Talk Morgan Forums Community Vehicle Talk (non-Morgan) Maserati 3200 and other observations

Well having seen Neils comment that 'he used to own a 3200' it got me thinking that rather a disproportionate amount of Aero owners I ahve spoken with or met have previously been Maserati owners.

I ahve wondered why this would be. Perhaps, I thought it is becuause of the individual styling of the Maserati (and in particular the 3200) - making it obviously classy and yet not so 'brash' as a 911.

On the other had was it more the interior that if I'm honest was the real driving force behind the purchase I made. The acres of leather and carbon really did it for me, and especially the clock in the dash. Something timeless, a reminder of 50's glamour (not that I'm old enough to clearly remember the 70's let alone the 50's) the old school where things were done properly, to a standard, rather than a budget.

Perhaps though it was the name, the heritage of the marque that swayed me. I'd always had a soft spot for old Maseratis. A test drive as a 23 year old in a Ghibli Cup (that I certainly couldn't afford to buy at the time) sealed this. Despite that cars somewhat compromised ergonomics (Nowhere to put my legs!) I loved it, the interior just reeked of quality components, expensive wood, beautiful leather and obviously all put together my hand, and with pride. That lunge down the egham bypass in the Cup (seeing a much bragged about in the pub 125mph) set the trend I guess.

Several years later and somewhat more confident with the world with a house to live in and a good solid 'sensible' AMG C36 on the drive fate intervened to bring me to Maseratis once again. It was early 2003 and while away skiing in France I'd lent my car to a longstanding friend. The AMG lasted approximately 20 minutes in his custody before finding itself wrapped around a lampost.

This is another yarn all by itself and I won't even attempt it here. Suffice to say that all worked out in the end, I am still good friends with the culprit today and that I recieved a sum of cash to replace the written off AMG.

Now a sensible man (i.e. not me at that time at any rate) would have gone out immediately and bought himself another C36 (or even 43) AMG. Big sensible reliable and great sounding bargain cars. An even more sensible person (given my day job involved a 110 mile round trip commute) would have bought a diesel astra.

Now, with 25% of the required asking price of a recent 911 (996) I was now convinced I needed a porsche in my life. Test drives were booked, boxsters borrowed and thrashed, 911's driven in various places, turbos considered, air cooled models driven. To give variety (I love car shopping) I drove an NSX (very very good to drive, crap interior though!) I drove an Aston DB7 vantage (didn't feel venerable enough to get comfortable in this at the time) as well as an EVO6 (didn't get it though). I kept coming back to the 911. However the 996 didn't feel special enough, and thats when the 3200 opportunity came along.

One moment sticks in my mind - chasing a 3200 up a hill in the AMG and watching it just effortlessly power away. With the coolest set of rear lights I'd ever seen anywhere fading slowly into the night over the fabulous roar of an engine note.

Of course ever since that day I'd seen 3200's on the road, read the articles etc but never considered that I a mere mortal on a relatively healthy but by no means extortionate wage could actually afford to buy one.

Then I began to search, and it became plain that I could afford one. And a very good one too. With the 4200 due any day the 3200's were dropping a little. Dealers in particular needed to get rid of the last few, and thats how I found mine. A very late 3200 (an 02) was the first I test drove at a Maserati Dealer (Maranello Egham). I fell instantly in love with the engine note, the interior the quality and solidity of the car. It felt like nothing I'd ever driven before. Sure the clutch was heavy and it could easily stall if you didn't drive carefully, the throttle was very light. Being a late model though all the big issues around these idiosyncrasies had been dealt with. And, crucially, it was fast. Not just a bit quick like the AMG but genuinely scarily fast. Not 0-60 fast either, that being around 5 seconds was great and certainly you never felt that you would come off second best against anything short of a V12 ferrari, but no - the mid range, the 'thump' when you dropped the hammer at 80mph was monumental.

Suffice to say I was smitten, and the deal was done. I paid 39,995 for a 14 month old car with 8000 miles on the clock. The original bill of sale was in the region of 66k so I felt I had a bargain. It came with subsidised servicing, sat nav, electric heated seats a giant stereo and all carbon and black leather interior. Beautiful!

Over the next 22 months I ran the car for approximately 20,000 miles. In that time I spent well over 20,000 on the car in terms of servicing spares upgrades petrol insurance and other things. At the same time it depreciated by around 50%. All in all I think it cost me somewhere in the region of 2k per month to own. I regret none of it, I could never buy the memories I have of cruising the german autobahn in convoy with 2 other maseratis at over 140mph for over half an hour. Or the trips to le mans in the company of oither itallian exotica, the VMAX trips to Bruntingthorpe where it saw a genuine 170mph verified by laser on the 2 mile runway.. But it was expensive. Very expensive.

