Maserati Khamsin

looking great, nicely done!!

 

Hi Graeme,

The top end, yes, and the result is often a totally over-restored car. Unfortunately the Khamsin is not the top-end of the market, so we needn't bother with such trivialities

Your young friend is a keeper. If you don't have a lift, the Khamsin is a bear to polish...

Best,

Jack.

 

Hi Jack

The guy who poilshed the car is only short so for the khamsin its a breeze. Although he did spend some time on the floor!!!

A mazing when its polised like that the more imperfections you find!! But it sure does look like its been feshly painted!!

I have jsut finalised the cost of haing the car freighted the 950 Ks to melbourn for the show and return, the cost was an eye opener....
The company that does this Transports in completely covered trucks and the drivers deal with all sorts of Exotica.

However I am taking a bit of a gamble as you all know driving a Khamsin for the first time is not for the ham fisted so I have included the following instructions

"Dear driver
Absolutely nothing works until the engine is running and the hydraulics are pressurized, indicated by the buzzer and the pressure light going out.
• CLUTCH won’t even Move
• the steering is so heavy you cannot turn it and has a inch of slop.
• The brakes travel 20mm MAX.

When the engine is running the car is as light to drive
When the engine is turned off it must be left in Neutral.
The Handbrake is marginal.

Any questions / issues call my mobile .........

Anything I have missed?

Regards
Graeme

 

Your mobile number

Hopefully they read it, in my experience they think 'a car is a car'. Also, transporters love putting cars in gear for transport.

If you're lucky the driver who loads is also un-loading, then just be there when it gets loaded.

Buy lots of sleeping pills.

Best,

Jack.

 

LHM cars are always high susceptible because they think there will be brakes. Now if your accumulators are good and it's not too long a time there might be some reserve.

Tape the instructions to the windscreen , steering wheel and somewhere else too! LOL

Good luck and bring home a trophy.

 

As I wrote in a previous post I have stumbled across a very nice Khamsin with automatic transmission. It seems difficult to establish a value of such a cars since it is difficult to find actual sales for an aut.

Next question: What is the price difference in europe for an aut vs manual, everything else equal? is it E5000 or E20 000?

How difficult would it be to convert to manual? Is it possible to find a gearbox for a reasonable price. Are there other difficulties to think about? Has it been done?

 

This is very interesting indeed.
Good luck with your purchase.
The Khamsin is gorgeous!
Kind regards,
Jan

 

Fredric,

When you're the seller the difference is 5000, when you're the buyer it is 20.0000.

Check if the car is a true Euro-spec. There are more differences than just the bumpers.

Conversion is possible, the problem will be to find the transmission. I am not sure if the tipo 115 engine of the Khamsin has a different block-casting for auto and manual. Of course you could opt to put a modern tranny in with an adaptor plate. Likely you'll also want to change the diff ratio. The Khamsin clutch is operated with the high-pressure LHM, so that will need some additional equipment too.It is a big job by any standard.

Best,

Jack.

 

Jack, I inspected a US automatic car once and the seller insisted that his automatic car was worth more than the manual. But that guy was a genuine swindler.

True, a swap appears to be a major and costly project. But we have established that:
. the Khamsin apparently uses the same engine block casting for both the auto and manual trans. Check the parts manual and you will see only one part number for the engine block.
. the auto transmission casing is constructed with the gear case separate from the bellhousing. So in theory the bellhousing could be modified to adapt a manual transmission. In theory.

Fredric, if you want a manual car the best thing to do is to buy a manual trans car. If you find a nice auto and think you can enjoy that, then buy an auto. No matter which, you will have a beautiful and special car.

 

Carmine,

Agreed

Best,

Jack.

 

Is there list of what's different other than the usual smog equipment and cam timing?
Yours has the air injection ports right?

Bob S.

 

Bob,

Yes it does, but on euro-spec headers, not cast manifolds. The US cars also had different diff ratios, I suppose to compensate for lost engine performance.

Best,

Jack.

 

You could get different ratios here too. The emphasis was on 0-60 for the USA market. The Bora topped out @140 with the USA ratios but I think Khamsin was 130 was it not?
There was a guy if the SF bay area who had Qvale upgrade his Khamsin with a bigger radiator, the European gears and install a Mercedes 4spd auto box.

