I think it was simply put up for sale/auctioned in the wrong venue. The market for big name auction houses may be changing for cars under say $500k. The fees are awful for the buyers and the sellers don't seem to have as many eyes on their lot compared to say BaT which seems to be setting the standard lately for Masers.
Market is indeed flattening right now as can be seen on BaT and for other classic cars such as e.g. E-Type's. High end Ferrari's however still enjoy high (and even higher) prices in auctions of the big houses. BaT looks to become the standard for "medium range" classics. That is the case of Masers of the Alfieri era that are not priced at the level of Ferrari's of the same period.
Analysis valid for the US market, not so much here in EU and UK where virtual auctions are not yet as popular/established. Also it was a LHD in the UK and as Andy Heywood confirmed to me many times Brexit has really hurt the UK economy and market and my English publisher a multiple entrepreneur with whom I spent a work day in Geneva Wednesday confirmed it as well. The fac that any EU buyer would have to pay import taxes for this car certainly deterred some potential buyers. Before Stupidexit that would not have been the case.
It will be interesting to see if this sells for north of $200K. They've quite sensibly added a heat shield for the fuel pump and that's about the only non stock looking thing I could find. It's missing a fuel hose clamp at the corner of the right rear upper calve cover and that's very easy as well as wise to add. Hard to know if they've gone the extra mile to align the sift linkage with shimming washers. That makes a big difference if the slide linkage mounts on subframe aren't naturally aligned. Mine were not. It "looks" very nice. At 12K and 50 years miles maybe head gaskets and some seals are looming? I'd guess that they dropped the subframe. That would have been the perfect time to address all of that but no mention of it. AC doesn't work. This car is probably going to need some more work by someone who knows their way around it. OR ... you could just show it. Once you drive it that will be very hard to resist.
I did not go through all the receipts posted online. From listening to him in the 25 minute video I they they probably need at least $225K to break even.
That car has a production date in 1973 and I've seen photos of 73 MY cars that have or don't have the vents in the hood but if they don't then typically the backside of the radiator is sealed off from the trunk and you end up with more trunk spaces as a result. Maybe this is a transitionary car or someone thought getting rid of the hood vents would help with the cooling. It won't. I've not seen one done quite like this. So ask them ...
I was watching, unusual as auctions bore me, but it was quite the duel A good price to start the year!
Which is probably a good thing as I do not see how the cooling system the way it is currently configure will ever work. Radiator air is being directed towards the top where there are no hood vents. The hot air will therefore be trapped behind the radiator. Some of the air will find its way under the car but this setup is never going to be efficient and we all know that a Bora cooling system needs to be at 100%. Ivan
Actually ... more than 100% It's not hard to fix that either with the change to a vented hood or by just putting the early air flow panel design in place. My friend had a 73 USA car with that configuration and it always ran cooler than mine. Switching to a 2" thick aluminum radiator with a 12 fins/inch configuration would benefit it greatly too. Not sure what they did on this restoration. Odd that they didn't fix the AC system but then so much was spent of the restoration that maybe the original owner broke even ... maybe? With everything fixed including the AC these should be $500K cars but probably never will be ... well if inflation keeps running wild perhaps.
I don’t understand this either. I wonder how many miles were spent sorting the car after restoration. There’s just no escape for the hot air. With that setup, the rear hinged hood scared the hell out of me…
Well some of actually goes out under car anyway but before pressurizing the entire luggage compartment.
Yyou do not have to be European to dislike cars that are only used for shows or put in a museum. A few years ago I sold my truck and enclosed trailer. Now my cars only go to a Concours if they are driven. Even to high end shows such as Amelia Island the car was driven last year 7 hours each way to the show. If the car does not make it; then it does not deserve to be in the show and can come back home in shame in the back of a flatbed truck. Granted, this means that the odds are very low of winning anything as the competition are all "trailer queens". It comes down to either preferring a $35 trinket or the excitement of driving the car. Unfortunately it looks like this Bora will now be a static display. Ivan
Oh they do it too. There's a bit of misplaced European snobbery being expressed in this thread. Does anyone really beleive that all of those fantastic to look at cars one see at the Villa d'Este get driven there? I was a bit skeptical at first about the mechanical condition, specifically things like gaskets and seals but buried in that long description is a reference to new gaskets and I have to believe that means they took the heads off and cleaned things up. I had to eventually do exactly that when I picked up my 3,000 mile Bora which sat in a museum for almost 10 years. But all the LHM equipment was good save for recharging some accumulators. He is going to have to fabricate that cover for the exit air from the radiator. He may surprise us all. I suspect that the total lack of front side marker lamps kills any chance for a serious concours win. That was a rather odd thing to do ... Hope he enjoys the car.
Image Unavailable, Please Login One of the founders of the swedish Maseraticlub, Staffan Enhörning left a lot of material collected during + 50 years. I have a binder with original b/w photos as well as original press releases from Maserati and Ital Design. I have never seen these before enjoy.
