Welcome to this issue of "Old Cars Are Hard to Find", this article we talk about the history and models you don't know about Maserati.
In August 1975, the "Trident" Maserati was acquired by Argentine industrialist Alessandro de Tomasso and the state-owned holding company GEPI, followed by the launch of the first model, named "Kyalami", which derives its name from a track.
In the 1970s, the oil crisis had just dissipated, but the aftermath still affected the world. At this moment the Italian Republic is in a period of economic and social unrest. Due to Maserati's poor sales situation at that time, and even gave people a "suspended animation" state, de Tomasso immediately turned out to be the chief engineer Giulio Alfieri, who was the core figure of Maserati at that time, serving the Maserati brand for more than 20 years, and the most famous research and development result was Maserati's first production car 3500GT sports car.
Subsequently, with the financial support of Ford Motor Company, Maserati developed three models, namely Pantera, Deauville and Longchamp. The Maserati Kyalami presented in this article is a short-shaft version of The Royalville, designed by Pietro Forra, which uses the same chassis structure as the Longchamp, but is otherwise very different.
Maserati Kyalami still uses the engine developed by Alfieri that year, and the new car at that time provided both 4.2L and 4.9L V8 evolved from Maserati President's 4.2L engine. This was Maserati's first V8 engine that year, and was subsequently used in the Maserati 5000GT sports car.
The V8 engine is much stronger than the Ford engine used on the Longchamp, with a maximum power of 266 hp at 6000 rpm and a maximum torque of 392 Nm at 3800 rpm, matching the ZF S5-24-3 series 5-speed manual transmission.
Engineers then optimized the engine, with the Tipo AM 107.23.49 increasing its burst time to 3,000 rpm and 276 hp at 5,600 rpm without changing torque. At this time, the 4.9L version of the Maserati Kyalami came standard with a BorgWarner 3-speed automatic transmission, while a ZF manual transmission became an option.
After the tuning, the mass production version of the 4.9L Maserati Kyalami has a complete weight of only 1670 kg, accelerates a little more than 7 seconds from 100 kilometers, and reaches a speed of 240 kilometers per hour, which was quite powerful at the time. At the Turin Motor Show in November 1976, the 4.9L version of the Maserati Kyalami was unveiled alongside the third-generation president prototype.
Maserati Kyalami has a wheelbase of 2 m6 with a load-bearing body structure, double wishbones at the front axle and integral axle at the rear, with a hydraulic auxiliary brake system, a front brake disc diameter of 276mm, and tires in the Michelin XDX series with hydraulic power steering assist.
Depending on the displacement, maserati Kyalami is equipped with two carburetors, the Weber 40 DCNF-6 or 42 DCNF-6, with two valves per cylinder and a compression ratio of 8.5:1.
In terms of appearance, the distinction between Kyalami and Longchamp can be distinguished by round headlights. In addition, kyalami also has air conditioning, power windows, and electric adjustment of the driver's side exterior mirrors. Only 200 units were produced, of which 125 were produced with 4.2L power and 75 with 4.9L power.