Maserati Bora - Picture Thread

The Merak I had had the flat style. My car was a MY77 but built in 1976. I personally was not aware of the rarity of that dash type (was 25 and a bit stupid on car history). I do prefer the Bora look dash.
That brings another question which I should know the answer but again my curiosity was limited in my youth and I was just entirely taking by the car as a piece of art.

Do the Merak SS have a 44DCNF carbs? I beleive they moved from 42 DCNF. My curiosity stopped at the type of Carb not its size and I see conflciting information out there, even in my manual.
If so it would be interesting to know that the Merak SS ended up with bigger carbs than the larger Bora engine!
I'll post some digital picts from older picts I have from this era.

Other questions:
How many Meraks with ZF trani wre made? From 81 and up a lot of Merak were made, thus ZF should not be rare. Am I mistaken?

Alfieri worked on a 4 valve V6. It is what ended up in the Ligier? What happend to that effort? A Merak SS QV would have been perfect! Could anyone make one today?

You guys, Especially Walter, are giving me the Merak bug again. Since I sold my car I always had that back thought of buying an 83-84 euro model (of course the euro value has become an issue now). One never forget his 1st love.

 

That's because of the superior linkage in the Bora. When it's properly adjusted, lubricated and has those silly rubber bellows replaced it is quite precise and smooth.
You have to use shim washers on the needle bearing slide mounts that are on the LH side of the engine block or the shaft will bind up.

That's interesting. I've never seen a Merak over here with the same ZF transaxel as the Bora.
That means you could really load up the torque and HP.

Bob S.

 

Aside from the obvious width and window changes that does not appear to be based upon an original Bora rear hatch.
There characteristic punched round holes in the frame structure of an original hatch are not there. It looks like a completely new one-off piece probably out of aluminum.

Great pictures! keep them comming.

Bob S.

 

I was there for those events riding in of all things a Maserati Bora. A horrific day due to the fatal accident which caused an enormous delay and thus we got started agian well after the heat of the day was upon us. We got passed by a Ford SHO @ 140mph due to heat problems. Humiliating. The previous day I had driven the course in the same car @ 160MPH chasing a Turbo Porsche.

It was at this race where I discovered all the "unique" aerodynamics of the Bora. I have video of enormous rear end lift at speed.

That first fatality was especially shocking to my wife and I because we had dinner with the Bartskis the night before. When I went by that wreck it had rolled burnt and rolled up into something the size of a card table. He bought a used Testarossa with 4K miles on it because his Boxer he had run before that wasn't fast enough ... There were lawsuits afterwards of course but I suspect the problem was that he had the original tires on that car and did not know the provenance of those tires. There might have been a stupid flat repair made, who knows.

Subsequent to that Pratt Cole ran his Testarosa several times without incident and won it at least once in the rain averaging something like 171. He, was an experienced SCCA driver.

The Nascar type vehicle "Big Red" was certainly fast but there also were timing error issues that year which do shed some doubt upon the claimed average speed for that car.
It wasn't the best organized event back the.

During those years almost all Panteras with their big block hot rod motors were all at the side of the road within the first 5 miles with one failure or another. At least the Bora finished with an average of 139?

Subsequently I did the event in my brand new stock Infiniti Q45 which was speed limited to 151MPH. I averaged 147 and managed to pass a Ferrari Daytona in the process. He looked pretty damned shocked at the time.

Fun stuff, mostly.

Bob S.

 

That first fatality was especially shocking to my wife and I because we had dinner with the Bartskis the night before. When I went by that wreck it had rolled burnt and rolled up into something the size of a card table. He bought a used Testarossa with 4K miles on it because his Boxer he had run before that wasn't fast enough ... There were lawsuits afterwards of course but I suspect the problem was that he had the original tires on that car and did not know the provenance of those tires. There might have been a stupid flat repair made, who knows.

I was under the impression that he had tires not rated for the speeds a TR can do and that he pooh poohed all those who where telling him rightfully that they not safe but whatever it was won't undo what happened...

At Maser Miglie 2000 I sat with Brit George Perfect in the Bora of Paul Miuzelaar (peraps you are familiar with the car; red, non strock wheels, he lives in California I think) and we saw 160 on the speedo, no idea how accurate it was, put the photo in my article about the event in Il Tridente: that was a tremendous trip with a great group of people, with Bob Grossman in the group...

 

bob

The early days of the silver state races sure harkens back to the glory days of danger and adventure rarely seen today. Sad to hear anyone losing their lives or are seriously injured. Im just disappointed when something does goes dire, lawsuits are thrown at everyone. It dosent matter if people signed waivers stating that “that motorsports are potentially hazardous to your health”. I guess all the doctor’s, dentist and layers who sign these waivers interpret the words differently. A lot of things can go wrong running at those speeds. Take some responsibility for your actions please…..

The Bora look to be a relatively aerodynamic car, however like 70's most mid-engine cars of that era, the center of pressure moves too much at elevated speeds with the beautiful piercing nose design. Modern supercars cars have venture tunnel or spoilers in the rear to help balance this. Captured on your video of tail end lift is exactly the opposite of what you want in high speed stability. Typically you want the front to lift first to induce understeer. Still im assuming buy the looks of bora, its a stable highs speed platform with its long wheel base, clean areo profile and high weight.

