History of the Maserati Marque


BRIDGEHAMPTON, SEPT. 15, 1962: An elated Bob Grossman having a smoke after winning the
GT1 category of the 400 km race in Harry Theodoracopulos’ Fiat-Abarth 1000. He beat “King of the Bridge”
Walt Hansgen in a similar car. The next day Bob’s winner’s purse of $1,000 would increase by another $1,500,
his reward for winning GT3 and 2nd overall in a Ferrari GTO. Not bad for a weekend’s work! (photo: WNO Collection)

THE BOB GROSSMAN INTERVIEW by Seymour G. Pond
(reprinted from the August, 1995 iL TRIDENTE)

A t the Planting Fields Concours in May, 1995 I was first introduced to the legendary Bob Grossman. Mr. Grossman was the largest U.S. importer of Maseratis during the “GT” era up until DeTomaso entered the picture in the mid-70's. Many of you owning GT cars, especially on the east coast, had your cars pass through his showroom. Mr. Grossman agreed to have his story told by iL TRIDENTE and I met with him in July, 1995 to spend a pleasant afternoon with him in Southampton where he resideed, working on unique automotive drawings as well as several retrospective books.

BG: Let me tell you how it all started, because I always loved cars.

SP: Even when you were young?
BG: When I was born I loved cars! I don’t know why. When I was very small I used to draw cars on the headboard of my bed. My parents finally put up a blackboard so that I would have something to draw on. But also I could identify, at an early age, all the makes and models of the day. They were quite amazed by this. You know at one time there were 75 different makes of cars in this country!

SP: A situation that unfortunately has turned for the worse.
BG: Well look how much more it costs to build a car these days. In the old days Maserati could make 250-300 cars a year and show a profit. The workers used to commute to the factory on bicycles. Nowadays they get the kind of money they get over here.
    Anyway when I was in high school I drew a lot and was interested in designing cars. I was always good at coming up with new car designs. In those days cars evolved rapidly in appearance. From about 1927 to just when the war started cars used to get a “facelift” every year and a whole new body style every other year. Even during the depression people bought cars more frequently because in 3-4 years your car would be obsolete. In 5-6 years your car would look like an antique! I’m doing a book on it now about the evolution of car design between 1927 and 1942.
    So for about a year I studied industrial design in school in Philadelphia where I’m originally from. Then the war came and I joined the Army for about 3 years. When I got out I came to New York with aspirations to be a singer. I needed money, so I started finding cars to buy and resell. After the war everyone needed cars as very few had been produced during the war. So I used to buy cars out of several old garages on the east side of NY where there were many pre-war cars just sitting during the war and anything that ran I would buy and resell.

SP: Did these cars need work?
BG: No they were just undervalued cars that you could get for very little money, needed very little work, and resell. Most of them were American Classics like Packard 12's, Cadillac 12's, Ford convertibles, etc. I loved convertibles, so I would look for convertibles, drive around in them, and then sell them. Then I moved to Nyack, NY and got a job at a new car dealership. First a Buick dealer, then a Cadillac dealer. Then a friend of mine told me of a foreign car place that was up on the highway and why don’t we buy it and go into business together. Well I thought, I really didn’t like those foreign cars, so funny looking and all that. At the time I was riding around in a Olds Rocket 88 convertible and my friend was in an MG-TC. You know that has to be the most ridiculous looking car. He tried to tell me “But it handles well!” Well anyway he educated me about how great these foreign cars were. 

SP: About what year was this?
BG: This was in 1952. The dealership owner had been in the milk business and got into this as a hobby. So we bought him out for about $5,000. We then had all these franchises-Hillman, Austin, MG, Morris, Rover, Sunbeam,...
SP: All English?
BG: All English. And the last franchise we wanted to add was Jaguar. My friend was actually more gung ho about it than I was. In those days there were three main distributors on the East Coast for foreign cars. The largest of which was Hoffman. Hoffman had Mercedes, Porsche, BMW, Jaguar, Volkswagen, FIAT, Lancia, and Maserati.

SP: This was in New York?
BG: Yes all out of New York City. So we went to him to get Jaguar and he said: “I’ll give you Jaguar if you take Volkswagen.” He was stuck with the Beetle. He had Beetles there that he couldn’t sell because the Beetle then was a very primitive car. It didn’t even have hydraulic brakes.

