Maserati Mistral

For an unbiased view of the 16" tyres available, please click here for an article which appeared in the Maserati Club magazine.

Maserati Mistral History

The classic Maserati Mistral, named after a cold northerly wind of southern France, was the successor to the iconic 3500 GT, it was also the first in a series of classic Maseratis to be given the name of a wind. It was offered both in Coupe and Spider form. 830 classic Maserati coupes and 120 classic Spyders were built in total.

The Mistral is the last model from the 'Casa del Tridente' or 'House of the Trident' to have the famous straight six cylinder, twin-spark, double overhead cam engine, as fitted to the classic racer Maserati 250F Grand Prix cars that won 8 Grand Prix between 1954 and 1960 and one F1 World Championship in 1957 driven by the famous Fangio. The engine also featured hemispherical combustion chambers and was fed by a Lucas fuel injection system which was novelty at the time for Italian car manufacturers. Although the Lucas fuel injection system enhances performance and added 15hp, quite a few owners, especially in the United States have converted their cars to Weber carburetors due to difficulties in tuning the system properly. Maserati subsequently moved on to the bigger V8 engines for their later production cars.

There were three engine variants fitted to the Mistral; 3500, 3700 and 4,000 cc. The most sought after derivative is the 4000 cc model. Only the earliest of the classic Maserati Mistrals were equipped with the 3500 cc engine. Unusually, the body was offered in both aluminium and steel but no one is quite sure as to how many of each were built. Use of the aluminium body panels had no effect on the performance of the Mistral. The mixture of the aluminium body on a steel substructure can lead to corrosion (almost all Italian cars have this feature) due to the dissimilar metals. The classic Maserati Mistral came as standard with a five speed gear box from ZF and also had four wheel disc brakes. As was Maserati's practice at the time the front suspension was independent while the rear made due with a solid axle. the top speed was around 140 mph to 145 mph.

Maserati Mistral Wheels

If you require new Borrani wire wheels for your classic Maserati Mistral then please click here.