5k: Lira Pit: 1980 Maserati Quattroporte
The name Quattroporte sounds exotic to the English speaking brain – and to the non-linguist may sound like a name for ‘four-valves’ or ‘four-barrels’ but what it really means is ‘four doors.’ Maserati S.p.A. used the Quattroporte name on their 4-door sedans starting in 1963 and by 1980 was building the 3rd generation of its 4Porte V8 luxury barge. While it cost more than $80,000 (1980 dollars!!!) when new, you can find this 1980 Maserati Quattroporte in Monterey, CA for the asking price of $6,500 via dodiauto.com
We are going to let you in on a little secret…four door cars don’t fare well on the used market. Neither do hand built Italian cars from the 1980’s…combine them and you have an incredible recipe for depreciation and rust soup. In fact, according to our in-depth research, the only thing to experience faster depreciation than a 4 door Maserati was a reserved airship ticket from May 7, 1937.
The Quattroporte is powered by a 4.2 liter V8 engine that puts out 255 horsepower. The Maserati V8 is a technological tour-de-force and dates from the era when De Tomaso owned Maserati. Expect regular, expensive and significant problems on a regular basis, especially with the 75k miles on this one – it is probably overdue for its 25k mile $2.5k valve job.
The Quattroporte was covered in thick leather and considered lavish in its day…now this example just looks worn out and tired – don’t expect to be able to ‘buy’ anything for the inside of this car – everything from seat leather to headlight knobs will need to be custom fabricated. However, the Quattroporte does use most of the front suspension parts from the DeTomaso Pantera, so some of the interior pieces may interchangeable…not that this will help anyone because the Pantera is equally rare, fragile and…well…Italian.
We can’t but help stare at the funky/cool styling by Giorgetto Giugiaro and would consider a LS1 swap into a QPorte – if only it would also address the pervasive rust and general electric issues that plague these cars like vegans at Whole Foods.
See a better Italian 5 passenger jet? email us here: tips@dailyturismo.com
75K is much better then the 25k car that can never stay out of the shop however it's current place in an open air used car lot indicates how far down this one has gone. Be prepared for lot's of deferred maintenance.
Back in the day, when I was a big east coast city cop, the narcotics squad confiscated one of these in a raid. It was parked in the headquarters garage for a short time when the police commissioner took notice of it and decided that it would make a great ride for him; after all he WAS the police commissioner. When they took it to a local Italian car shop for some "minor" work, the bill was $3800! The boss went back to his plain-Jane Ford Crown Vic.
I spent 31 years on that job, loved every minute!
I dind't know that vegans plague Whole Foods with electrical problems?
With 153,000 miles and many to go, my same model just keeps on giving. Beautiful ride, power is absolute, and maintenance is no more than most cars. Call me lucky, I guess.