I wonder what happened to that car and who that was? Gene O'Gorman might know?

As for cast manifolds I've never seen that. I've seen stainless steel thermal reactors like on my Bora and before that they just had an air injection rail along the top of the SS headers but cast iron? Not that I know of.

The vacuum retard distributor would be one I'd add as late USA equipment. None of these things are that hard to remedy. The bumpers and tail lights are the worst.

Hey it's a lot worse doing the bumper conversion for a Bora.

 

Sorry for spamming with questions
Even though I'm used to old italian cars, (have a QP-1 and a Giulia spider), what are the particulars of a Khamsin to look for? This car has been sitting for close to 20 years. It was re-painted and re-commissioned 6 yeas ago and then put to rest again..
300km since 1995, and a total of 26000km since new.
Now it's back in the workshop for a new exhaust and fixing some small issues. Electrical mainly, plus rough running.
How do I check that the engine is matching the car? On my QP, the engine no is the same as the chassis no. Is it the same with the Khamsin? The reason I ask is that the owner think that the engine might have been changed during warranty in the 70-s, and I'd like to know.

 

Fredric,

My car is a bit like the one you're looking at, although its' time of in-operation or very low mileage/year was less dramatic.
Original car, r-painted 1997, done 20.000lms since 2005 but very little since 2005. I got the car in March 2011, it was driven to the point of sale.

At a glance there was little wrong with it. It started fine, ran, and stopped. At second glance, it leaked hydraulic fluid, ran marginally due to lack of maintenance and was alltogether totally unsafe to drive.

That shouldn't put you off, it didn't do that to me, but caveat emptor, the onus is on you. The price on mine was right, so I bought. I did, however, inundate this forum with questions and learned, as from the onset I knew that the Khamsin is not a simple car. When I bought I knew what I was looking at.

A car with such low mileage as the one you're looking at:
Why did it need a re-paint? There can be many reasons, but find out.

300 kms in all that time is not going to do much for the mechanicals. Have a good look at the hydraulic systems. Test them, for instance by running the engine and after shut down see how many times the headlight will raise & go down.
Do a proper compression test, if possible a leakdown-test.
Depending on the heritage, look for rust. My car was an absolutely dry climate car, but there still is some, because of the factory cutting the hoses from the rear-hatch drains too short, so water accumulated in the space behind the rear wheels.
At 26.000 kms the interior should be pristine.

All the rest is nuts and bolts, apart from the brakes, which need special LHM-resistant seals.

Remember that no new body-parts are available.

Approach the car with that knowledge, drive it, and when you are satisfied make an offer you can live with.

The Khamsin is a wonderful car with a unique character. Very fast, comfortable like a Jag and exotic like few others. In its' era there was nothing to match it for those qualities. The euro-manual was also the 3rd fastest car available at the time.

You can only part with your cash once: Decide if you can live with the auto-trans, I personally wouldn't alter anything in a car with low miles in good condition. If you can't live with the auto, look for a manual trans car.

I'm taking up too much bandwith here, others may have different opinions,

Best,

Jack.

 

