Maserati Khamsin

I guess you missed the part about taking it to the Bora thread ...

 

Maybe we should start a Boraing thread !

 

Listening to he and I dispute those points is undoubtedly very boring to most. See the Bora thread for the details. It's cheaper than sleeping pills.

 

Hello all,

Happy to confirm that 1290 the yellow K recently sold on Ebay and bound for Holland will get its bumper conversion done and, only if necessary, a fresh livery but in original fly yellow.

Very excited to have a yellow one in Europe I hope we can entice the new owner to our second event KHAMSIN 45 next June

Here is a bizarre advert made in Belgium I found last year, it could be 323 a right hand drive car living in that country light blue yes and which like this one has no outside mirrors.

If anyone is at Monterey could you snap a couple of shots of 1046 in the RM auction, curious to see how they display it and perhaps a shot as it crosses the podium tomorrow? It is lot 203, thanks in advance.

We have just crossed 750000 views hard to believe Thank you to all knowledgeable owners and enthusiasts who contribute in a friendly useful manner

Best regards,

Marc
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Boo to it's leaving the USA but they still aren't as popular here as they are in Europe so what can you do. I hope Doug's stays but ...

So Mark if a USA Khamsin get's it's bumpers converted and the engine euro tuned & exhaust adjusted to the earlier European specs is that seen as an inherently inferior Khamnsin over there?

Bob S.

 

Hello Marc...

With 1290 now going to Europe, it will be interesting to see what happens with Doug's RIM
Khamsin. If it also ends up going to Europe I may start feeling a bit lonely over here!

Mike

 

Hi Bob, Mike,

Well they never had their chance in the US due to the disfiguration of the US version, did they?

The second reason why they are more popular in Europe is that it is a car that due to the hydraulics is suited to driving on a fairly regular basis which allows it to stay current and reliable and less suited to a concours type owner who almost never drives it which means it sits deteriorates and has issues...and from my experience there is a very clear distinction in how they are used on either side of the Atlantic, as a matter of fact I was talking with the late Gerald Roush publisher of the Ferrari Market Letter many years ago about doing an article about the different ways classic Modenese cars -be they Masers, Ferraris, Lambos- are used on either side of the pond, he wanted it written...I never got around to it...but just this weekend in Monterey look at all the trailer queens that just never get driven.

Look at KHAMSIN QUARANTA 4 years ago: 27 Khamsins from all over Europe, 24 of which were driven there (one of the three that were not was the prototype which did not yet have its engine rebuilt) they averaged 700kms each way to come, drove about 300kms during the event and barring one or two minor problems were all perfectly reliable. They are wonderful grand tourers, you can drive Paris to Monaco and you won't be tired...but the concours crowd does not care about that.

In 2000 I took part in Maser Miglia from Denver to Monterey (as a passenger did not have mine yet). One Khamsin came to take part in the dinner near Denver the night before the start, another came to say hello when we stopped in Reno but none took part even though yes 18 classic Masers drove 1300 miles/2000kms.

Of course not every US owner is a concours person and not every European is a driver but...there is a very clear pattern.

Bob some here in the old world will absolutely insist on a Euro born car but I could not care less as long as the bumper conversion is done, after that you can convert the diff ratio, the engine timing, delete the big rectangular sidelights as I did etc etc up to each owner how far he wants to go, there was only one spec intended by Maserati, there was no choice about the one imposed by US regulations, an accident of history.

Mike based on the norm in the past years, decades even, I fear Doug's car will head across the pond too, though I would really love to be proven wrong.

There are still about 30, 40 cars in the US (of 155 initially) just very spread out...

Best regards,

Marc

 

Well put.

That is an excellent way of summing up the disfigurement & indignity suffered by all the period Maserati GT cars (amongst others) at the hands of the US 'regulators'.

Regards.

 

Helps if you include the entire quote in context! Are you a journalist?

So for Mark the answer is no.

WO those mandated USA regs satisfied we wouldn't have seen the cars at all here for a very long time. Do you think that would have been better since the performance differences were minor and are easily over come? The cosmetic ones not so easy ...

 

Thanks for the numbers, very sad. I'm not sure I agree with you about the low usage as it relates to the LHM Maseratis though. I actually think LHM systems hold up much better than than standard braking systems do when side lined a lot. But there is far more than just brakes on some of these cars. I wish Maserati had utilized all screw on accumulators instead of what they did. Their adaptation of special fittings is a PITA. My only gripe.

I'm afraid that many here in the USA just don't like this system and there's an absolute dearth of knowledge about the system in auto mechanics circles. In the past taking the car to an airport for service probably made more sense! Plus the support systems weren't very good but they're better now. So many cars were screwed up here with the wrong fluid too. Then it was a very expensive nightmare to fix = car on block s = parted out etc. That's been especially true for Meraks though they have other issues as well. Hard to undue all those years of that.

But with values much higher now yes they don't get driven like they should. That's true for all vintage cars here though if their values have become high. I drove mine! That's much harder to do now given where I live.

 

Hi Bob,

Can't quite agree with the above.

Why wouldn't you have seen them there at all w/o the regulations? You would have had K's looking and performing as intended, and Maserati would have produced 4X the colume they actually did.

The performance difference is huge, and converting to mechanical Euro-spec is a lot of work and costly.
The cosmetics are simple in comparison, if you can live with leaving the side-markers in place.