SP: What year was this?
BG: This was early 1953. I said “I’ll take the Volkswagen but I don’t want to put it in the showroom.” At the time I had just come out of the war and had this thing against the Germans.
    Then the next year, 1954, Volkswagen showed a new version of the car, for the first time, at the NY  Coliseum. Now it had all these improvements: to paint, interior, gearbox, etc. Well the car sold like hotcakes! I mean you just couldn’t get them! And from then on the English cars started to wane. It ended up that they were terrible cars. I mean they were wonderful cars and they were terrible cars. They were wonderful in the sense that they were very innovative, they had their own personality, and they were great sport cars. But the sedans,...forget about it. When it came to family cars they were terrible. Everyone thought-they had bought English shoes and sports jackets which lasted forever-but the cars broke like crazy. Under American usage you were lucky if you got a year out of one.

SP: What was the name of your dealership at this time?
BG: Foreign Cars of Rockland. So then I was very successful with Volkswagen but I could not part with my English friends. Then Volkswagen said they had about 150 dealers and were going to cut out about ½ of them and concentrate on working with those who were left.

SP: Why cut out so many dealers when they were just then so successful?
BG: They didn’t need them. The car sold itself-in fact it was on an allocation basis. What they wanted and eventually got within 3 years was exclusive dealerships.

SP: ...that just carried Volkswagen.
BG: Absolutely. They wanted dealers with money who could spend money to build a nice showroom. They were very smart in 2 ways. First they demanded service! I mean parts, service, good representation-that was everything to them. Secondly there was no discounting. You couldn’t discount a penny on the car. We never had a discounted Beetle for over 25 years-charged full price on every one! And we had a waiting list for months. And they wanted it that way!
    So I had two dealerships-one for the English and foreign cars and one for Volkswagen. As time went on, I got into racing.

SP: What led you into that?
BG: Well in those days of the early 50's most foreign car dealers, unlike today, were real car nuts. I mean why would you carry foreign cars unless you were a real car nut? It was a kind of a fun sort of a business in those days and most of us carried sports cars. So it was natural that most of the foreign car dealers were into racing.
    I started racing the Jaguar XK-120. Then I was into the Alfa Giulietta Veloce, the 1300 with dual Webers, a beautiful little thing, as at the time I was also an Alfa dealer. You know you go to an SCCA race, it took the whole weekend, and the race was over in half an hour! I wanted more racing and practice than that so I started racing two cars. In retrospect it was kind of foolish because you couldn’t do justice to either car, but I did win a fair share of races including a SCCA National Championship with the Alfa in 1959.
    You know in the beginning I couldn’t get into the SCCA because I was Jewish and it was a restricted, rich man’s kind of game in the 50's. Eventually I did but before I did I had to go “pro.” I used to race with a Jaguar XK-120 at an oval in Hatfield, Pennsylvania where they had pro-racing for sports cars. There were some rough drivers out there, and the promoters had them driving these old beat up cars that would push you to the fence. Well I had new Jaguars-so when I got out there I had to win because I didn’t want these guys anywhere near me! So I took off and I won!
    To give you an idea of how racing was in those days, there was a race out at Linden airport (in New Jersey), a NASCAR Grand National where they invited sports cars. Lee Petty, who was the grandfather of Kyle Petty, and Buddy Bakers father, Buck Baker, were in it. I heard about it and took a brand new XK-120 out of the showroom and drove down to the track to see what it was all about. I drove up and asked “Can I get into this race?” They told me “sure” all I had to do was join NASCAR. So I was directed down the street to a local Firestone store where I joined NASCAR, bought 4-16" racing tires for $15 apiece, put them on the car, drove back, and asked,“Where’s tech?” They said, “It’s a new car isn’t it?” I said, “Yeah,..” They said, “That’s it, you’re in!” I came in fourth overall.
    Then finally I got into the SCCA. Once I got into the SCCA, I was treated very well and I had to chuckle because they had this sort of very exclusive inner club called the “Road Racing Driver’s Club” with only 50 members worldwide. It was an honor to be nominated, which I was, and, as it turns out, I ended up being president!

SP: Interesting turn of events!
BG: I used to race a lot of Jaguars from the 120, the 140, till they came out with the 150 which was just too heavy a car to race. Up to that point Jaguar was the “race” of the day, a very competitive car. At about that time Chinetti (Luigi Chinetti, famous Ferrari importer & driver) saw me race and asked how I would like to drive for them. So I got a Ferrari California, which was a roadster, and, set up specially for me to race at Le Mans. It was the attainment of my dreams as a kid. To arrive at Le Mans driving one of the best looking, fastest GT cars in the world, I felt, “What more could I do?!!”

