I was always curious about these cars as they were Italian 8 Cylinder muscle cars much like our 2+2's but boy did Maserati have a different outlook on what their customer wanted. These were fast, capable, and plushly luxurious cars with the engine sound of a Pontiac GTO!
While Ferrari interiors may be nice the Maserati's put Mercedes to shame:
And though I have driven a friends Mercedes 6.3, (one of Mercedes first stormers when they put a large limo engine in a normal sized car), this Maserati V8 is much more visceral. You can imagine crossing the continent in this car and being totally fresh when you arrive. Unlike our, (at least my) Ferrari, your clothes wouldn't smell like gas and oil, sweat wouldn't being pouring out of every pore, hell even my wife would ride in this.
At the end of the ride we parked incongruously in front of a country store to get sandwiches. As we were sitting down to eat a contractor with a big beard and overalls looked in and said, "Is that your Maserati out front." We both jumped up, me thinking a cop was giving us a ticket, (ah NYC breeding), and Pete thinking the car was on fire, (ah a man with a long history of selling fine Italian machinery). It was a great day, thanks Pete.
Yale
