Maserati Khamsin

Hi Art, it definitely seems your steering is out of whack...you should be able to take your hands off the wheel at any speed with it tracking straight as an arrow.

The new owner of 1266 has been here for ages and will mention it when the car arrives at his home in the next few days or weeks.

 

Five Khamsins (and many other Maseratis) in this video from 2004 in Rome (the 90th anniversary).

I think the Khamsins are #050 (French, white), #306 and #328 (German, silver), #392 (Dutch, rame), and maybe #382 (French, silver, see photo (taken from the video) below).




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Bedankt for posting, I believe that as usual you are Van Der absolutely right, sorry for my poor Dutch

328 with nose modified in Germany, 306 owned by a spirited German lady who once told me: "My Khamsin is female because she is bitchy"

 

Well the `Van Der` is Dutch but I don´t know what it´s doing in this sentence

And the `Bedankt` is perfect Dutch!

 

TECHNICAL QUESTION:
- What material and thickness did Maserati use originally on the European Khamsin's rear glazing? Glass or plexiglass, or something else?

Grazie,
- Art

 

Plexiglass I think, see post #8218 on page 329.

 

My USA K is long gone, but I could swear the rear panel was laminated safety glass.

 

US rear panel is Laminated glass, so one would assume that original European spec cars were the same. The replacement for conversions to European Spec are usually plexiglass.

 

Best not to assume. There are plenty of non-USA Khamsins owners in this group that should be able to answer this question.

Ivan

 

My Euro 74 had (I still have the original) a form of plexi glass.. but it was thicker than the replacement I received which in comparison is flimsy and likely scratches much easier..

 

Mine is Plexi. It’s probably about 6mm thick.

 

Hello all,

Regarding Khamsin rear glass: Euro and RHD cars have it in plexiglas. The US bureaucrats not only mandated that the rear lights could not hang in glass, that the bumper be a safety one with shock absorbers located lower but also that the rear glass could not be plexiglas but had to be laminated safety glass. Years ago I converted my US car 1242, and two more, 1054 and 1140 and the rear was always glass. See here at Step 6 glass removal.

http://maseratikhamsinregistry.net/euro-bumper-kit-conversion-4.php

Anecdotally ONE Khamsin in Euro configuration has a rear glass piece: it is AM120-1250 in the Manoir de l'automobile museum in Loheac, western France. When I inspected it in 2007 I was very surprised to see this but publishing tycoon Michel Hommel who owns that museum with no less than three hundred cars and about ten Maseratis (there was even a 5000GT there, since sold) also owns 20 magazines, a rally cross race track, many buildings in the town. He also actually manufactured a car in the 1990's, a no compromise spartan sports car called the Berlinette Echappement (named after one of his top magazines) so he has a lot of pull and would have been able to get St Gobain to make -or cut- a rear glass for him when he had it converted to Euro bumpers....not simple at all to make that rear glass with the openings for the rear lights...while cutting laminated glass is nigh on impossible...

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Thank you Marc,
That answers the question. I'm unsatisfied with the plexi conversion. It is too thin and scratches easily. I'm exploring a ceramic coating or PPF layer to harden the surface.
- Art

 

These guys are near Middletown. Pretty close to you. Worth a phone call.

https://www.autoglassny.com/services/custom-cut-antique-car-glass/

https://www.autoglassny.com/contact-us/

 

Interesting, but make sure it does not reduce transparency as that is part of the design.

 

Thanks, I spoke with them. Unfortunately, no dice. They only work on much simpler edge cuts and installs. They won't touch what a Khamsin needs. They even backtracked on tempering a panel of glass if I gave it to them....

On my end, I have a PPF application scheduled for the Aston later this week. I'll be asking the applicator about the plexi.. it's a flat surface so it can take a much harder skin. Marc - it will be an improvement, prevent the build-up of scratches. The ceramic films are as transparent and hard as the protective covers for your smartphone, the only factor might be flex cracks and discoloration of the adhesive over time. That will be discussed.

The nuclear option is to dismantle the rear panel assembly, use the plexi as a template for a new non-laminated glass insert by a local jet cutter, then have it tempered, then have it laminated. That should be a fun big dollar winter project, ....because "What Could Possibly Go Wrong?"...
- Art

 

I had to do exactly this for 4 Victorian quarter sawn oak front doors I was having made for my apartment building in SF about 25 years ago. The center pane glass was a sand etched pattern matching the over the stairs skylights and by code the entrance door glass had to be laminated and at that time it cost me about $80 each. Finding a place to do it will be the challenge but it CAN be done.

The covering ala a smart phone sounds interesting but what about long term exposure of harsh weather conditions?

So no one can cut a laminate piece of flat automobile glass with a water jet?
Gandini was far more sensible with the original of these ... Jaguar Pirana and then the Espada.

 

Hi Bob,
Good question but ..long term exposure to harsh weather conditions is very unlikely for a Khamsin, isn't it? Looking at the smartphone protective products, there is a range of material technologies in use mostly derived from eye-glass technology. Nonetheless the smartphone skins are not likely to be reasonable, depending on the cost of large sheets. It's a long shot. But the PPFs are designed and sized for those conditions.

Tempered glass can only be cut with a specialized industrial laser, laminated or not. So you cut it before tempering. Then you laminate it. (Technically, you can cut tempered glass *after* you heat it to 1000F and slowly let it cool, which de-tempers it. But that's not tempered glass anymore.. ).

So back to jet cutting glass. Even with untempered laminated glass - water jetting ends up "fracking" the laminated layer due to its differential hardness to the laminate .. the water pressure goes sideways once it meets the lamination.

The most reliable approach is very traditional - Pane glass can have an interior opening be water jet cut (or old-school drill & grind). Cut two single identical panes of the glass. Then you temper them. Then you laminate them. It's just expensive.

So a compromise is to jet cut a single traditional pane of 8 or 10 or 12mm glass and temper it. Voila! What Could Possibly Go Wrong? No idea what that would cost.

Gandini wasn't more or less sensible - he showed what could be done with plexiglass.

Cheers,
- Art

 

Yes the laminated backside in my situation got tempered after it was cut. Of course the art glass wasn't. But that was the best I could do and the SF building inspector agreed to it.

And today they could probably make the tail lamps embedded and invisible until you turned them on! Well maybe not AND meet government safety regulations. But would they be bright enough?

 

Hate to simplify things!

But---try using a genuine top of the line BAYER plexi (may be marketed under a different name these days)
and call it a day!
Worked for me!

 

An excellent point - there are good and bad plexis. My thinking was if I go to the length of pulling my plexi out to use as a template for jet cutting a replacement, I wasn't going to replace it with plexi.
- Art

 

Waiting for someone to go the Murano Glass route!

 

OK---Marc and all virtual friends---

As promised, here is K.1218 eight months after she joined the family from the Ian Wade collection.
Over 300 hrs of cosmetic and approx. 400 hrs of mechanical eurofication and recommissioning;
torturous at times etc...anyway, here is the result:

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Hello Boralogist...

She looks GREAT !!!!

Mike

 

Bravissimo! Looks great, stealth road jet

Now when you have time a static and drive by video giving our ears a taste of your free flow exhaust would be interesting: as far as I know no one else has ever done that: Tipo 151 type sound? I hope so