp 4.1-litre up to a 4.9-litre 335bhp unit used in the Maserati Ghibli SS. All these Maserati cars had four Weber carburetters, as did the Maserati car firm’s first road-going mid-engined car, the Maserati Bora two-seater coupé. This Maserati car featured unitary construction, all-independent suspension, and a 5-speed transaxle. Its 4.7-litre engine was cooled by twin electric fans and developed 310bhp. A smaller version of the Maserati Bora was the Maserati Merak. This Maserati car was powered by a carburetor edition of the 3-litre 190bhp V6 engine as used in the Citroën SM.    

Source: Georgano, encyclopedia of motorcar; CP

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