Maserati 5000

One of the "honest" car dealers in southern Germany has a Maserati 5000 on offer and made a video about the car. I don't want to comment on whatever he says but it is nonetheless nice to see a moving 5000.

 

This chap partley says BS.
The engine is not (!) coming from the 450S. I know this car very well. Its restoration in the UK was done many years ago, in 1999. I sorted thehistory for its current German owner.
The car is on the market for years with various dealers.

 

Walter,

Would you be kind enough to give the readers a brief summary of the 5000 engine history?

 

Only two 5000GT, chassis #002 and #004, had the (de-tuned !!) engine of the 450S. The cams in the cyl.-head of the race car were geardriven while those of the 5000GT were chaindriven. Piping was much different. Different carbs-size, Early 5000GT had carbs but the most came with injection. Lots of differences between both engines.

 

Wasn't it Dr. Doll who rebuilt a 5000 engine using his usual block strengthening equipment but also modern EFI and higher compression? I believe all of the components were hidden under the airbox very well. If I recall, the engine made some 420bhp when it was tested

 

I also seem to remember a 5000 engine that had a revised crankshaft from Capricorn because the factory didn't get the specification for a V-8 crankshaft quite right, but I'm get old now so who know what my memory is like!

 

Dr. Doll was a rather chaotic person. I brokered the engine and convinced the new owner to give Doll the motor for a complete overhaul. At that time, the engine was in pieces. Doll needed 9 (!!!) years to work back and forth, assembled it, disassempled it, assembled it again only to take it apart again, and again, and again....
It was a nightmare. He became completely "lost" in this project. The owner of the engine was veeeeeery patient and I could not convince him to take the motor away from Doll. But finally -and after these 9 years- I talked again to the owner and the motor was moved -again in pieces!- away from Dr. Doll who became the Dr. Frankenstein of all "specialists" for Maserati engines...
But may he R.I.P. now....

 

Correct. And they made an excellent job. CAPRICORN is one of the very best and most advanced companies in Europe for motorsport techniques. They worked for Ferrari F1 and were involved in the AUDI- and Porsche Le Mans projects.
They are the only company who got permission from Porsche to produce replica engine blocks for the types 550RS, 718RS and Carrera RS.
But when it comes to their invoices, they are a drug shop.....

 

The quintessential mad professor type...
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Unfortunately often times the beset doesn't come cheap.

 

Not sure if that's a typo but it's funny as hell, except for the guy who had to pay the bill.

 

Obviously, it's not you or me paying the freight but when you think of the car the improved engine is going into, it might be worth every penny. 5000's don't come cheap.

 

A well sorted 5000GT goes like Saturn 1! And the sound in high revs is unbelievable!

 

the scary part of a 5000 GT isn’t how fast it goes, it’s how slow it stops.

 

Yes, and in corners you need arms like Popeye....

 

Reminds me a lot of a 375MM I drove for an article in 1998 for Prancing Horse magazine: exactly the same thing; it does a perfect job as long as all you ask is to accelerate in a straight line AND on a smooth surface!
Braking, turning and handling bumps was err...interesting!

 

ALL cars of the 1950s were difficult to handle in corners. Althogh the 5000GT was made in the early 1960s, it was basically a 50s concept. First GT car that really handled very well in corners was the Ferrari 250SWB (despite some Lancia that were ahead of their time!).

 

I called the 375MM a wheelbarrow with 340hp...or a baby dinosaur.

I had a fabulous ride with Neil Corner (who won countless vintage races decades ago) in his Robin's egg blue 250 SWB (also in 1998 a good year!) in Yorkshire on roads through the moors and hills which he knew by heart, he demonstrated how well it handled and we were sideways a lot

 

Walter,
Could you outline what were the main differences between the chaindriven 5000GT's engine and the "standard" V8 engine that was later installed in the early QP's and Mexico's?

 

Serge,
simply because the later engines had chaindriven camshafts. The V8 of the later QP and Mexico and so on, where different. Driving a geardriven car (of any type!) to a chaindriven example shows the huge difference (a modern example: drive the Ferrari Enzo which is bloody fast - but driving the MC12 with the now geardriven engine that basically came from the Enzo clearly shows how much more responsive this MC12 motor is). The crankshaft of the 5000 GT V8 was different, piping was different, then the Lucas-injection (the later V8 came without that at that time tricky component) and then the double ignition to the early single-ignition QP and Mexico etc., etc...

 

Thank you Walter.
I understand the difference between the gear-driven 5000GT's engine and the later chain-driven engines of the Mexico and others' engines.
I thought that maybe the chain-driven engines of the #002 and #004 5000GT cars may have been closer to the later engines and maybe the basis upon which such later engines were built.
Now I understand that there were many more differences, including crankshaft, piping, carbs, etc.
So, claiming that the later V8's were directly deriving from the race 450S engine was certainly exxagerated...

 

The ONLY things the 450S engines share with the later 5000GT/ Quattroporte/Ghibli/ Khamsin engines is they are V-8 engines built by Maserati. NOTHING interchanges and the entire design philosophy is different.

 

The engines from #002 and #004 were real de-tuned 450S race engines with gear driven cams. So both cars are the most valuable of the 5000GT serie.

 

It's be said that gear driven camshaft units create more noise than chain driven units. I personally have not been in a car with gear driven cams so I don't know if that is true. I do know that gear driven units need to be dead on or there are real potential problems while chain driven units are much more forgiving and are better for higher mileage usage and require less potential service.

 

Elliot: In a 450S, the transaxle and exhaust noise overcome any gear noise from the camshaft drives.