Best,

Jack.

 

I think you misunderstand what I meant. The regulations were unavoidable.

So if they hadn't met the regulations then they never would have been imported. We can criticize Maserati all we want but they were forced to do this and all manufacturers suffered for years with doing this poorly. But eventually we got much safer and cleaner cars as a result of it. There's no argument about that. It took Maserati a LOT longer to get this right than anyone else though, like 1987.

So if Maserati had refused to modify their cars then none of their cars would have come here during those times. We'd have had to wait 25 years to see any of them. I wouldn't have been able to buy and modify my Bora to perform just like any European version. Zero Khamsins would have come here.

Again how would that have been better?

As for the mechanical conversion being complex and costly ... how so?

 

If you are going to aspire to play pro bono wannabe lawyer, at least spell the name of your imaginary client correctly.

Having thoroughly enjoyed his works, I am positive that Marc is fully capable of clarifying his own words if and when he chooses to do so.


Regards.

 

Hello chaps,

I have nothing further to say on these points previously debated. Perhaps you should take that debate over to the Bora thread since that is where you started it. thank you.

Boralogist you have a PM.

A good weekend to all,

Marc

 

I know but HE can't seem to help raising it everywhere he goes. No more from me in this thread as I asked the question of YOU about this regarding Khamsins and I got the answer and thank you for that.

 

Hi Bob, both of you are always welcome just leave the luggage and guns at reception just like they say at hotels in the western US, could not believe it when I saw that sign my first time in Phoenix in 1990 LOL.

Back on topic, curious what the yellow K 1046 will do in the RM Monterey auction but with the nine hour difference I am NOT going to wait all night to follow the live feed!

Best regards,

Marc

 

They must have been monitoring eBay. 140k plus fees, pretty damn close to the 1290. Btw the khamsin had a higher hammer than the ghibli bora Indy or Mexico.

 

Thanks Joe.

So US$154K with fees, Good. Consistent selling prices give a clear indication and help other sales happen (as long as sellers are reasonable) this is the highest price ever for a K at auction in the US but we are not in the frantic 2 year market period any more, prices are readjusting. Of course that overheated period plus the higher value of K's in Europe means this price is still $100K short of the European record of €274000 at Artcurial Paris in June 2015 which was a really high number for a car (AM120116) that while original needed work. 2nd highest ever bid was for my ex car AM120US1242 at Artcurial in Paris this February (€210K but not sold due to owner not listening to auction house, a major Dutch dealer or yours truly the night before) third highest bid and second highest actual auction sale was €206K all in in February 2015 for 1142 the T top car at Bonhams Paris.

Apart of the private sales of some exceptional cars such as 232, 234, 246, 404 -sorry if I forgot any and no I am not privy to all deals far from it-, now that the market has calmed down I would say US140-150k$ seems the price in the US for a good but not excellent car like the two yellow ones while in Europe it is more around €160k though people tend to ask €180k...but yes some exceptional ones including end of the world restorations will go beyond that.

Surprising that 1046 sold for more than the Ghibli and Bora, again that may be due to its 15 minutes of fame the Jay Leno video.

Here are some photos of it friends of mine took yesterday, the scratch at the right rear corner and the paint damage at the right door front edge were not there when I say it in April of 2013.

Perhaps the new owner will post here, I should find out where it sold to within the next few days.

Best regards,

Marc
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I was wondering.

Is there a Khamsin register in the "Maserati Khamsin Registry", or am I looking in the wrong place ?

 

Hello Henry,

I have data on about 330 cars of the 430 made but having the time -I am just far too busy 12 hours a day in front of my computer -and budget to actually upload all of it (data plus over 6000 photos) is just something that is not going to happen in the immediate future. However the new version of the site inaugurated in February will allow me to upload that data myself and without HTML code nonsense so this is preplanned with a template format and will eventually happen, when I have time and feel I want to. It is a hobby and should remain a pleasure, that is why it is free so no one can tell me what to do

In 2004-2005 with my initial version of the website I had started entering cars individually but it was just too time consuming back then and the HTML jut annoyed me.

Is there a particular Khamsin you were seeking information on?

By the way if you are Henry /Enrico of Enrico's Maserati pages I still can't access your site (I use Chrome as web browser) and it should be updated otherwise as time goes by you will lose more and more readers. If you are not sorry for the confusion.

All the best,

Marc

 

That's very strange, as it seems to work perfectly well on both my Sinclair Spectrum and Commodore 64 !!!

 

Well I get the "AW snap something went wrong while displaying this webpage" notification each time.

Best regards,

Marc

 

Ahhh, those were the days!
When you played chess against the spectrum and it had to think half an hour about its' next move!

Best,

Jack.

 

I wasn't there of course but in the photos that Bora wasn't even prepped for sale and certainly those photos weren't auction ready if someone was expecting good money for the car. More of a fire sale situation I guess. That Bora looked rough. But this Khamsin ain't no peach either. It's financially impossible to get this Khamsin to a quality equal to the top notch ones out there IMHO. I hope it's a gem mechanically.

 

Marc, you just need to dump the LHM laptop ...

Sometimes when you have a lot of tabs open in Chrome it does this. I have 45 right now and I cannot access Enrico's website either. IE works fine though. It worked fin a week ago when I was looking at something so I don't know ...