The Carchive: Maserati Biturbo 222 and 430

Once again Friday is upon us, for which we let out a collective hurricane of relaxed exhalation. In the dusty parking lot in which I type this, the sun is beating down and I’m in a really good mood. It’s also my birthday, and as has become customary this means airing one of the more spangly documents from The Carchive.
The Maserati Biturbo was launched in 1981, the same year as me. So lets head to Italy and take a look at a couple of cars from a period of Maserati’s history they probably don’t want to dwell on.

Please click on the images to biggen them up.

“Alfieri Maserati started his engineering business in Bologna on Monday, 14th December 1914”
So begins a great long pre-amble about the glittering racing history of Maserati, with destinations like the Targa Florio and Indianapolis 500, as well as names like Wilbur Shaw and Juan Manual (sic) Fangio being casually dropped, concluding with…
“Since that time, the company has concentrated on the production of high quality cars in the Grand Touring tradition.”
Interestingly, there’s no great fanfare of “And now we proudly present The Biturbo!!!!!!”.
Why might that be?

“The well proportioned seats have been designed to accommodate passengers in a luxurious and spacious interior; access to the rear seats is facilitated by the movement and return of the front seats”
It’s as if we’ve skipped a couple of pages here, as the brochure jumps straight to images of over-stuffed chairs wrapped in ferociously ruched leather, but says nothing at all about the glorious piece of rolling sculpture that the car was.
Was this deliberate? Why did they go straight into describing individual aspects of the product rather than waxing lyrical over the package as a whole, like in every other brochure from Borgward to Bugatti? Were they not proud of the “heavily accessorised E30 3-Series” styling of their bread-and-butter range, the legacy of the late and unlamented DeTomaso era?
“Light Alloy wheels are fitted to reduce unsprung weight and increase the car’s roadholding capabilities”
Alloy wheels? On a Maserati? This is innovative stuff, the kind of thing that you don’t expect until you reach Ford Sierra Ghia levels of grandure.
Things don’t really get started until you open the first of the two model supplements.

“New Aesthetics: the soft, taut, aggressive front end is harmoniously blended into the grill with its rounded corners. The overall effect is a sinuous look, in addition to an imporoved coefficient of aerodynamic penetration. The outside rear view mirrors, which can be controlled from inside (!)- are charcterised by their extremely aerodynamic shape to prevent annoying sounds when travelling at high speeds”
Was there ever a sexier, more pert, elegant shape than the 222 E? Yes. Yes there was.
A lot of the prose above is clearly the bedrugged rambling of a madman, though let’s hear it for those remote control mirrors. The improvements listed in this ’87 brochure were certainly worth having. The E in 222 stood for “Export” incidentally, which meant a 2.8 litre V6 standing in for the Italian tax-break special 2.0 litre unit.

“The 430 was conceived for the most demanding buyer- in the sports or luxury driving market”
We may joke about an era of Maserati where the cars were almost the antithesis of everything the rakish, svelte machines formerly associated with the Trident marque, but there’s actually a pretty compelling appeal to cars like these, especially the 430. Here’s a compact sports sedan of 2600lb, with ultra luxurious seating, a jewel-like V6 engine augmented by twin IHI snails and mustering 250hp in non-catalysed format.
Claimed performance was 5.7 seconds to 62.5mph, and a max of “over” 149 mph. This was a fast car. This still is a fast car. Not a very sexy one to look at, but in a way that makes it all the more appealing.

“Attention to detail, care and pride of workmanship live on in the true Maserati tradition”
This was a truly odd period in the Maserati continuum. After the ’76 takeover of Maserati by Alejandro de Tomaso it was proposed that Maserati bring out more “affordable” sports cars and place less priority on money no object machines like the Bora and all those wonderful, exotic masterpieces that went before them. As it happens, the Biturbo became Maserati’s sole product during the 1980s. It took quite a long time for Maserati to regain their reputation as a maker of supercars and not hopped-up executive sedans, despite frequent restylings by Marcello Gandini, the Biturbo range would never steal wall space from the Ferrari and Lamborghini poster competition.
At least the later Karif and Shamal models showed a bit of high-performance intent on the part of Maserati, but among those missing the beauty of the old school, you can imagine how loud the global cheer was when the 3200GT first arrived.
(All images are of original manufacturer publicity material, photographed by me. I’ll still have a ’98 Quattroporte Evo, please. Enjoy this kind of thing? Follow me on Twitter at @RoadworkUK)