There were no less than five
Maserati brothers involved in the racing of
both cars and motorcycles. Alfieri, Bindo,
Ettore, Ernesto and Mario made up the Maserati
dynasty, tragically sixth brother Carlo died
in 1910 and there was even a seventh brother
that died at birth. In 1926 the five brothers
built their first 1.5 liter racer, and soon
after Alfieri had a class win in the Targa
Florio. Technically speaking, there was a Maserati
car manufactured in 1925 for Turin manufacturer
Diatto, this being manufactured as a Grand
Prix car, however this was sleeved down to
produce the first 1.5 liter Maserati. At first
the brothers concentrated on the exclusive
manufacture of racing cars, however in 1932
Alfieri was tragically killed in a racing accident.
Mario left the business to become an artist,
leaving three to carry on, however by 1937
the company was struggling and industrialist
Adolfo Orsi gained a controlling interest. The remaining brothers would sign a ten year
consultancy agreement, however on its expiry
they left the company to form OSCA sports cars.
Orsi and his son Omer were forced to find somebody
extremely talented to fill the void left by
the departure of the Maserati brothers, and
a genius they did find, in one Gioacchino Colombo
(who had already gained experience at both
Ferrari and Alfa Romeo).
He would oversee production
of masterful race cars such as the 250F, which
Juan Fangio piloted to victory in the 1957
Driver’s Championship. That same year
the company released their first real road
car, the 3500GT coupé. By 1966 the road-going
line-up had swelled in number, to now include
the Quattro Porte saloon, Mexico V8 coupe and
Ghibli. These were all more traditional front
engined cars, and Maserati being the company
that they were (and still are) needed a mid-engined
iteration to take the fight up to Ferrari – and
thus begat the wonderful Bora V8 of 1971.
In
1971 the Orsi family sold their interest to
Citroën,
who wanted access to the technology of high
performance engines to enhance the engineering
on their upcoming SM coupe. In fact, the SM
was quite a car, affording the best of French
road-going design with one of the sweetest
V6 engines under the hood, courtesy of Maserati. Citroen bailed in 1975, allowing Alejandro
DeTomaso (with some financial backing from
the Italian government) to take control, however
it was always a struggle for survival for the
company. Nevertheless some fantastic sheet
metal left the company, such as the Kyalami
coupe, Khamsin 2+2 and V6 engined Merak. In
1993 the company was taken over by Fiat.
Also
see: Maserati
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