1996 Maserati Ghibli Cup

In English there is a term for a very special car – a Q-car. The term is not taken from the world of James Bond, but from the English navy, where a Q-ship during World War II was the name for a warship desguised as a merchant ship. A Maserati Ghibli II is truly the epitome of a Q-car. A car with an elegant design looking quite like a normal road car, but heavily armed under the impeccable attire. A gentleman on the outside, but with a big nasty club behind his back. The Ghibli was Maserati’s answer to the BMW M3, Mercedes AMG models and other performance sports sedans at the top of the league in the 90s.

The Maserati Ghibli II is a study in luxury and performance, with an interior in leather, Alcantara and carbon fiber panels. The explosive V6 engine with 2 turbochargers produces a whopping 306hp in the standard version, and sends the noble sedan to 100 km/h in just 5.7 seconds. The rapid acceleration at highway speeds in particular is destructive to other playful fellow road drivers.

In 1995, Maserati updated the model to a semi-racing version called the Ghibli Cup. The chassis and suspension was further improved, and the engine got another boost in power, now producing a full 330 hp. The gearbox was sourced from Getrag and is bulletproof, and the rear axle was borrowed from Ferrari – no less. At this time, Maserati was benefiting from Ferrari management, leading to a strong impact on the build quality. For its time, the Ghibli Open Cup was the car with worldwide the highest power/engine capacity output, namely 163.5 hp/l. Not even the Bugatti EB110 or Jaguar XJ220 could match this. For a single-brand racing series, Maserati produced a very special version called the Ghibli Open Cup on special order only. The car was actually a track racer, but prepared so that it could also be used as a road legal car. Quite a few modifications were made to the car, and hardly two are exactly the same as they were more or less hand-built. Only very few cars were produced, a total of only 23 pieces, all of which are numbered.

And it is exactly such a rarity we present here – a genuine Ghibli Open Cup in the classic Maserati color Rosso Corse with a beautiful interior in black leather. Most of these cars ended up as true racing cars without a “civilian” interior, but this one has survived. Originally imported to Denmark from new by Maserati DK, road registered in 2001 and has only had the same owner ever since.