In today's world of motorsports, much to the delight of fans, it's the norm to have one or more cameras fitted in the car or even in the driver's helmet. But that wasn't the case back in the 1950's, so we were quite surprised to discover such a video featuring the five-time Formula 1 World Champion and one of the greatest pilots of all time, Juan Manuel Fangio. A moment of coolness follows in the film after the break, with Fangio driving the Maserati 250F racecar at the Modena Aero-Autodrome.
Because of reliability problems and rough shifting with the Ferrari based semi-automatic transmission, a full automatic transmission with 6 speeds (by ZF) was presented at the Detroit Motor Show in January 2007 with the first cars delivered right after the launch, marketed as the Maserati Quattroporte Automatica.
Maserati Quattroporte
Maserati Quattroporte
Maserati Quattroporte
Maserati Quattroporte
Maserati Quattroporte
Maserati Quattroporte
Maserati Quattroporte
Maserati Quattroporte
Maserati Quattroporte
Maserati Quattroporte
Maserati Quattroporte
Maserati Quattroporte
Maserati Quattroporte
Maserati Quattroporte
The Automatica was made available with paddle-shifters on the Sport GT model as standard, but on the base model and the Executive trim levels paddles became an optional extra.
With the Automatica, Maserati completely redesigned the under pinning of the car to fit the new conventional automatic transmission and torque converter right behind the engine. They also converted to a wet sump oiling system for cost saving purpose
