Maserati Quattroporte III

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Maserati
Maserati Quattroporte III (1979–1986)
Maserati Quattroporte III (1979–1986)
Quattroporte III
Royale
Production period: 1979-1990
Class : Upper class
Body versions : limousine
Engines:
Petrol engines : 4.2-4.9 liters
(181-221 kW)
Length: 4910 mm
Width: 1890 mm
Height: 1385 mm
Wheelbase : 2800 mm
Empty weight : 1950 kg
Previous model Maserati Quattroporte II
successor Maserati Quattroporte IV
Technical basis of the Quattroporte III: the De Tomaso Deauville

The Maserati Quattroporte III (initially: Maserati 4Porte , internal designation: Tipo AM 330) was a sedan from the Italian sports car manufacturer Maserati , which was produced from summer 1979 to the end of 1990. Together with the Kyalami Coupé, it was the first Maserati model to emerge after the company was taken over by Alejandro de Tomaso . With it, Maserati continued the tradition of sporty luxury sedans, which it had founded with the Quattroporte I in the early 1960s . The Quattroporte III remained in the range during the era of the Maserati Biturbo . From the summer of 1986 it was named Maserati Royale . It was the last Maserati model with a classic Maserati eight-cylinder engine.

background

The Quattroporte I presented in autumn 1963 was produced until the end of 1970. The car was a very successful model at the beginning of its production period, but has been considered obsolete in recent years.

After Maserati was taken over by Citroën in 1967 , the French company developed a four-door successor with front-wheel drive and the six-cylinder engine of the SM based on the Citroën SM coupé introduced in the summer of 1970 .

The vehicle was presented in October 1974 at the Paris Motor Show under the name Maserati Quattroporte II . Series production did not materialize, however. When Alejandro de Tomaso took over Maserati in August 1975, between five and 13 Quattroporte II models had been produced. De Tomaso stopped further development work on the Quattroporte II immediately. He still saw a market for high-priced, sporty sedans, but wanted to abandon the Citroën legacy as quickly as possible.

At that time, De Tomaso quickly needed a new Maserati model to demonstrate his company's ability to act. The time-consuming new development of a Maserati sedan was therefore ruled out. As with the Kyalami presented in March 1976, de Tomaso therefore resorted to existing substances from his own group when developing a Quattroporte successor: the chassis of the De Tomaso Deauville sedan , which was only slightly modified, was used as the technical basis . The model received the well-known eight-cylinder Maserati engines and an independent body, which - unlike in the case of the Kyalami - no longer had any external resemblance to the De Tomaso base.

details

landing gear

The floor pan and the chassis of the Quattroporte III corresponded completely to that of the De Tomaso Deauville. Only the wheelbase has been lengthened slightly by 30 mm. The front and rear suspension consisted of wishbones and coil springs . This made the car stand out from the Quattroporte I, which was still equipped with a rigid rear axle and leaf springs . In essence, the rear suspension was a copy of the Jaguar XJ's suspension . Four disc brakes from Girling and a power-assisted ZF - steering rack included as standard to the chassis. From 1984 a limited slip differential from Gleason was installed, which had a variable locking effect. Maserati was the first automobile manufacturer to offer this design in a production automobile.

Engines and power transmission

The Quattroporte III was powered exclusively by eight-cylinder engines, each with four overhead camshafts. The mixture was prepared by four Weber twin carburettors; gasoline injection was not available for the entire production period. The engines differed primarily in their displacement and compression:

  • In the first three years of production, the 4.2-liter version of Maserati's eight-cylinder was the base engine. It initially developed 255 hp, later 246 hp.
  • The 4.9-liter version of this engine was also available throughout the production period; from 1982 it was the only version available. By the summer of 1986 it had 282 hp. After that, the performance increased as a result of an increase in compression to 300 hp. This version of the engine was used in the Maserati Royale.

Initially, only a manual five-speed transmission from ZF was available for power transmission; From 1981, a TorqueFlite three-speed automatic from Chrysler was available as an alternative . It was ordered by almost 85% of all customers.

