Classic pearls of the future - Maserati 4200 GT
12/06/2017
Well, it wasn't actually called the Maserati 4200 GT, the successor to the 3200 GT, but simply the Coupé GT or Spyder GT. What may have sounded simple and catchy at the time is of course a slight problem in retrospect, as Maserati has launched well over two dozen different GT coupés on the market to date. However, even with the reference to the engine capacity, it is not possible to make a clear identification, because after all, the Indy and other coupés of the seventies were already available with the 4.2-liter engine.
As the successor to the Maserati 3200 GT, first shown at the IAA in 2001 (as the Spyder), the Maserati sports car marked a turnaround away from the turbocharger and towards more displacement.
The engine had been developed by Ferrari and turned out to be a V8 with a displacement of 4244 cm3 and a 90-degree angle between the two rows of cylinders. Around 390 hp was produced at 7000 rpm, enough to give the four-seater coupé or the two-seater Spyder competitive performance. The 4.2-liter Maserati was an elegant and pleasant to drive Granturismo, less garish and louder than its Ferrari siblings.
The two variants and a few others were built from 2001 to 2007. Worth mentioning is the GranSport Coupé, which was only built 2432 times, while the GranSport Spyder was only built 472 times. In total, over 13,000 variants of the 4.2-liter sports car were sold, most of them equipped with the "Cambiocorsa" automated gearbox. By contrast, manual Coupé GT (1078) and Spyder GT (574) are comparatively rare.
Compared to the predecessor 3200 GT, whose design was gently renovated for the successor, the 4.2-liter version sold significantly better.
A new coupé with the automatic transmission cost just over 80,000 euros, accelerated to 100 km/h in under five seconds and reached 285 km/h. In fact, it could do almost everything better than its predecessor, except for one thing - look. The Americans had sacrificed the boomerang rear lights that had made the predecessor so unusual from the rear, while the new large lamps looked rather uninspired. But you can't see them when you're driving.
Most of the cars were delivered in blue or some shade of gray, so a ruby red coupé with a manual gearbox could quickly become a rarity. Prices are (still) reasonable, but repairs can be expensive.
More classic pearls can be found on the dedicated theme channel.
