Maserati Ghibli Cup owned by 'Enthusiast'

This 1997 Maserati Ghibli Cup is one of only 26 RHD cars built (24 remain, since 2 have been written off). This is the modern-day collector's Maserati, and it is now possible to purchase a reasonable conditioned car for just over £15,000.

Unlike all other Maserati models, the Ghibli Cup has no wood interior. The normal wooden panels were replaced with carbon fibre, and the car is almost identical to the mid-90's Ghibli OPEN CUP race car from which it evolved.

Although not the fastest 2-litre car around, the Ghibli Cup broke all records back in 1997 with it's then world-leading 165bhp-per-litre (more than even an F40). Official top-speed is 167mph, although I've never had the chance to try and prove this claim. 0-60 is claimed to be 5.2 seconds in the Maserati sales brochure, although I think launch control and a racing driver might be needed to achieve this figure. I believe 5.5 seconds to be more realistic.

It holds the road very well, which it needs to since its safety equipment is poor. No traction control and no air bags!

For a Maserati, its engine is very robust. Because it came straight from the race track, the highly tuned 2-litre V6 (with 4 cams/pulleys and 2-ECUs) likes nothing better than to be driven hard. In fact, it is definitely not designed to be driven at low revs. Below 2,000rpm there is no accelerator response, and full twin-turbo boost is not achieved until just below 4,000rpm.

Around town, although very sluggish, it is also fairly economical. It can easily average 28mpg. However, drive it very hard, as intended, and this figure can drop as low as 10mpg.

Although standard equipment is not great, it does have climate control, multi-stack CD and a first-class sound system. The interior has the standard gold clock and thick hand stitched leather everywhere.

When driving around town the lack of torque at low revs can be frustrating, but once on the open road the awesome acceleration (after the revs exceed 4,000) is quite amazing. This is definitely a car designed for bending country roads rather than the inner city.

Servicing costs can be scary. The "big" service requires the engine taken out to change the rear chains. This is required about every 30,000 miles. My last service cost me £5,000. This involved taking the engine out, replacing many brake components and fixing many other minor problems.

Since Maserati is a low-production car you can be sure that things will go wrong. A Maserati will never have the build quality of a Toyota or BMW.

If you want something fairly unique, and with a possibility of going up in value in the future, then this would not be a bad choice. However, there are faster, sexier and cheaper to run cars out there if you just want a fun-to-drive four seater.

This particular Coupe now has the benefit of a couple of interesting performance upgrades. The car is still standard, except for the exhaust system and Motec ECU. It now makes over 350hp by 6,000rpm instead of Maserati's claimed 330hp at 6,750rpm. The acceleration between 4,500rpm and 6,500rpm is also now much improved (as seen by angle of power-curve on rolling road printout below). It has only 190hp at 4,000rpm (less than standard), but has jumped to an impressive 310hp by 5,000rpm (more than standard).

For a 2-litre 4-seater car, the acceleration after 4,000rpm is now quite amazing. The power drop-off at around 6,500rpm is controlled by the Motec to protect the engine. It is capable of maintaining over 340hp beyond 7,000rpm.

Click here to look up the Maserati Ghibli Cup in the SupercarWorld database.

Copyright © 2000-2008 SupercarWorld.com          Website created by WebbPages           Please read our site Legal Info