Body and design

The body of the Quattroporte III was designed to be self-supporting. It consisted of pressed sheet steel. The bodyshell was manufactured at Innocenti in Milan , a company specializing in small cars that had been part of the De Tomaso Group since 1975. The rest of the production was partly done by hand.

The body was designed by Giorgio Giugiaro . The stylistic approach went back to Giugiaro's Maserati Medici concept vehicle , which was the basis for the design of numerous large and small series vehicles in the 1970s, from the VW Golf I to the Lancia Delta to the DeLorean DMC-12 .

The structure of the Quattroporte III was, like the Medici, marked by straight lines. The passenger cell was designed in a trapezoidal shape. The car had a high front section with two angular twin headlights that had been adopted from the Fiat 125 and a distinctive, chrome-plated radiator grille. At the rear there were high, wide taillights. Volkswagen later adopted this design feature for its Passat offshoot Santana . The design is retrospectively described as "massive", "defiant" or "monolithic".

The seats were covered with leather as standard, which was initially only available in a shade of brown, but from 1986 could also be ordered in white. The dashboard and some areas of the doors were clad with fine wood.

  • Trapezoidal line

  • Rear end

  • Stylistic model: Maserati Medici II

  • inner space

Special features of the Royale

Maserati Quattroporte III Royale (1986–1990)

The Maserati Royale, which was produced from the summer of 1986, differed only slightly from its predecessor Quattroporte, both externally and technically.

In technical terms, this includes an increase in engine compression to 9.5: 1, which led to an increase in output to 300 hp. The interior had a refrigerator for the rear passengers, and there were also picnic tables that were housed in the door panel when not in use and that could be folded out if necessary.

According to the factory, the seats of the Royale were even better padded than those of the Quattroporte III.

Presentation and production

The prototype of the Quattroporte III was presented at the Turin Motor Show in November 1976. It took almost three more years before series production began. From the summer of 1979 to mid-1986, 2,088 units were built, 51 of them with the 4.2 liter eight-cylinder engine. From the summer of 1986 to the end of 1990, Maserati produced another 53 copies of the revised Royale version.

In 13 years of production, Maserati produced almost 2,200 Quattroporte IIIs. As expected by De Tomaso, the majority of the vehicles were sold in the USA. The car was thus the most built and most successful Maserati model before the biturbo era. However, this model was no longer as unique as the Quattroporte I, because in the meantime there was also the Mercedes 450 SEL 6.9 and the Jaguar XJ 12 , which offered comparable performance and the perfection of the larger series. Later the Quattroporte or Royale competed with the Bentley Mulsanne or the Aston Martin Lagonda .

Special designs

At the Carrozzeria Pavesi in Milan, some Quattroporte sedans received additional armor in the early 1980s ; most of them went to Italian politicians like the president.

In addition, Pavesi has also converted two, according to other sources, three Quattroporte into two-door coupés. The rear door was welded shut; the roof line remained unchanged.

The Turin coachbuilder Autocostruzioni SD , also known as Diomante , presented a 650 mm longer version of the Quattroporte III with an upgraded interior in 1986. Diomante built "a handful" of these sedans; their price was 210 million lire.

The Quattroporte III in the motor press

The American magazine Road & Track undertook one of the first test drives in the spring of 1981. The testers praised the road holding, the performance and the steering. They thought the Quattroporte III was

one of the most comfortable touring cars we have ever driven. Its interior contrasts very much with the interior of German luxury cars, which somehow appear sterile and monotonous in their high-tech appearance, where functionality is everything. (...) Mercedes is Wagner, Maserati is Vivaldi.

Two years later auto motor und sport tested a Quattroporte III. The handiness of the vehicle was emphasized and the high consumption was criticized.

Closer acquaintance with the Quattroporte lets (the technical deficits) appear in a different light. As soon as you get in, it becomes clear that there are completely different things that make this automobile so attractive .

Prominent drivers

Well-known drivers of a Maserati Quattroporte III are or were Sandro Pertini , who used the car as a company vehicle during his presidency, as well as Malcolm Forbes , Luciano Pavarotti and Peter Ustinov .

