Red trident question

They are definitely incorrect for some cars but I don't know who has the definitive answer on which is which? Perhaps the classiche department but even they may not be able give definitive answers. Like a lot of things, just because you see it on another car doesn't make it original. If it's seen in a photo form that time you have a better case but otherwise ... Valve covers and the Maserati letters get painted in quite a variety of ways these days. Mine on my late Bora came in plain black wrinkle with the letters brushed in raw aluminum. The firing order numbers were just covered in paint. Zero red. That's just one example ...

 

On the Ghibli the front trident has the stripes and edges painted in red. I have seen the air filter box trident painted in red and not painted.

Ivan
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I do not recall ever seeing an un-restored car with the red around the cam covers ... but anything is possible with Maserati.

Ivan

 

I have a new old stock air box cover for a 4.7 ( the oval one ) still with the Maserati factory tag on it. The trident is painted red on that one.

 

I have always been told by the Maserati in crowd at Modena, going back to the 70-ies and 80-ies, that all the road cars had black wrinkle paint on the cam covers and the Maserati name casting was either brushed aluminum or in black wrinkle paint, depending on how much time the engineer had who assembled the engine!

The red in the casting around the brushed Maserati name was only done on the racing cars and derivatives thereof.

For sure people have done maintenance on the cars and over the years the wrinkle paint tends to come off, easy to give a little personal touch. Looks nice but is non original.

Ciao,
Bart

 

Fransecso, et. al.,

I have done what I believe to be fairly lengthy research on this topic. I contacted Sig. Cozza about 15 years ago and Sig. Collina at Maserati Historical and Sig. Cozza again recently. I also have a small but decent collection of early original photographs of the cars. Some factory, some private photos.

On the Trident. Original period photographs show "generally" the Maserati Trident should have red paint on the edges of the trident and red paint on the "bars on the bottom". The early cars, meaning the 3500/Allamano, and the 3500/T, (101.001/2/4/etc) and some Frua prototipo cars had a Trident painted ENTIRELY in red. Some early "photo shoot" cars late 1957 early 1958 had the Trident painted entirely in red. Aside from those early cars, the edge and the lower bars of the trident should be red.

On the cam covers: Sig. Cozza stated that many of the Maserati racing cars, but not all had the "surround" with the Maserati logo on the cam cover painted red. On the 3500 GT/T production cars, the Maserati logo was bare aluminum with the surround or "oval" painted black.

Apparently, not all cam covers had the Maserati logo in bare aluminum and some were totally painted black. I know that some Maserati experts would say that Cozza is incorrect and the cam covers were totally 100% painted black, but Sig.Cozza says otherwise. That being said, I have factory photos of early 3500 GT, GTIS and Mistral with the Maserati logo painted and unpainted. So apparently, both are correct, but again, Cozza says unpainted, bare aluminum finish.

I didn't ask about the air cleaner boxes on later spec 3500's or Ghiblis, so I can't help there.

Hope this was helpful, if not it, may be interesting discussion.

Engine photos from Sig. Cozza via www.



~Trev
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Trident trivialities ... Your car won't run any differently and it's easily changed so do what ever pleases you on this one.

Or you could always ask ...
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A few months ago I had a discussion about the tridents with red surround (or entirely red), my initial question was if these tridents signified anything about the car (special edition, engine, whatever), both Colina and Cozza told me that they certainly did not signify ANYTHING at all. They are just personalization things done for the client at the time of the new car order (original order/build sheet will mention red trident!).

Interestingly, in newer cars, the red DOES signify something. For example, the "regular" 4200 Coupe has plain all-silver tridents, while the GranSport has red lines on the tridents to signify a "sporty" car.

The same was used in the QP line, the plain QP 4.2 with all-silver tridents versus the QP Sport-GTS with red lines on the tridents.

Food for thought

 

Really? You actually had a discussion with Maserati historians about "red tridents"?

Sounds more like the title for a Tom Clancy thriller...

 

haha jealous aren't you?

those guys are quite approachable and talkative, they also attend many Club meetings, thus we get to talk to them fairly regularly. The discussion started after the owner of a Ghibli asked a similar question, if he was supposed to paint his trident during restoration or not.

 

Hi there,

My 1967 Mistral had the front trident edges and bottom bars painted red. The paint looked to be original.

Cheers,

Alejandro

 

This is the situation (fully original and unmodified ) on my '63 3500 GTi .

Ciao

Andrea
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Not jealous but incredulous at having one expert and another on the ascent at hand and THAT is what ended up being the topic of conversation. I've met Cozza several times.

So did you guys get around to discussing the proper tire valve stems too?

Oh I know how casual conversations get started so I'm just yankin' your chain a bit.

 

Well, believe it or not, it is a common question!

I started it with the Merak SS, since there are lots of them with red tridents and the discussion continued on with others asking about the Ghibli and the 3500.

We also had other discussions, like the Vitaloni mirrors painted in the body colour on Merak SS cars, original fog lights for the front and rear, proper/original radio for the Ghibli GT (doesn't exist in case you were wondering), so on and so forth.

 

Mine is brass, 1965 1st series QP. My friend has a 1967 2;nd series and his is silver with red stripes.
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and sometimes they were gold plated.

Ivan
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Yes they were! Solid gold!

 

As soon as I've read that, I've tested mine !

Unfortunately, it's not solid gold ...

;-(
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Well they are now that's for sure!