For example - lambda sensors. Replacement. 1200 quid for the sensors, and a further 1200 quid to fit (12 hours work to dismantle and reassemble the interior). Air con pum failure - fix 2400 quid. Stone through the radiator (1000 quid) in fact everything was 1000 quid. Even with the subsidised servigin and warranty the expenses kept coming. Full sets of pirelli rossos every 6000 miles, high insurance (1750 in the first year), tubi exhaust (2500) brake discs, brake pads (always 1000 quid multiples).

In the nearly 2 years it broke down once. On my first date (in the car) with the lady who will become my wife later this year. At a cross roads in the midddle of harrow town centre the air con pum siezed solid and caused gas to discharge looking like smoke. The rest of the time it was rock solid reliable...

So overall I love maseratis, I'd love another (though I love my Aero more and it doesn't regularly give me a bankacountectomy!).

Run out of time now so will add more tomorrow...

Wow!

I nearly bought a 4200 CC Spyder before my Aero. Whilst I'm glad I didnt - it would have been nice to say I did

BtG

Rich, great write-up

Like yourself, BtG and many others on the forum, I have felt the lure of the 3200 and the 4200 over the years (esp the most recent Gran Sport incarnation). However, as with TVR, owners stories - friends who have owned them and felt the full wallet munching force of Maserati - have always put me off taking the plunge.

Nevertheless, the lure of the new GT Coupe is strong... can anyone honestly say this is not a beautiful 2+2?

It's not a beautiful 2+2

I have to admit though I'm biased....I hate maseratis with a passion. You'll find that it's extremely rare that someone buys another.

My business used to sell new Maseratis and Ferraris and the cost of running Maseratis as demos was the killer in terms of depreciation. The constant reliability problems of all sorts were just a nightmare.

We waited patiently for the arrival of the 4200 and whilst this was an easier car to drive the Spyder had the most horrific scuttle shake and the steering wheel felt like it wanted to jump out of the car.

The problem is that much of Maseratis developement and shake down was done by the end users.

The 3200 is a shockingly fast car and feels like it does because of its turbos and the way they deliver power.

And don't get me started on the QP

I think it's awesome - I'd seriously love one, and whilst looking for the BMW I did secretly dream of taking on a Quattroportte.

Knowing what I know now however there are ways to reduce the pain. The majority of my expenses were incurred in the last 6 months of ownership when I let the warranty lapse. (Sods law!). In retrospect, with a warranty in place it would have been considerably cheaper. Also in hindsight I spent too long with main dealers and should have used the independents more. If I had done this throughout ownership then I could have saved a very large sum of money and ownership would ahve been somewhat less financially traumatic.

Having said all that though I never begrudged the cost, and never did it cloud the experience of oiwning a fantastically capable genuine 170mph 4 seat coupe with an engine note that Satan would have quavered before.

Certain episodes - driving to le mans in a convoy of feraris and lamborghinis, long stretches of autobahn taken deep into 3 igures, night drives down the M40 completed in record time. That journey from cornwall to london in 3 hours 20 minutes with sunrise over sailbury plain windows down with the hard edged bark of the engine splitting the dawn air. This kind of driving is thoroughly memorable stuff and somehow the Maserati was like the Aero is today a real character and a charismatic companion. With the best will in the world I don't think I'd have had the joy from a 911 or a ferrari - the Maserati crossed the bounds by being practical enough to be the everyday car to go to the shops in the way the ferrari could never be, but also be special end exotic in a way the porsche would never quite have managed (unless I'd have had the money or a GT3 perhaps)...

The current situation for Maserati is a shame - it should be challenging aston martin - not pitching itself against BMW. But I guess thats Fiat for you. The new coupe is truly stunning and I shall certainly be demanding a test drive as soon as possible. In the short term its not something I would buy - the Aero is too special to swap even for a Maserati.

After all that though I really hanker for a classic. A Bora is something I've always treasured as possible classic. They come up now and again and I'm always tempted, but I'll have to wait a while until I have the garage space (and time and money) to justify it....

3200 was my first drivers car, I have only owned 5 cars including my present Aero.
Ford Escort 1.3l total base spec (no cig liter, no vanity mirrors)
Toyota Hilux Surf 2.4lD twin turbo (in New Zealand)
VW Bora 2.0l (normal car while travelling for work)
Maserati 3200
Morgan Aero 8

I think some of you have more cars in your current stable than I have owned.

