Found this QP III for sale in France: Ventes Auto - MASERATI Quattroporte 4900cc - 1983 - les annonces Les ANCIENNES com - ANCIENNES.NET The first owner is supposed to be the most famous female opera singer in the world. Undisputedly it was Maria Callas but she died in 1977. and Maserati is from 1983. So to whom they might refer? My two guesses are Montserrrat Caballe and Renata Tebaldi but Google doesn't know about relation of either with a QP. What do you think? When searching for that I also found this obituary to another singer, Carlo Bergonzi - and a great Maserati anecdote in it: Bergonzi was a lover of fast cars, especially Maseratis. In 1971 he was staying a waterfront hotel in Trieste when his Quattroporte was washed away by a storm. The following year, having replaced it with a Merak, he was on holiday in Jesolo when the same thing happened again. Full article here: Carlo Bergonzi - obituary - Telegraph
No idea as to female ownership, but Pavarotti was perhaps the most famous opera singer owner. http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/4f/9d/20/4f9d204ecc23b9a75a100ec6c5255f66.jpg A very pretty color on the one for sale in the link! As far as I can tell, it says that the car is actually in Spain.
Such indignity suffered by no less than two Maseratis at the whim of the oceans even though the marques symbol is that of Poseidon god of the seas ... Oh the irony.
Hi, great story about Bergonzi, have to add it to my Quattroporte registry www.tipo107.com, where I'm listing over 460 Quattroporte 107 of the ca 750 produced. It is well possible that the car belonged to Pavarotti: the ad says "le (LE!) plus célèbre chanteuse (with a male LE, it should be chanTEUR). So, if the writer got distracted and thought about a woman while writig this - or his French is rather minimal - he meant a male opéra singer, not a female...
I missed the "le" part, you are right, it opens the possibilities. Didn't want to bother the seller, as I am not a potential buyer - but I did forward the link to a collector here that prefers celebrity cars. It would nicely fit his garage...
Alfieri 107, I can add another story that might be interesting for your registry. Back in 1969. there was an ETCC race in Belgrade and a lot of Yugoslavian drivers raced against the best European ones there. One very strange entry was a Quattroporte, entered by a guy called Matevz Stefe. He had the biggest Citroën service in Ljubljana, Slovenia and previous year attended the race with a Citroën DS21. Result was predictable, as at the time motorsport in Yugoslavia was blooming and the field was full of Abarths, Mini Coopers, NSU TTS's... As the guy had a lot of money he didn't want to be embarrassed and he decided to order a powerful car to beat these small ones. So he ordered a Maserati, the most expensive one, and he came to Belgrade assured that, even if it has four doors, he can beat the opposition by sheer power. Inevitable happened: QP ate tires within a lap or two on the circuit and his times weren't any good, so after practice Stefe packed up and went home, without bothering to stay and watch the race - shame as there were some guys that will become quite famous: Niki Lauda, Ignazio Giunti, Frank Gardner, Dieter Quester... It bothered me for years what's the story behind the entry of a Quattroporte in that race and I talked with some drivers that raced back then and there to complete that puzzle. Unfortunately, no pic of that car in practice are known to me and also I never heard anything about the later fate of the car. There is a rumor of a QP hidden somewhere in my hometown of Zagreb but I don't have any proof of its existence. After that race the only occasion when I know about a 107 here was related to my family. A German businessman used to come to Zagreb in his example and, as his main business contact here was my late aunt, he once took her and my older brother for a ride. It had to be around 1969. or 1970., just before I was born. Interesting part is that apparently it was an extended QP with six doors! I remember reading some details in an old issue of Italian magazine Auto Capital and there they said there were two six door cars produced and one indeed went to a German businessman - but never found more details.
Wow, that's some really interesting news! I have never heard of a 6 door Quattroporte so far. Must find a copy of the said AutoCapital. Does anybody know more about it? And I'd die for a picture of that racing Quattroporte any way!!! Thank you very much for the stories. You made my day!
Auto Capital was with Quattroporte IV on cover, it was just presented back then. 1996., IIRC. That text was the only source I ever saw mentioning these two 6-door models. But unfortunately a few years later I lent it to a guy who was considering buying a QP IV from Ciro Blazevic (coach that was leading Croatian squad to 3rd place in 1998 football/soccer World Cup) and I never got it back.
As for racing QP, unfortunately no one knows about any pic of it. There is a good book (in Serbian) about these races: Velika nagrada Beograda Grand Prix of Belgrade 1967-1969 The author is a good friend and he thought that whole story is a hoax until recently, as he has thousands of pics from these event and no trace of Maserati.
Autocapital was No. 5 from 1994. AUTOCAPITAL 5/1994 MASERATI QUATTROPORTE/FERRARI 333 SP/VOLVO 850 T5 SW | eBay
