thebaron
Europe
Over the river, heading out of town
Posts: 1,645 
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Mar 28, 2018 11:49:32 GMT
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I have wanted a Biturbo Maserati ever since my performance car subscription days back in 96-98.
Harry Metcalfe's red Ghibli Cup always fascinated me with the crazy output per litre (at the time), fabulous boxed arches and wonderful interior.
4-5 years ago when I sold my 840i I started looking and drove a number of Ghiblis at various stages in the interim. I had the intention of running it as a daily as I'm a sucker for an underdog and operate on a "how bad can it really be?" basis for many things in life.
I have gotten married, had a son, bought a house and had a daughter in the past 5 years so every time I went to pull the trigger I was scuppered by the sensible (albeit mostly unused) part of my brain or the need to use the cash elsewhere.
I have just signed a lease on a new house with a barn attached so I can store/work on "broken" vehicles at my leisure. So with that in mind I expanded my Maserati search to earlier Biturbos as I no longer plan to run it as my daily.
Three weeks ago I took my 11 month old daughter Maia with me to view a Biturbo that needs some work but was also cheap enough not to bankrupt me if it spontaneously combusts in my face.
Maia liked it judging be her reaction on the test drive and I liked it judging by my reaction of throwing the dealer a deposit right there and then.
I'm not collecting it until the end of May when I move into my new place and I didn't take any snaps but handily the dealer had created a video.
So here it is: the Matz-er-aaati Beeeturbo:
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Last Edit: Jan 28, 2021 9:24:16 GMT by thebaron
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vitessetony
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 1,055
Club RR Member Number: 114
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Mar 28, 2018 18:21:46 GMT
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Absolutely love it! Bookmarked and congratulations  |
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Davey
Posted a lot
Resident Tyre Nerd.
Posts: 2,197
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Mar 29, 2018 10:53:57 GMT
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Looks lovely, eagerly awaiting to see where this goes.
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K11 Micra x3 - Mk3 astra - Seat Marbella - Mk6 Escort estate - B5 Passat - Alfa 156 estate - E36 compact
Mk2 MR2 T-bar - E46 328i - Skoda Superb - Fiat seicento - 6n2 Polo - 6n polo 1.6 - Mk1 GS300
EU8 civic type S - MG ZT cdti - R56 MINI Cooper S - Audi A3 8p - Jaguar XF (X250) - FN2 Civic Type R - Mk2 2.0i Ford Focus
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Mar 29, 2018 12:52:29 GMT
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I have harbored an irrational love for these cars for a very long time. Excited to see what you do with it!
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'84 308 GTS /// '88 528e /// '88 M5 /// '89 944 Turbo /// '98 E430
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thebaron
Europe
Over the river, heading out of town
Posts: 1,645
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Mar 29, 2018 15:26:50 GMT
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Thanks for the positive vibes.
Initially the plan is not very exciting and is just to get it road legal. If you have followed any of my previous posts on the subject of the Swiss MFK you will know that they are sticklers for everything ..... Gott in Himmel, Quelle surprise?
So once the RS4 sells and he has the space I'll get my friendly local mechanic to run it through the test and get a list of work ons.
I'll tackle what I can in the barn and then ship it back to him for the bits that I can't and the retest.
I'm not going to be too pushy with this and if there are big issues I'll roll completion into 2019 but as an initial target I'm aiming for on the road in August.
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Last Edit: Oct 16, 2018 15:21:41 GMT by thebaron
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thebaron
Europe
Over the river, heading out of town
Posts: 1,645
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Mar 29, 2018 15:28:32 GMT
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...stage 2 of the plan will stay under wraps for now
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thebaron
Europe
Over the river, heading out of town
Posts: 1,645
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Mar 31, 2018 13:22:24 GMT
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So in an unexpected turn of events the RS4 sold within 48hours of listing for full asking. Now I can get the Maserati to my mechanic's place a full 2 months ahead of schedule.
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vitessetony
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 1,055
Club RR Member Number: 114
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Mar 31, 2018 14:03:20 GMT
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So in an unexpected turn of events the RS4 sold within 48hours of listing for full asking. Now I can get the Maserati to my mechanic's place a full 2 months ahead of schedule. Great news! I bet your excited I know I am! 😁 |
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fogey
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,591
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Mar 31, 2018 15:05:07 GMT
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Your 11 month old daughter has great taste - she will go far!