Technical specifications

Maserati Quattroporte III
Maserati Royale
Quattroporte 4200 Quattroporte 4900 Royale
Engine: Eight-cylinder V-engine (four-stroke)
Displacement: 4,136 cc 4928 cc
Bore × stroke:
Performance at 1 / min: 188 kW (255 PS) / 6,000 207 kW (282 PS) / 5,600 221 kW (300 PS) / 5,600
Maximum torque at 1 / min   392 Nm / 3000
Compression: 8.5: 1 9.5: 1
Mixture preparation: 4 double carburettors Weber 42 DNCF
Valve control: four overhead camshafts
Cooling: Water cooling
Transmission: manual five-speed gearbox
automatic three-speed gearbox
Front suspension: Wishbone
coil springs
Rear suspension: Wishbone
coil springs
Brakes: front and rear disc brakes
Body: Steel, self-supporting
Wheelbase: 2800 mm
Dimensions
(length × width × height): 		 4910 × 1890 × 1385 mm
Empty weight: 2081 kg
Top speed: 220 km / h 214 km / h 230 km / h
Consumption: 19.5 liters / 100 km 25.5 liters / 100 km

literature

  • Georg Amtmann, Halwart Schrader: Italian sports cars . Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-613-01988-4 .
  • Matthias Braun, Alexander Franc Storz: Maserati. Type compass, passenger car since 1947 . Motor book publisher. Stuttgart 2007. ISBN 978-3-613-02708-4
  • Martin Buckley: Maserati. Italian luxury and flair . Heel Verlag, Königswinter, 2012. ISBN 978-3-86852-633-2 .
  • Cancellieri, Gianni, et al. (Ed.): Maserati. Catalog raisonné 1926–2003 . Automobilia. Milan 2003. ISBN 88-7960-151-2 .
  • Lange, Hans-Karl: Maserati. The other Italian sports car . Vienna 1993. ISBN 3-552-05102-3 .

Web links

Commons : Maserati Quattroporte III  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans-Karl Lange: Maserati. The other Italian sports car. Vienna 1993. ISBN 3-552-05102-3 . P. 31.
  2. ↑ The information on the scope of production varies. Individual copies of the Quattroporte II still exist today. See Richard Heseltine: Cubist Revival. Presentation of the Maserati Quattroporte II in: Classic & Sports Car, issue 4/2001.
  3. ^ Martin Buckley: Maserati. Italian luxury and flair . Heel Verlag, Königswinter, 2012. ISBN 978-3-86852-633-2 . P. 119.
  4. ↑ The Maserati Kyalami was technically and stylistically based on the De Tomaso Longchamp .
  5. ↑ a b c d e f Hans-Karl Lange: Maserati. The other Italian sports car. Vienna 1993. ISBN 3-552-05102-3 . P. 56 ff.
  6. ↑ Information from the works brochure (1979); in addition: AutoKatalog No. 25 (1981/82).
  7. ^ A b Martin Buckley: Maserati. Italian luxury and flair . Heel Verlag, Königswinter, 2012. ISBN 978-3-86852-633-2 . S: 129.
  8. ^ Martin Buckley: Maserati. Italian luxury and flair. Heel Verlag, Königswinter, 2012. ISBN 978-3-86852-633-2 . S: 124 f.
  9. ↑ Description of the Medici II with images on the website www.classicdriver.com (accessed on August 11, 2013).
  10. ↑ Alessandro Sannia: Enciclopedia dei carrozzieri italiani , Aesthetica 2017, ISBN 978-88-96796-41-2 , p. 417.
  11. ^ Gianni Cancellieri: Maserati. All the cars . Giorgio Nada Editore, Vimodrone 2015, ISBN 978-88-7911-609-1 , p. 231.
  12. ↑ Description and illustration of the Quattroporte III sedan from SD on the website maserati-alfieri.co.uk (accessed December 8, 2019).
  13. ↑ a b c d e f auto motor und sport: Maserati Quattroporte III - technical data