Good to hear you had a blast ran the event safety…

hf

 

I drove Paul's Bora at Pocono with those wheels and found the car very unstable with a lot more lift than normal. Those wheels may have looked great, but the car felt too high off the ground. Hopefully he corrected the problem when he moved west.

You'll have to ask Swain about his trip back from Monterey in 2000 with his Bora & Ghibli. He'll tell you it wasn't the Sunday Drive that the TMC event was on the way out.

Joe

 

Yes that's a common misconception that's often quoted. "What an idiot, he had VR not ZR rate tires on his car! "

Yes he did have VR rate tires on the car. NO that was not the wrong rating at that time. Why? Because at the time of manufacture of that Testarossa ZR tires did not exist. He had the car's original tires in place and they were not old.

Does that mean all exotic car companies put unsafe tires on their high speed cars? No. At that time the speed rating of the tire for cars such as that was engineered jointly between the tire and auto manufacturer for anything over 150 mph. These tires were made for the Testarossa and were correct.

At that time three of us Bora owners were contemplating a run in our Boras. One of us, not I, did extensive investigation into the suitability of the then popular Michelin XGT series 235/60VR15 - F and 245/60VR15 - R. What we were told (by Michelin engineers) based upon the cars weight, speed and length of the course is that the tire was a very good choice and that we need not worry.

Bob S.

 

It does indeed have a low Cd, .30, I think. The rear lifts by what appears to be about 2" at top speed. The engine comparment pressure at those speeds is enough to push air forward through the shift linkage/radiator pipes tunnel forward and out the vents on the dash.

As I mentioned before, on that day it was hot, damn hot. So when our water temps got too high to sustain 160mph we dropped to 140 and I had the "bright idea" to turn on the heater as extra cooling and crak open the windows a bit. When I did that the cockpit immeadiatly filled with dark blue smoke. To say we were perplexed is an understatement.

Once we finished the race it was clear what had happend. A bolt had come loose and fallen out of the side of the sump which allowed oil to spray onto the headers and that's what was pushed/sucked into the cockpit and came pouring out of the dash vents. Later, I saw the rear lift on the video.

Bob S.

 

ROTFL. Yeah right.

You should have seen their shoulder harness mounts. What a joke. But realistically with a roll that violent in a car like that you're a gonner.
I'm guessing that the only reason he lived is because he was throw through the windshield and away from the car.

 

Marc,
you are right with the Vmx in AMS (just checked!). But this Italian registration did not come from originally with the car - it was mounted on it by the test drivers ("Walter...it looked much cooler than the German plates!"). This plate came on two tests done by AMS: Ghibli and Khamsin!! Both cars came from the Factory - confimed to me by one of the test drivers there!

Ciao!
Walter

 

Bob,
no, no, no - the ZF-gearbox in the last 68 Meraks is NOT the same as with the Bora. Its different from that one but has the same strange "ropes"s with it.

Ciao!
Walter

 

Countachqv,
Yep, thats most likely the engine that came to Ligier. I brookered this one-off-engine 6 months ago to France. But Alfieri made a 2nd 4v-engine that was more "basic". It survived in the Panini-collection and was later sold to a friend of mine who also owns the "V8-made-out-of-2-Merak-motor"!

I have a very good Merak SS with Bora-dash for sale now. But....only for "Popeye`s-green-spinach-Euros"!!!

Ciao!
Walter

 

??? so the bell housing and shifter input maybe different but your saying the internals arent based on the one found on the bora, pantera's etc?

I cant imagine ZF building specifice transaxle for such a low volume (68) production run.

any pics you can foward of the transaxle and how it mounted compared to the DS gearboxes?


perplexed

hf

 

Maybe it's one they made for the Lawn Boy mowers. At least there WOULD be some volume in that!
I know of several guys when driving at the track end up "mowing the lawn". ;>)

 

Believe it or not: this ZF-transaxle was a development and design that was originally done by them for Volkswagen but they never used it (when we did an overhaul we found VW-stamps on some of the internals). It was case how Maserati used many boxes from spares coming from many sources.

Ciao!
Walter

 

Walter,

Sorry to hear you are selling the Blue Beast!

Ciao,
George

 

...eh..WHAT???? Never said that! I have another very late car for sale.

Ciao!
Walter

 

....yesterday! Sitting peacefully in its garage in Southern France!

Ciao!
Walter
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Very good Walter... Jean Guikas and the beast... This is THE Bora!
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

So how much has been changed on this car from it's original configuration? That is if anyone can realistically KNOW that.

Is that a massive oil cooler or what hanging way out front and low? Looks damn vulnerable to me.

Bob S.

 

yesterday, meaning that when they where taken?

once again thank you guys for the gr4 pics plugs!

hf

 

Yep, that was fitted by Guikas. The "green-soup"-stuff was taken out prior to its sale to the Sheiks. Otherwise the car is original. Bob, dot compare it with your Bora, eh?

Ciao!
Walter

 

yes, April 16, Anno Domini 2008 at 14:23 to be precise!!

Ciao!
Walter

 

I feel much better now Walter!
Ciao,
George