Maserati Cars Performance Portfolio 1982-1998

Ł13.95

Major manufacturers continued to help shape the destiny of Maserati in the 1980s. Although the liaison with Citroen in the previous decade had nearly led to the company's demise, Maserati was undeterred and secured its future by strategic liaisons first with Chrysler in the USA and then with Fiat in its native Italy. It was in 1982, though, that Maserati made clear how it saw its own future. That was the year when it introduced the Biturbo - the car which Autocar so aptly described as a mass-market Maserati. Even if production volumes would always be small in global terms, they would be large by Maserati's own standards. At the Biturbo's launch, Maserati promised volume production of the car for the next ten years - and in fact its distinctive shape would persist beyond that, being adapted to make a four-door car, a Spyder and then such delights as the V8-powered Shamal as well. The first of those strategic liaisons with big manufacturers never quite succeeded as intended, and the Chrysler TC by Maserati (as it was billed) arrived two years late in 1988. At the end of the following year, Fiat moved in, taking a 49 percent holding in Maserati. Yet Maserati held on in there, and the end of the 1990s saw the introduction of yet another new range of cars, as distinctive and highly acclaimed as those of earlier years. No doubt those will one day excite just as much enthusiast interest as do the cars covered in this book. This is a book of contemporary road & comparison tests, new model intros, driving impressions & buying guide. Models covered: Biturbo 2-litre, Coupe, Biturbo E, 425, Spyder, 228, 430, Karif, Royale, 245, 222E, Spyder E, Shamal, Ghibli, Quattroporte & V8, Ghibli Cup & V8 Evo. 136 pages, 300 illus including 17 pages of colour. SB. SKU: MC82PP ISBN: 9781855205994