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thebaron
Europe
Over the river, heading out of town
Posts: 1,645
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Mar 31, 2018 16:28:54 GMT
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So in an unexpected turn of events the RS4 sold within 48hours of listing for full asking. Now I can get the Maserati to my mechanic's place a full 2 months ahead of schedule. Great news! I bet your excited I know I am! 😁 I sure am. The excitement mixed with trepidation is a potent chemical mix  |
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thebaron
Europe
Over the river, heading out of town
Posts: 1,645
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Mar 31, 2018 16:33:10 GMT
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Your 11 month old daughter has great taste - she will go far! I think her joy was directly related to the comfort and materials of the seats. Her 3 year old brother's first word was "Auto" and he keeps telling me he going to get a Maserati (and I honestly have no idea where he got that from). I'm pretty excited at the prospect of showing this to him for the first time. The only downside for him is that it is not pink! |
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thebaron
Europe
Over the river, heading out of town
Posts: 1,645
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Last Thursday I had to head off to a work gig for a couple of days. Cry me a river, this was the view out of my room  As my friendly mechanic had time to collect the BiT we organized that he take a trip Thursday morning. I won't say I wasn't nervous but around lunchtime I was greeted with the following    Result: It made it the 110km to his place with car and driver unscathed (well he was a little broken, he's over 6'7 and the seating position is woeful for me at 6'0) However it is not perfect and this is the verbatim message: "Battery light on but batter charges OK. Loses about 1.5l oil in 100km (insert my worried face right about here) Speed sometimes off. Tyres 18 years old but so far very cool." Let's see what's next |
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Last Edit: Apr 21, 2018 17:13:15 GMT by thebaron
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thebaron
Europe
Over the river, heading out of town
Posts: 1,645
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Apr 21, 2018 16:42:47 GMT
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So Thursday was a car day. We have decided to move on my wife's X1. As it needed to be swapped on to the summer rims and tyres as well as a little cosmetic spruce up I organized a trip to the garage where my BiTurbo is currently residing. X1 is boring so no more chat about that so let's get on to the BiT. Let's see what's the situation. On:  Up:   So what is hiding under here. The following are the items that will have to be fixed pre:MFK  A small bit of rust starting on the inner arch.  These exhaust patches are a non runner  Little crispy along this section of floor under the sealant so needs to be rectified  As I mentioned earlier it is losing oil at a serious pace. We must find and solve this   Finally (Yeah right!!) the tyres are a little past their prime. Plenty of tread left but rock hard and unsafe so I'll swap them out in any case.  However, I'm not content with trying to get two cars sorted at the same time. Let's double that to make things interesting............... |
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Last Edit: Apr 21, 2018 17:15:26 GMT by thebaron
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thebaron
Europe
Over the river, heading out of town
Posts: 1,645
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Apr 21, 2018 17:12:00 GMT
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So I have been running a Fiat Panda 100hp for the past 3 months. I bought it while I had the RS4 up for sale but had intended to keep it for a while. I have no photos of it which kind of says it all. I think it looks very cool, it handles really well, the engine is an eager little beast but for some reason it just doesn't float my boat. During this spell of ownership the Sierra and the RS4 sold and I had a think about the cars I want to own. As per most here I guess it is a very long list. I have been lucky enough to own a lot of nice/interesting cars but there are still many more to experience. Anyway my remaining must haves were as follows: 3,5,10,12 Cylinder Mid-engined Supercharged French Lotus Ferrari or Lamborghini So with the caveat that I must be able to fit the whole family of four into anything I purchase I came up with the following as the shortest route to hit all the above: Citroen C1 / Peugeot 107 - French & 3 cyl Volvo 850 T-5 - 5 cyl VW Polo G40 - Supercharged Audi S6 - V10 Lotus Evora NA - Lotus & Mid-engined Ferrari 456 or 612 - Ferrari & V12 Now obviously some of these are far harder to attain than others but the first three on the list I should be able to knock off the list with relative ease (and cheaper than the Panda) So now you have the long winded intro, the Panda is up for sale and I picked this up last Thursday also: T-5    Looking forward to buzzing around in this for a while. A few shots of my very angular current fleet      |
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Last Edit: Aug 30, 2018 13:55:24 GMT by thebaron
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thebaron
Europe
Over the river, heading out of town
Posts: 1,645
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..... and because I mentioned it in the last post. Ciao Panda  |
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thebaron
Europe
Over the river, heading out of town
Posts: 1,645
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Jun 19, 2018 14:02:34 GMT
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So it's been a busy 2 months. First up I broke the Volvo:  I brought my son swimming and pulled a J turn when leaving and forgot about the pillar which had not moved since I'd parked! No bad I hear you cry. It's only a wing. Indeed it is so that's why I bought another one.  You might not be able to judge but the color is off. No matter, it will do. Well it would have done if the car had not then decided to break itself some more:  So bye bye Volvo. Oh well you win some, you lose some. Back to the BiTurbo then. |
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thebaron
Europe
Over the river, heading out of town
Posts: 1,645
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Jun 19, 2018 14:08:42 GMT
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A German mate of mine who is not even remotely interested in Autos asked me what I was "driving" these days.
Once I had shown him a picture he immediately remarked - ah, Mein Maserati fahrt 210 and then sent me this link
For the optimal effect play both videos at the same time but mute the 2nd
If this car gets on the road I know what my first tune will be.
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Last Edit: Jun 19, 2018 14:14:56 GMT by thebaron
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thebaron
Europe
Over the river, heading out of town
Posts: 1,645
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Jun 20, 2018 12:30:57 GMT
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After some work was done to dry the underside and sort out the rust we ran it through the MFK.
Predictably it failed but not on the all of the expected things:
It did not pass because of the following:
- oil leak. (still there even after attempts to rectify)
- brakes (although they were fine on the machine in terms of values they apparently started to pull to the left while driving) Yes, they actually drive your car here!
- indicator does not self cancel
- missing corner rubber parts of the front suspension - we didn't even know they were missing.
So, what's needed to get this sorted out. More than you would expect.
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thebaron
Europe
Over the river, heading out of town
Posts: 1,645
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Jul 17, 2018 15:49:04 GMT
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So the list I mentioned above needed to be tackled. Some things were taken apart...........and then reassembled   Timing belt   The brakes fixed themselves again so that was one thing but then on a test drive it tried to catch fire and melted some fuses So, this doesn't look right  much soldering later (most) of the dials work which is far better that the status quo of some from previously. Then we had to deal with the non-functional self cancelling indicators. No parts available so some ingenuity from Constantin:  Getting there then? .............no no |
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Last Edit: Jul 17, 2018 16:11:32 GMT by thebaron
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Jul 17, 2018 21:30:16 GMT
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This car- IS FANTASTIC! I too have an irrational love of these things. I once stuck a Japanese V8 into one.
Yours is in great shape, it's a great color and you're keeping it on the road! SUPER cool!
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