Alejandro de Tomaso rescued Maserati from the wreckage of the Fuel Crisis and based the new Kyalami on a car of his own marque. Richard Heseltine says the surgery worked
Photography Dominic James
BLOOD TRANSFUSION
He was a man of many enterprises, a maverick and a dreamer, a plotter and a schemer. There was a time when the Argentinian émigré Alejandro de Tomaso seemed intent on vacuuming up Italy’s motor industry, or at least those marques not owned by Fiat. Having been a so-so racing driver and an intermittently successful car manufacturer under his own name, he acquired Maserati when it was at its lowest ebb. He then set about turning it around. You could argue that the arrival of a new model would therefore have been cause for marching bands and a tickertape parade, but no. The Kyalami was – and remains – a cuckoo in the nest.
In order to understand its place in the marque firmament, first you need to understand Maserati. For all its success on-track and its grandee status among Italian marques, there have been just as many blows and bankruptcy hearings. Serial ownership, Italy’s political ructions and the pressure of outside forces have shaped one long fantastical yarn – one that often seemed just one tug short of unravelling. In many ways, on many levels, it is what makes Maserati so compelling. That, and maddening. When Maserati gets things right, they are oh-so right. And when it get things wrong? Let’s just say Maserati doesn’t screw up by halves.
By rights, the Kyalami should be one of the duds, not least because it wasn’t born a Maserati and it emerged during one of the marque’s bleakest periods. To appreciate its place in marque lore, you need to think back to December 1967 when Adolfo Orsi, whose family had controlled Maserati since 1937, sold a 60% stake in the firm to Citroën. In June 1971 the French concern acquired the remaining shares, and cross-fertilisation resulted in such striking creations as the Citroën SM and the Maserati Khamsin. However, by late 1974 it appeared as though Maserati was heading for the embalming table.
Demand for thirsty exotica had dwindled to nothing following the Fuel Crisis of 1973. Neither was the Maserati factory a happy place. The workforce had more than doubled on Citroën’s watch and wildcat strikes were rife. And then Peugeot took over Citroën in late 1974. One of the first orders of business was to find a buyer for its loss-making Italian subsidiary. There were no takers so, in the spring of 1975, it simply surrendered its Modena subsidiary to liquidators. T
