Maserati Kyalami

The Maserati Kyalami was a Toursimo Gran Coupe of the Italian car manufacturer Maserati, which was produced by the fall of 1976 until the end of 1983.

The car was named after the Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit, a race track in South Africa, who won on the Pedro Rodriguez in 1967 in a Cooper -Maserati, a Formula 1 race.

The concept

The Kyalami was the first new car that Maserati presented after the takeover by Alejandro de Tomaso. De Tomaso had in 1975 recognized that he had to quickly introduce a new model to publicly prove the act of Maserati. However, the development of a completely new car would have lasted very long. On the other hand, possessed de Tomaso and his model De Tomaso Longchamp a sports coupe that was mature, but whose sales had fallen well short of expectations and that had not yet recouped its development costs. In this position, Alejandro de Tomaso decided to use the concept of the De Tomaso Longchamp once again and the design with some changes to sell it as a Maserati.

Inspired by the Jaguar XJ chassis of Longchamp with double wishbone suspension front and rear has also been adopted unchanged as the bottom group and the body structure. The Turin designer Pietro Frua was tasked to revise as inexpensive as possible to Tom Tjaarda declining form of Longchamp. Frua designed the outer sheet metal parts, with the exception of the doors and the trunk lid new; but as he did the layout of the Longchamp took over, in essence, was a clearly perceptible physical resemblance between the two vehicles. The front end was a classic Maserati grille with dual round headlights that were in contrast to the otherwise rather angular lines of the vehicle. The built at Longchamp taillights Alfa Romeo were replaced by something broader units of the Citroën SM. The Kyalami 50 mm was longer in the same wheelbase and 25 mm lower than the Longchamp: By Fruas modifications to the dimensions of the car changed.

Overall, the Kyalami looked much more elegant than the Longchamp. The body resembled in some areas of the Fiat 130 Coupé and the about the same time presented Lancia Gamma Coupe, both of which were designed by Pininfarina.

The Kyalami was in contrast to the De Tomaso Longchamp is not driven by American Ford engines, but from Maserati 's eight cylinders. The transmission line with Maserati standard. Available was a testers unanimously to switch seems to be difficult designated five-speed manual or a three-speed automatic. The automatic version was bought far more often than the car manually switched. Overall, only 25 cars were built with manual transmission, including the prototype.

The interior has been largely taken over by the De Tomaso Longchamp. Design and technical features of previous Maserati models, resulting from the connection of the brand to Citroen, took off the Kyalami.

The Models

The Kyalami was shown after only four months of development time in March 1976 at the Geneva Motor Show for the first time. The serial production began only in late 1976, because in the meantime further development work had to be carried out. The bodies were like that of the De Tomaso Longchamp produced in external workshops. Most Kyalamis were built in the Embo in Turin, some early models may also at Maggiora.

Kyalami 4200

Initially, it was only offered with a 4.2 -liter version of Maserati 's eight-cylinder engine of Kyalami. The essentially unchanged since 1963 and built for the first time used in the Maserati Quattroporte I engine was equipped with four downdraft double carburetors ( Weber 42 DCNF ) and performed according to factory specifications 265 hp ( 195 kW) at 6,000 revolutions per minute.

The Austrian journal Autorevue determined in the summer of 1978, a top speed of 235 km / h with a manual transmission model and 225 km / h for an automatic vehicle; the automatic model accelerated in 7.8 seconds from 0 to 100 km / h In a test by Autocar 1978, the car with a manual transmission had an acceleration from 0 to 97 km / h in 7.6 seconds Fuel consumption was about 25 liters per 100 km.

Kyalami 4900

In the summer of 1978, Maserati added the engine range: in addition was now a 4.9 liter version of the eight-cylinder engine with 280 bhp (209 kW) at 5600/min for election.

Kyalami convertible

In 1978 Pietro Frua a convertible version of the Kyalami ago. It remained with a single copy. However, the design was two years later recycled as De Tomaso a Spyder version of its own Longchamp presented, before the following years 14 copies were sold. The Spyder was built by Carrozzeria Pavesi in Milan.

The production figures

All in all, the Kyalami a failure. Between the fall of 1976 and the end of 1983 only a few copies of the Kyalami were produced. The information on the volume of production vary between 150 and 200 vehicles.

There are various information to the motors. Maserati Kyalami 4200 indicates the total of 126 specimens and for the 4900 74 vehicles, other sources speak of 186 vehicles with the small and 14 copies with the big motor.

Image and market position

The Maserati Kyalami had a major image problem, which continues to this day at its launch in 1976. This is due to its clearly visible close to De Tomaso Longchamp, who was perceived as so-called hybrids with U.S. engine is not a true Italian sports car. Many Maseratisti did not see the Kyalami as a true Maserati and described him as one assembled from spare parts homemade. This impression is supported the contemporary press in many publications. The British magazine Motor as asked in issue 08 /1978 on the occasion of a test of Kyalami: " trident or pitchfork ," and the magazine Autorevue stated in the summer of 1978, the Kyalami was " neither fish nor fowl ", but clubs "from? both the most expensive. Here the subtlety of the extravagant has slipped below the detectability threshold. "

This review continues today. On the classic market Kyalamis reach no higher price quotations as the De Tomaso Longchamp; both vehicles were to get in excellent condition for about 40,000 euros in 2010.

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