maserati merak

A310 V6 Prototype a.k.a “PseudoMerak”

I found a strange photo earlier in one of my Alpine books of an A310 prototype—-which made me start searching online for more prototype photos.

The A310 was introduced in 1971 as glorified successor to the Alpine throne, and by 1976 Alpine introduced the car with a 2.7L V6. The car pictured here is a A310 V6 prototype which has seemingly been preserved!

What’s most striking here though, is the Maserati Merak-aping rear end! Was this a disguise for testing purposes or was this really being planned at some point? Even as a die-hard Alpine fanatic, i would think this is outright plagiarism! Obviously the design never actually made it anywhere, as the A110 production continued to 1984 with the design virtually unchanged, aside from body kits, wheel designs, and small tweaks. Maybe this was just an ‘inside joke’ inside Dieppe!

a comparison of a Merak vs. this A310 V6 prototype. HA!

src: Far

the Maserati Bora that never raced Le Mans.

The Maserati Bora is a classy 70s supercar in my mind—and i’ve always thought of it as the ‘kind, gentle, relaxed’ 70s italian supercar—-with its soft lines, non-aggressive stance, and its non-angry look. Compared to other 70s italian supercars, the Bora (as well as its sister car Merak) have generally come across as the gentleman in a fine wool blazer compared to its riotous peers in gold chains and silk shirts.

What I never knew is that in 1973, Maserati was set to enter the Bora into Le Mans as part of the gran touring class. Its competition would have surely been the likes of the Ferrari Daytona which had won in 1972. As i’ve understood the story from QV500.com, Maserati needed to sell 500 Boras to get it homologated for these 1973 races—-which they obviously didn’t do. Additionally the car didn’t meet the ‘other’ standards for other classes—-meaning that the Bora Competizione (or Bora GR4 or Bora Group 4) never made it onto the the starting grid, and this car was lost into the archives of 70s mystery cars. I wasn’t even aware of this car, until I stumbled across a photo of a strange looking Bora, which upon investigation resulted in a search which yielded minimal photos, information, or data. The QV500.com site had the best bit of info on the car I could find, and you can head over there to read their concise writeup about the car in question:

http://212.227.190.137/maseratiborap2.php

here are some photos was able to scavenge online, with many of them credited to a gentleman named Andreas Birner