3 Attachment(s)
Maserati Quattroporte (II) 1976-1978
In 1974, at the Turin Show, Maserati presented its Quattroporte II (AM 123) on an extended Citroën SM chassis, available since Citroën had purchased the Italian company. It had sparse and slick Bertone bodywork, penned by Marcello Gandini and fashionable at the time, and was the only Maserati Quattroporte to feature hydropneumatic suspension and front wheel drive. It also had the swivelling directional headlights à la SM/DS. However, the 1973 oil crisis intervened. This, combined with the collapse of the Citroën/Maserati relationship, made Maserati unable to gain EEC approval for the car. Most of the cars built were thus sold in the Middle East and in Spain, where such type approval was not necessary.
Furthermore, the front-wheel drive layout and the modest V6 3.0L powerplant based on the Citroën SM engine did not attract many customers. Its 210 PS (154 kW) at 5,500 rpm was barely enough to propel the 1,600 kg (3,500 lb) car to 200 km/h (124 mph). Maserati's traditional customers simply wouldn't consider the car a true Maserati. Maserati made 13 Quattroporte IIs. While the prototype was built in 1974, the succeeding twelve cars were built to order between 1976 and 1978. The nearly stillborn Quattroporte II project was very costly for the small company, which found itself in debt to the tune of four billion lire by the end of 1978.
[B]Maserati Quattroporte[/B]
[LIST][*][URL="http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=45751"]Maserati Quattroporte I 1963-1969[/URL][*][COLOR="Red"]Maserati Quattroporte II 1976-1978[/COLOR][*][URL="http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=45752"]Maserati Quattroporte III 1979-1990[/URL][*][URL="http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=45749"]Maserati Quattroporte IV 1994–2001[/URL][*][URL="http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1460"]Maserati Quattroporte V 2004-2012[/URL][*][URL="http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=45335"]Maserati Quattroporte VI 2013-[/URL][/LIST]
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and now for the most enigmatic of them all, the QP2, the only ever FWD Maserati, shown at the Retromobile 2006 Christies auction
