February 17 2009
Needs completing: 1962 Maserati 3500 GTi
Update 19/2: The auction was ended early with a Buy-It-Now of EUR39800. No surprise there really …
From 17/2:
Older sports tourers are seriously cool in our opinion, and especially these older Maserati GTs. This particular one for sale on ebay Germany needs completion and is unfortunately missing a few bits and pieces. It is a Maserati 3500 GTi (2a serie), an aluminium-bodied, fuel-injected 2+2 coupe designed by Carrozzeria Touring. About 500 were made.
The 3500 was the first mass-produced car for Maserati, just over 2200 cars were produced, and some of Italy’s top coachbuilders like Vignale, Allemano, Frua, Bertone, Boneschi and Moretti designed bodies on the 3500′s chassis but none achieved the classic lines of the Touring design. Compared to the GT version, the GTi had a lower roofline, longer nose, shallower front grille, revised front indicators, the front foglights were removed, redesigned rear light clusters. The letter ‘I’ was added to the ‘Maserati 3500 GT’ chrome script above the rear number plate and a Trident badge was added with the word ‘Iniezione’ written on it.
When we first saw a picture of this car we thought this was a body off restoration, but when you look at the B-pillar below, it becomes a bit doubtful. Nice leather interior though. The car has had one owner, and was first registered in Switzerland. Unfortunaltey there are no pics available of the dashboard.
The engine in these cars is a competition six cylinder engine from the Tipo 350S sports racer modified for road use. The seller says the engine runs good. The engine would only have just over 10k km on the clock. The gearbox is a ZF 5-speed box compared to a 4-speed in the earlier cars. Borrani knock-offs were an option on these cars and they look really good with them. We would try and source some.
As we said, a few bits are missing and the seller claims they have been stolen. Basically, what you can’t see has been nicked: front and rear windscreen and rubbers, bumpers, rear light, door handles, side ventilation grills, front grill with Trident symbol. As we said, the car is available from ebay in Germany out of Bensheim between Frankfurt and Heidelberg, and the seller wants cash on collection. Click on the pics to go through to the ebay auction page. Nice project for someone who can source the missing pieces. Similar cars are for sale on anamera.com for between 60k and 80k euros.
