Maserati enthusiasts and other aficionados of exotic Italian cars from the 1960s should be familiar with the original Ghibli, a V-8 powered two-door designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro, who would later pen the Bora, Merak (see “Star Turn”), and original Quattroporte for Maserati. The company produced coupe and spider variants of the Ghibli from 1967 through […]
Baroness Josephine von Krieger was purchasing a graduation gift when she placed an order with Mercedes-Benz in April 1936 for a 540K Special Roadster. The recipient, her 19-year-old son, Henning, shared his mother’s passion for luxury automobiles—Josephine owned a Franay-bodied Packard Cabriolet and a Rolls-Royce Phantom II—and he had come of age driving elegant, high-performance […]
When prompted with a press of the throttle pedal, the new Maserati Quattroporte’s 524 hp twin-turbo V-8 spooled up quickly, just as the big sedan’s 4.6 zero-to-60-mph time suggests it would. My passenger—Maserati’s CEO, Harald Wester, an engineer-turned-executive—asked what I thought of the car’s lack of turbo lag. He smiled when I confirmed that indeed […]
Murmurs circulated through the crowd as the Duesenberg Model J rolled up on stage at Gooding & Co.’s Pebble Beach auction in August 2011. Designed by Murphy Coach Builders and first delivered to Captain George Whittell Jr., the Art Deco sporting coupe (chassis J-460) boasted a long wheelbase, a low-slung brushed aluminum roof, a lavish […]
In his 1978 top-40 hit “Life’s Been Good,” Joe Walsh sang about his Maserati doing 185 mph (and about losing his license as a result of driving that fast). The boast was as dubious as the rock star’s run for president two years later. No road-going Maserati of that era could achieve such a speed. […]