Getting back on the Jersey tpk with a cambio coupe. Was in first gear rolling out of a rest stop. Saw an opening in traffic and floored it. RPMs went to 7000K the car filled with smoke and the smell of a fried clutch. Frotunately the clutched continued to work for the rest of the trip. Soured me on the whole cambio/F1 paddle shift thing. Big part of the reason I'm holding out for a 6 sp in the 430.
Spent about 15 years restoring a 1980 Quattroporte. Got it all put back together and took it down to a Weber specialist to have the carbs tuned and sync'd. When they took the car out for a test drive, a carb spit gas out the top and started a fire. Melted the pot metal on the intake horns, sucked it into the intake and down into the valves. I wrote a whole article in VCM about it. Made me sick to my stomach..... Mike
I was driving three beautiful girls to a party back in 1994, driving my black Biturbo Si (Italian spec car, 2.0 liter engine with 226 HP and lots of wheelspin). The car was a real chick magnet for a young university student, until we saw smoke coming out of the engine bay... We got to the party all right, but later all the girls found other rides home and I had to go back alone . Turns out that the air conditioning compressor had burned its little electromagnetic clutch out... stupid piece of junk! The "Maserati bits" of the car ran perfectly though...
Picture this: Summer in L.I. New York, the hotest day of the year (105F) driving my 69 Ghibli to a Maserati gathering at a vinyeard on the North Fork of Long Island with my wife. On our way there, the A/C stoped working. Latter, as we are leaving the vinyeard, the clutch pedal goes to the floor and I have no clutch...the inside temperature of the car was probably 120F and heavy traffic ahead...I drove the most miserable 30 miles back to the house...all this time without saying a word nor looking at each other...with my house in sight, we unbuckled the seat belts and open de doors, stop at the driveway, got out of the car, ran to the house, each one of us to a different bathroom and jump in to a cold shower as we were ready to pass out. My worst trip/experience EVER.
Thats hillarious!........Same thing happened to my Milano while driving to a dinner downtown, had to pull over and i got the scare of my life...turned out to be the AC unit......i love Italian cars!
My worst experience.... braking the engine of my 2.24v while on our way to Le Mans Classic 2006. We were travelling in France from Brittany to Le Mans to meet our Maserati Club Holland friends when suddenly at 200+ km/h I heard something snap and it appeard that the timing belt had broken. The belt was only 20.000 km old but when the engine was taken apart at a specialist, it appeared that one camshaft didn't get any oil and had stuck for a while, causing the timing belt to break. Problem: we were expected to arrive at Le Mans Classic in a Maserati but instead we arrived in a Peugeot 307 SW diesel.... Image Unavailable, Please Login
My Biturbo was not the worlds most reliable car. Constantly breaking. I said never again, until the new Maser's came out.