Finally I managed to purchase this beautiful car. It's been a process of a couple of weeks. The previous owner is a personal friend of the swedish king and very "upper class" but in a very polite and old fashioned way, if you know what I mean. I'm just an ordinary car nut! Less upper class!
It's always difficult to negotiate with people who are not economically motivated to sell, but finally I managed to convince him that I was the right person to relieve him of the burden of yet another old car! And as a member of the board in the swedish maseraticlub, I could also with some credibility claim that the car would be well cared for.
It had a lot of sentimental value as you will understand from the history. It was bought by his father who lived in Monaco/Switzerland, the kind of 70's jetset lifestyle we read about in magazines. In the documentation there was an envelope full of old receipts from restaurants and theatres in Monaco, Grand Hotel in Verbier etc.
The father bought the car in 1979 at 12000 km. At that time there was a brand new engine fitted due to some sort of unfamiliar failiure. Yesterday I e-mailed Fabio Collina and he confirmed that the engine was changed at an official Maserati dealer in June-79. There are some old records about a trip from Zurich to Stockholm in -79. That is how these cars should be used! During this time, it had Swiss plates. (which came with the car), in -84 the car was registred in sweden. In -86 the father died and the son (previous owner) inherits the car.
Not being that interested he didn't use the car much. In 1980 the recorded km is 20 000. Today it is 26000! (less than 17000 miles)
Hoping that his son would be interested in taking over the car, major work was carried out in 2005-06 at a cost in excess of the purchase price today. The work included bare metal, high quality full re-paint with some corrosion rectified. The whole car was thoroughly re-commissioned. Apart from opening the engine, it was a full job with the reciepts to prove it. What happened then?
The car was parked in the garage again! It has done less than 100km since the work was completed.
Now the car is back at the workshop again. Same one where I service my QP-1. As I was admiring the car when visiting the workshop, I heard that it "could maybe be for sale" due to not being used.
The reason for being back at the workshop is that when the owner decided recently to take a little drive (as you understand very unusual) the car didn't run properly and the exhaus system had rusted so it was loud!
So I had two choices. Either to wait until the car was fully serviced and then buy it, risking someone else beat me to it. Or take a risk of buying it without the possibility to test drive it. Yesterday a compression test was made with perfect result. I'm pretty confident that normal service, (plugs, leads, etc etc) will make it run properly.
So I bought it as is, me picking up the bill from the workshop. Am I crazy? Probably, but I bought it at a price that I'm happy with considering the prices being asked for these cars. With a proper polish, reconditioning of the interior, this car has the potential of looking brand new! The interior is fantastic! No sign of wear whatsoever on the seats or carpets, just some old dirt. Completely original except for the top of the alcantara dash which has been changed. By the way did I mention it had a new windscreen and new tires?
The downside? Yes it is an automatic. I know, it is not what I would have chosen if I could chose, but this car is too beautiful in its increadibly low mileage I couldn't pass! Wish me luck!
Here are some bad iphone pictures from the workshop.
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pictures of #218. After the paint job the car was sent to a specialist for rust protection. The whole underside is completely covered in this thick black glue like stuff. Maybe a little too much if you ask me. This stuff is designed for cars running in salt. Good thing is that it is not likely to rust in my lifetime!
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Congratulation !!!!!
This is the correct way to find a "diamond".
I love those well maintained and little used cars much more than a frame-off restoration.

Alfred

 

Very, very, nice! Congratulations. I think the automatic might surprise you on how nice the car drives.

Ivan

 

Hi, The car looks nice.
I have not driven a manual Khamsin, so do not have a direct comparison but I think the auto box suits the car well. I certainly would not try to modify it as it would be changing the car from standard, and as mentioned in an earlier post the clutch is hydraulically operated as well. It would be unlikely that all the parts would be available.
Rich

 

Hello again Fredric and congratulations!

This car has as you say sat tucked away for many years and most in Sweden were not aware of it.

According to our Swedish compatriot Magnus Andersson, who sent me the photo below a few years ago -tack Magnus!-, it was known to have arrived in Sweden in 1984 but had not been heard of since. No one knew where it was.

In his notes it was owned by a Hans Eric, last name unknown, obviously the family you refer to, blue with with brown interior.

This photo shows it in Stockholm in the 80's with not only Zurich number plates but also very unusual side light brackets.

By the way people do travel all the way up to Stockholm in GT's: a few years ago I saw a Ferrari 456 with Monaco plates in Gamla stan, the old part of the capital.

Regarding the gearbox swap it is a major operation, very complex and only to be tackled by truly well equipped and financed experts, so I would not recommend it unless you are 1000% sure you will finish the job.

In any case enjoy it before the winter sets in and in future!

Best regards,

Marc
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Yes, Hans Eric is the guy I bought the car from. The big side lights are gone. I will keep the car original with the aut gearbox. Does anyone know how many aut were produced? I didn't find that info in your excellent book! Which I have been studied carfully the last couple of weeks! Those plates were with the car!

 

What's the deal with the tail lights on these cars? I would say they upside down compared to most.
Cheers

Mark

 

Congratulations on purchasing the car, and welcome to the K club!!

Enjoy the car, and by all means keep us informed on your progress
and any changes you make...

Also, please don't hesitate to ask questions.. There are some very
knowledgable K owners here...

Please post more pictures and let us know how she drives!

Mike

 

Congratulations Fredric,
I will be over soon to have a good look at it if it´s ok with you.
Keep the autobox!
Jan