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King Neptune Rocks The Boat
American Dream

Winston Goodfellow rows the Barchetta Stradale, a racer turned road car combining Maserati's past with its future. Photos by Il Rantori.

For 20 years, Maserati had lost its direction. At one point the Italian exoticar builder almost defined the term "automotive heritage," but in the 1960s it turned away from building world-class GP and endurance racers and in the '70s gave up on jaw-dropping GTs. Eventually, what had once been a continual thorn in Enzo's side became a relatively obscure constructor of conservatively-styled coupes, overweight sedans, and (shudder) Chrysler-engined specials. Of course, playing in the wrong league gets you run out of town, and that's exactly what happened to the marque of Neptune's Trident in America.
But last spring, in one simple and arresting motion, the company proved it can still learn from its roots. From engineering bays that had just recently been working on overstuffed back seats and extra-shiny dash clocks came a true retina-arrester that earned this year's award for Fastest Route From Point A to Point B. And the winner is: Maserati's Barchetta Stradale.
Its controls offer instantaneous response; just think and you move, like a Sega program on wheels. Unlike the latest from the virtual world, though, this game harks back to a time when Maserati's-heck, almost all of Modena's-offerings were conceived and produced as racing cars first and slightly detuned street cars second.
Recall, if you will, the truly great Maseratis: the A6GCS, the 200SI, 300, and 350S. Not only did such cars take your breath away, a well-heeled privateer could drive these sports-racers to the track, compete with distinction, and then drive them home again. Next came the mighty (if star-crossed) 450S: A blindingly powerful 4.5-liter dreadnought capable of outgunning whatever the competition offered, it arrived just in time to be skewered on the FIA's 3-liter limit for 1958. Maserati's reaction? Morph some of the same sets of drawings into the 5000GT road car.

Wright of Passage

For all those who thought those days were gone forever, take heart: The company's newest 2-seat roadrunner spans the gulf between 1957 and 1997. Simple yet purposeful, the open-top Stradale was born for the racetrack as the awesome Maserati Barchetta, a low-production supercar for a single-make series launched in 1992 (see SCI April '94). Only marginally altered for road use, the 1997 Stradale version differs in its slightly more compliant springs and shocks, a minimal drop in engine output (due to the EC-legal catalytic converters and mufflers), and an incongruous pair of Fiat Coupé headlights. That's about it-the Stradale is, in the most literal sense imaginable, a roadgoing race car.
Though Maserati's PR hacks draw parallels between this new machine and the curvaceous A6GCS racers of the 1950s, both the road and competition versions of today's Barchetta remind me more of a shrunken McLaren M8. Low and angular, the Stradale has no outer doorhandles. Instead, you reach over the lightweight composite shell and pull an inside release. Then it's a step across the sill to slide down into the plaid (plaid?) cloth seat and squeeze your toes into the tight footwell. This is about as far removed as you can get from yesterday's cushy Biturbos and cavernous Q-ports.
Also unlike those more familiar recent offerings, plan on traveling light-light and fast-in the Barchetta Stradale. Everywhere you glance, pure performance is portrayed and luxury is nonexistent. The pedals are naked drilled metal; there's no carpeting on the floors and no padding in the interior; even the dash isn't a board, it's just an area-a grouping of instruments in front of the driver with wires and drives and mountings all exposed. In terms of execution, the Stradale is open, honest, and functional in the extreme. Even the speedo remains far offset and angled to the driver-a none-too-subtle reminder that during a race, miles per hour mean nothing compared to revs, pressure, and temperature.

Piling on Sail

Turn the key, press the starter button, and Maserati's awesome 2-liter, twin-turbo V6 leaps into life. Derived from the firm's current Ghibli engine, this all-alloy jewel has four valves per cylinder, the latest all-electronic grey matter, and the ability to belt out 306 horsepower @ 6250 rpm.
American Dream Unfortunately, muffled first by turbos, then by catalysts, and finally by silencers, at times you'd never know how strong this engine is. The exhaust note is more tugboat than Toscanini, something that must be looked into before Maserati unleashes this monster on an unsuspecting public.
And speaking of which, is the Barchetta Stradale concept for real? Well, just maybe. Ingenere Giorgio Gamberini, the man who's overseeing its conversion of from out-and-out racer to thinly disguised road car, says a full wraparound windshield is under consideration, and should the project get final approval it could be in that form.
Even without a real windshield there's always protection in a helmet, though, and thankfully Maserati test driver Gianni Andreoli has one on hand for this unprepared Americano. On first impression, the Barchetta's 6-speed ZF transaxle is among the most direct I've ever used. There's absolutely no play or fuss, though at times first gear is so hard to engage that it requires a 2-handed tug. (Andreoli encountered the problem too, which saved my ego from the same bashing I gave the lever.) Combined with the Maser's light, exacting clutch and very accurate throttle, running this car through its gears would be a joy even without a power-to-weight ratio of about six pounds per horsepower. The backbone-type chassis is aluminum and composite, and traditional tubular subframes support the suspension up front and the drivetrain/suspension combo at the rear. Handformed double wishbones are of course specified all around, as are coil springs.

Hull for Leather

Even with the road version's less aggressive suspension tuning and extremely stiff structure, the Stradale still crashes over holes and bumps like the wayward racer it is, and this unyielding firmness only enhances the sense of driving a rocket-powered rollerskate. The handling drives the point home: No matter how hard you push, body lean and the Maser remain mutually exclusive.
The 3-arm steering wheel moves through its arc with lightness and accuracy; point it and the Barchetta moves, immediamente, clipping apexes with surgical precision and relaying clear, concise surface information through the tips of your fingers. With 300+ horses crammed into a 1900-pound package, rapid switchbacks become child's play while shorter straights let you work up velocities that soon become incredible. Time after time, from the basement of a second-gear corner the Barchetta reaches redline in fourth within the length of a city block. Maserati claims a top speed of about 190 mph, and that's a figure I don't doubt-in the process of our photo shoot Andreoli banged the Barchetta up to 5000 in sixth at one point, which works out to about 170+ with the engine still pulling hard.
The key, of course, is Maserati's mighty-mite V6. At 2000 revs it starts building a quick head of steam. By 4000 the acceleration has turned vicious, and when the needle sweeps past five grand the diminutive dynamo takes on the sound and thrust of military turbine. Unlike the torquey, large-displacement V12s found in Ferraris and Lamborghinis, to extract the Barchetta's mind-warping performance means keeping its drilled throttle mashed to the alloy floor and the tach hovering near 7000.

American Dream Ship Shape

Though neither relaxing nor easy to drive, due to its lack of cockpit protection and instantaneous feedback the Stradale makes its pilot feel more involved in the manufacture of speed than any other car I can remember. Oodles of excitement are always just a prod on the gas and a crank of the wheel away.
Starting as a race car and then morphing into a street rod, Maserati's latest toy has no pretense of practicality, luxury, or even comfort. Instead, its aim is pure exhilaration and enjoyment; the hope is to overload your senses with speed and excitement, rather than the rich scents and opulent baubles that have distracted this firm for the last 15 years. For that reason alone, the Stradale is not only a brilliant recapturing of Maserati's roots, it is the essence of the barchetta movement. Welcome back, Tridente.

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