Maserati 3200 GT: the boomerang-tailed grand tourer

The Maserati 3200 GT, internally Tipo 338, was a four-seater grand tourer built from 1998 to 2002 and the flagship of the marque. It was designed by Italdesign under Giorgetto Giugiaro and powered by a twin-turbocharged 3.2-litre V8. It was the world’s first production car with full LED tail lights.

Maserati 3200 GT at a glance

Based on one source: the English Wikipedia article on the 3200 GT.

History of the Maserati 3200 GT

The 3200 GT was announced in July 1998 and presented to the press in September by Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, with Stirling Moss and Giorgetto Giugiaro present. It made its public debut at the Mondial de l’Automobile in Paris in October 1998. Maserati initially wanted to call the car Mistral, but discovered that Volkswagen owned the rights to the name and settled on 3200 GT, a reference to the 3500 GT, the company’s first series-production grand tourer.

The car was designed by Italdesign, whose founder Giorgetto Giugiaro had previously designed the Ghibli, Bora and Merak; the interior was commissioned to Enrico Fumia and completed by 1995. The 3200 GT replaced the Shamal as the flagship grand tourer. Its tail lights were LEDs arranged in the shape of a boomerang, with the outer layer providing the brake light and the inner layer the indicator, making it the first car in the world with full LED tail lights. Deliveries began in March 1999.

Automatic and Assetto Corsa

In 1999 an automatic version called the 3200 GT Automatica, or GTA, appeared at the Geneva Motor Show with a four-speed torque-converter automatic supplied by the Australian firm BTR. Engine output was unchanged but the engine was set up for the automatic, and Maserati said the weight penalty was limited to 30 kg over the manual, for a kerb weight of 1,620 kg. In Italy the Automatica cost 7 million lire more than the 149.5 million lire list price of the 3200 GT. The 1,000th car left the factory in June 1999, and 2,106 GTA cars were made in total against 2,689 manual GT models.

The 3200 GT Assetto Corsa was shown at the 2001 Geneva Motor Show as a limited edition with a special handling package. Limited to 259 units, three of them special orders, it came in Grigio Touring, Nero Carbonio or Rosso Mondiale and with manual or automatic transmission. It was lowered by 15 mm, had a larger front anti-roll bar, stiffer springs, soft-compound Pirelli P Zero Corsa tyres on dark grey or silver BBS wheels and specific brake cooling ducts. Inside there were black perforated Connolly leather seats with red stitching and Assetto Corsa script on the sill panels; weight and performance were unchanged. Production was split between 163 manual and 96 automatic cars.

Chassis and the 320S

The steel unibody was complemented by a front tubular subframe for the drivetrain and a rear subframe for the suspension and differential. Suspension was double wishbone all round with forged aluminium arms and uprights, coaxial aluminium-bodied dampers and coil springs, and two anti-roll bars; the gearbox sat in line with the front-mounted engine and drove the rear limited-slip differential through a two-piece aluminium propshaft. Brembo supplied vented and cross-drilled discs with four-piston callipers, and there were a four-channel anti-lock system and Bosch ASR traction control. The all-aluminium V8 had an 80 mm bore and stroke, four valves per cylinder, two crossflow turbochargers and a crossplane crankshaft, weighed 221 kg and used drive-by-wire throttle. A concept racing barchetta called the 320S was shown at the 2001 Geneva Motor Show, with a 22 cm shorter wheelbase, a single seat and competition equipment.

Design and features

• Twin-turbo V8: 3.2 litres, 370 PS and 114 hp per litre.
• Boomerang tail lights: the first full LED tail lights on a production car.
• Italdesign body: a four-seat coupé with a drag coefficient of 0.34.
• Brembo brakes: vented and cross-drilled discs with four-piston callipers all round.
• Wide model range: manual GT, automatic GTA and the limited Assetto Corsa.

Maserati 3200 GT versions

• 3200 GT (1998–2002): the six-speed manual car, 2,689 built.
• 3200 GT Automatica / GTA (1999–2002): four-speed BTR automatic, 2,106 built.
• 3200 GT Assetto Corsa (2001): limited handling package, 259 units.
• 320S (2001): single-seat racing barchetta concept by Italdesign.

The 3200 GT replaced the Maserati Shamal and was itself replaced by the Maserati Coupé. Its styling references the 3500 GT. More cars are in the Maserati collection.

Sources

• Maserati 3200 GT, English Wikipedia: history, versions, chassis, engine