A manufacturer’s ultimate aim in motor racing is to hope success on the track will lead to greater sales off track. However, if one looks at Grand Prix racing today, it’s not that obvious—although Mercedes is ruling at the moment, which can’t be too bad for their business. In the early years of the modern Formula One World Championship, it was Italian teams who ruled—Alfa Romeo, Ferrari and Maserati. In the mid to latter half of the 1950s the Maserati 250F was the Grand Prix car to have. With Mercedes’ withdrawal from racing in 1955 following the Le Mans disaster, four-time World Champion Juan Manuel Fangio teamed up with Maserati again for 1957. There couldn’t have been a better time for Maserati to produce a significant touring car, something Adolfo Orsi had wished to concentrate on for many years.
The 3500GT, unveiled at the 1957 Geneva Motor Show, had a twin-overhead camshaft, 6-cylinder engine, optional front disc brakes and semi-elliptic springs for the rear axle. It was a truly luxurious offering to the motoring community and immediately successful—order books were full. The first carrozzeria to produce a Spider version was Frua, followed by Touring. The ultimate Spider didn’t come along until very late in 1959 when Giovanni Michelotti, one of Italy’s great automobile stylists, penned a superb Spider version for his employer, Vignale, which was in production from 1959 until 1964.
If you care to read accounts of the Vignale Spiders, they all had varying differences, with much depending on when they were constructed. These variations included floor pans, sills and structural posts as they worked on chassis stiffness. Other external modifications included length of the bonnet, the rake of the windscreen, the style and dimensions of the bumpers and size of the trunk. Internal differences included subtle alterations to the number of dials on the instrument panel. In fact, acknowledged German restorer Olaf Boecking said he could write a book on the subject of Vignale Spider variations—if only he had the time! It could be said that each car was quite bespoke in that lessons were learned and fixed, one chassis to another.
Our “Driven” car is a 1961 version built in February of that year. The Borrani wire wheels complement the sport styling bodywork finished in Argento Luna (silver moon) which glistens in the spring sunshine and harmonizes well with the russo (red) trim, although changed from its original manufactured colors of Rosso Jamaica (Jamaica red) coachwork and Neutro (bone) interior. There is an air of luxury and opulence as you approach the car, although in period it was referred to as the poor man’s Ferrari. Indeed, when new it was very competitively priced at just over $10,000; much less than an equivalent Ferrari, Aston Martin or, indeed, the XKE Jaguar. This particular car is presented in pristine condition after a full nut and bolt restoration to the highest standard, and is offered for sale at JD Classics, Malden, UK, who are renowned for their attention-to-detail finished quality.
The odometer reads 34,157 kilometers (just shy of 22,000 miles) from new, having been first purchased, soon after completion, by a customer in Marseille, in the south of France, and was sold for 7,500 FFrancs when part exchanged with a 1961 Aston Martin. The left-hand driving position, while standard in Continental Europe and the U.S., adds to the sophistication of the vehicle, particularly in the UK where right-hand drive is the norm. Sitting behind the wheel is akin to resting in an armchair, although resting is the last thing on the driver’s mind as the car starts and growls, ready to leap into action. The ride, while sporty, is very smooth as you change through the 5-speed ZF gearbox—an optional extra at the time of this manufacture, although standard on later 1961 models. Indeed, this car is a more refined type of sports car, giving an elegant driving experience and living up to its Grand Touring name, rather than the more normal basic interior of similar sports cars. The Lucas fuel injection models are said to give an even smoother ride, but that is providing the injectors are properly balanced as they can be very troublesome if not adjusted correctly to give premium performance. With the soft top down, the car is as much of a head turner in rural England today as it was around the Mediterranean resorts of the Italian and French Riveria in period.
Photo: BMW
While luxurious and smooth, it is not 21st Century, no ABS, no power steering, so quite a heavy brute to handle. Acceleration is also slightly compromised due to body weight, with 0-60 in around 9 seconds, a similar time to a 1964 Ford Thunderbird convertible, but twice that of a modern Maserati Quattroporte 3.8 V8. Obviously, variant models will have differing acceleration characteristics; earlier cars with a 4-speed gearbox will be slower than the later 5-speed fuel injection models. Having said that, driving performance in the main is reasonably consistent across the range of the 242 cars produced over the five years of manufacture.
It is hard to give full and accurate prices of cars in these times when auction houses break records sale by sale, but at the time of writing, I can’t think of a more pleasurable, sound investment than to purchase a Maserati 3500GT Vignale Spider. Now where’s my Lotto card?
by Mike Jiggle
Driven Classics at a Glance:
SPECIFICATIONS
1961 Maserati 3500GT Vignale Spider
Wheelbase: 2500-mm (98.425 inches)
Track: Front 1390-mm (54.724 inches)
Rear 1360-mm (53.543 inches)
Length: 4450-mm (175.197 inches) although some U.S. models were fitted with over-riders.
Width: 1635-mm (64.370 inches)
Height: 1310-mm (51.575 inches)
Weight: 1466-kgs (3232 pounds) (dry)
Bore: 86-mm (3.386 inches)
Stroke:100-mm (3.937 inches)
Comp. ratio: 8.2:1
Cylinders: in-line 6
Horsepower: 235 bhp@5500rpm
Fuel delivery: Triple twin-choke 42 DCOE Weber carburetors
PERFORMANCE
Top Speed: 143mph
0-60mph: 9 seconds
Av. Fuel consumption: 18mpg
VALUATION
Price at Launch $10,200
($10,600 with fuel injection)
Excellent: circa $1.27 million
Good: $850,000
Average: $680,000
Poor: $425,000
