Description
In 1975, Allessandro de Tomaso bought Maserati from Citroën and decided to take over the range. It was not until 1984 that the BI TURBO was presented, initially as a coupé, a luxurious and sporty car at an affordable price. The 1980s saw the emergence of supercars: the Ferrari Testarossa and 288 GTO marked the start of this race for power, Porsche responded with its highly technological 959, Ferrari again with its F40, followed by more marginal manufacturers such as Cizetta-Moroder with its 540-horsepower V16 T. Maserati wanted to be part of the supercar scene. Maserati wanted to be part of this very exclusive club and launched two projects: a super-powerful BI TURBO and a supercar called CHUBASCO. Unfortunately, the brand lacked the money to complete these two projects, so FIAT took a stake and decided to abandon the supercar project; only the first project was completed, giving birth to the beastly SHAMAL (the hot wind that blows over Mesopotamia). It was designed by Marcello Gandini on the basis of the KARIF and its twin-turbo V8 produced over 320 bhp, combined for the first time in series with a 6-speed GETRAG gearbox.
De Tomaso, who had high hopes for the SHAMAL, had to scale back his ambitions because the German competition of the time, less beastly but more homogeneous and easier to drive (BMW 850 CSI, PORSCHE 928 GT), attracted the most classic customers. However, the manufacturer invested so that in February 1994 the model was released with modifications to make it more reliable and versatile, but it was too late, and only 369 examples of the SHAMAL were produced. It is this history that makes the model we are offering you today a truly rare collector's item, especially in this version, delivered new in May 1995, after the technical modifications, which makes it the rarest and most sought-after version of the SHAMAL.
The first was the President of Maserati France, who registered the car in his mother's name. The second owner acquired the car in June 2006 and sold it to its current owner in September 2020.
Our model received press coverage when it was tested in Auto Retro 302 in October 2006, as evidenced by the stickers on the windscreen. This extravagant and extremely rare Maserati is an opportunity to acquire a car destined to become an absolute collector's item, iconic of its era, in exceptional mechanical and aesthetic condition.