The 3200 was brought because I realized I could buy a supercar for around 25k pound or I could get a standard see them every day sports car like a TT. It didn't take much thinking, I checked out about 5 cars before I found the correct one. Insurance in Stoke Newington (Hackney) parked outside, was about 1600k pound the first year, I then always managed to get it around 1k pound which wasn't too bad. Then came the servicing the first few years I was sending the car to the midlands and if was only about 1k pound but although the service was good it took forever over 3 weeks the last time they had the car. So I phoned around and HROwen was on par with the cheapest quote at there place in Park Royal, (this really is a place to see I have never been in a place with so many supercar I was standing between a Bugatti and a Enzo at one time) The service was good then came the repairs I ended up with a bill of over 3000 pound for a service then on my first trip to Devon after the service I had an oil leak, They picked the car up from Devon and told me that it was a rear oil seal a 15 pound part needed replacing, but the gearbox had to be removed to fit it, to take the gearbox and put the car back together cost 5000 pound. I had to pay for the lot as it was not a result of the service like I had first thought but just because the oil was new clean and there for thinner this started the leak then it progressed. So after spending 8k pound on a car worth less then 20k pound I decided it was time to change. The problem came because Ferrari owned Maserati and every part they seemed to want to change came back with a Ferrari part number.

The car was excellent though interior was plane simple and classic the rear of the car and rear lights a design iconic look. The car was brilliant to drive true the pick-up wasn't too hot 0-60 about 5 ish and the tail was very lively so the TC came on a lot and it was very intrusive, but mid range there wasn't a car that could keep up.

I miss the convenience of the 3200 but not the servicing cost, a real classic car way before its time but I could not recommend that any one picks one up because av 2000 pound servicing for a car that you can pickup for 12-20,000 pound is just too much.

OK... JUST WANT TO RANT A BIT FIRST... this is the 9th attempt at posting this becuase the forum truncation errors with hyphens, quotes, appostraphie etc. What s going on?

RANT OVER

Interesting reading... I too am very fond of the early 3200's with the boomerang rear lights (was a shame they changed the design, MAJOR mistake).

However it seems you have all had similar experiences to others I've seen and is unerringly similar to my experience of the 2001 TVR Cerbera 4.5 I purchased as an alternative.

When you start to get the cost of every frequent visit to the garage independent or otherwise being indicated in multiples of thousands and not hundreds then you know there is something fundamentally wrong in the engineering of the car.... you end up in a "love-hate" relationship...

On one hand you have the looks and the performance to decimate almost any other car you choose... the general aural and driver experience ----- oohh and the exhaust flames on over-run

On the other, the anxiety, fear, loathing and disappointment of every call from the garage and every twist of the starter key.

In the end, I m a perfectionist bordering on OCD----- With an engineering head on I just couldn t enjoy the drive any more---- constantly imagining the damage I was causing just driving the thing---. Worse was the damage I thought I was causing by letting it stand & not driving it.

However, I find that the Aero is a much nicer car to live with--- I find it almost calming with none of the running issues I have previously experienced. I ve been able to concentrate on getting the car to a perfect condition without constantly shelling out on just keeping it running and not falling apart!

Neil sounds like you ahd a bad experience there - my comiserations.

As I mentioned but maybe did not hilight my 3200 was ultra reliable. Just the one breakdown due to air con pump failure and being a bosh part that could have happened on just about any production car.

As mentioned it's just the fact that all parts are ferrariand the rate of wear and tear is high when you drive a heavy performance car hard. Discs and pads keep on adding up, as do tyres not to metion the petrol cost. I never hated my 3200 though. Id' gone in eyes open looking to buy the best - it was a great one by the standards of many others I knew. Ultimately though a 70k car has 70k running costs, and on a car of that value the 2-3k per year in consumables and bits and bobs when you're doing 12-20k a year isn't really that unexpected. I'm sure a new Audi RS4 would probably have cost me similar money to run.

In the end if you're a car freak, who loves cars their history heritage and above all the way they can make you feel when you drive them, then you ahve to accept that somtimes it's just going to cost you more money to indulge your car fantasies than it's going to cost your mate bob down the road who buys a BMW 330d. My argument is that 'bob' plays golf and belongs to an expensive gym for his hobbies - my hobby is vapourising hydrocarbons in interesting motor cars in nice locations preferably at high speed! When you look at it like that it's a lot easier to justify. At least to myself if not to my better half!...

Were you trying to cut and paste from Word or another text editior?

If so, this seems to be the problem - the only character that still throws the software for a wobbly when typed directly into the post box is the GBP symbol. The IT guys are still working on this and while I know it is frustrating, please be aware that they are working on it and it is not an easy fix. The cost in terms of time and expense to move the site, upgrade it, etc, has not been insignificant and has been a pain for everyone involved, including the users.

Until we can resolve it, you have our apologies but please understand that we are all working hard to find a solution.

I to lover my 3200 but it did cost. I only had the 1 oil leak with the car and it never failed to start so like Mr_Tony said the car is reliable, it just cost the same as a 70 grand car to run when it was worth less than 20!