How cool is the Maserati Shamal? So cool that plenty of people don’t even know what it is……to me, it is quite possibly one of the coolest Maseratis ever made. Bulging fenders, a nasty 325hp V8, and a strange but fluid Marcello Gandini design which evolved the BMW-clone understated BiTurbo design into something wonderfully weird.
The other day when Automobiliac, Motoring Con Brio, and myself were at a Skip Barber open house, Bradley from Automobiliac mentioned the Maserati Shamal to me and i clenched my jaws with excitement……it’s a car which really gets me excited! I’m not sure why….i probably shouldn’t like it—-but i really do. I think the obscurity of it is appealing, as well as it being from the ‘dark days’ of Maserati…..in a time where we associate the Maserati badge with a fair bit of failure…..but the Shamal was no failure…
Here’s a short, but slightly scary/cryptic video of a Japanese Shamal owners club GTG, to celebrate 20 years of the Shamal.
src : NFScars, carblueprints
IEDEI 
Couldn’t agree more.
I’ve always loved the spoiler at the base of the windshield. Definitely unusual.
I love the Shamal. But I don’t think it is fair to call the Biturbo a BMW clone. Yes, the Biturbo bears resemblance to the e30 – but the Biturbo was released BEFORE the e30. Further, while if the two are glanced at separately, they look more similar than they really are. If you look at the two of them together, you realize how much wider and less tall the Biturbo is. Reference the below photo.
Maybe I just and touchy on the subject, I have an 84 Biturbo that is undergoing a 2.8l EFI swap right now.
great point…i’ve actually changed my post after seeing that photo you’ve shared. it’s amazing how much squatter and wider the Biturbo looks. A big improvement over the fairly dull E30. I never realised the Biturbo pre-dated the E30…..interesting!
I think the Biturbo is a misunderstood car…..generalised by many of us who aren’t that familiar with it. I always thought it was pretty cool, and very affordable to buy—-but never really understood WHAT it was competing against when it was introduced!
They really were wanting to compete with the smaller BMWs at the time. When de Tomaso was practically given Maserati he wanted to make them into a mass market company. He realized real profits came from volume. The Biturbo came in over budget and was more expensive (though offering exceptional performance). It was never really a BAD car, but de Tomaso rushed it to market – all the bugs didn’t get worked out. Most of the issues were resolved by ’87.
It is beautiful in a strange way. It’s aggressiveness and rarity make it a desirable car, however its far from perfect. Chassis is rather soft and being too short it is scary on the limit and a deadly in the wet!
It still makes one of the most beautiful pages of my Archivio Maserati Faldone.