SP: That California is still by today’s standards a beautiful car.
BG: Yes, some cars look dated, but it doesn’t.

SP: So that’s how you started with Luigi Chinetti?
BG: Yeah, well,...Chinetti and I,...Chinetti was a very tough guy to deal with. And very shrewd. Like a lot of Italians they say,...”it’s difficult to get this car...but every time you see a Ferrari you must buy it!”
    In those days I had the wherewithal to buy any car I wanted because my bank would just back me in anything. So for Le Mans I wrote a check for $9,000 and bought that car. I had it delivered to the track (at Le Mans) right from the factory, with full pitwork, crew, everything,...brand new Ferrari, ready to race! I did this every year and always finished in the top percentage. And I am one of the least mechanical people you ever met. Initially that’s why I raced Ferraris. I got tired of this game of modifying stock cars. The cars are supposed to be showroom stock but everyone simply modifies so that you can’t see the modifications. But I didn’t have time for that because I didn’t want racing to take precedence over my auto business and I didn’t want a car that would break. Nobody realized it but in those days a Ferrari was one of the least maintenance cars you could buy. You could race at Le Mans in a Ferrari GT and unless you did something stupid you knew you were going to finish. Unless you went off the track or something you were almost guaranteed a finish at Le Mans. I used to drive a Ferrari to the race, change the plugs, race, and drive home. The other good thing about them is that they were safe. The one thing I always admired, and Chinetti used to say this too, Ferrari would make no concessions to make a car fast by making it too light. He criticized Colin Chapman saying he didn’t care about his drivers and made the cars too light to the point that it was dangerous. You weren’t going to get killed in a Ferrari that easily. For me it was great because I won. I won one race after the other because not many guys in those days bought a Ferrari. They thought it was too expensive, but in fact, it was one of the cheapest cars you could race!

SP: Because of the maintenance?
BG: Yes the expense in racing is not the car, it’s the maintenance, the track, the crew, etc. When I stopped racing Ferraris I found out what it cost to race. Then I got into a Cobra. When the Cobra came along for SCCA races they just walked away from the Ferraris, they were much faster. Not at Le Mans, but on a short SCCA course they were much faster. So I got into Cobras, which I learned to master for a while, winning the lap records both at Lime Rock and Watkins Glen. Later I got into Trans AM racing with Camaros & Z28's and that was fun but not the same. I was involved with a guy named Don Yenko during this time who used to put 427's in Camaros and stuff like that. 

SP: How did you get back involved with the Italians?
BG: Well how I got involved with Maserati was...Chinetti was so difficult to deal with...I looked at the way he operated and saw in this country the market for exotic cars.

SP: This was in the late 50's?
BG: Yes but I didn’t end up with Maserati till about 1967.  People in Europe were spending more than us on cars. A lot of people said, who’s going to buy a car for $14,000?! But in Europe lots of people bought Mercedes, Maseratis, Ferraris, or a Rolls. Well I knew there were people here who could afford it. Plus there was the infamous way Chinetti treated his customers. In those days, however, he had the exotic market all to himself. If that’s what you wanted you went to Mr. Chinetti.

SP: He was notorious for customer abuse.
BG: Yes, and he got that from (Enzo) Ferrari because Ferrari himself had that attitude. He had this distaste for his customers thinking most of them shouldn’t even have them. In the early days most of the people that bought these cars knew how to drive them. But as time went on Ferrari, and Maserati for that matter, developed this mystique. More and more people came in with this sort of Walter Mitty complex just wanting that image.
    Anyway in those days I knew several people who could introduce me to Maserati including Rene Dreyfuss of the Chanteclair restaurant in New York who used to race for them. At that time there was very little market in this country. There was an outfit called Rallye Motors in Roslyn who sold maybe 10 Maseratis a year and later Briggs Cunningham with Alfred Momo, who also had Maserati and very occasionally sold a road car. Plus until the 3500GT came over there were very few cars other than racing cars. I spoke to a lot of Europeans and was told that Maserati sold about as many cars as Ferrari in Europe but since it was a little more tractable, a little more for everyday use, I went to Maserati and asked to become a distributor.

SP: Were you familiar with the cars from racing?
BG: No I had seen them but never raced them. I’d bought a couple of Quattroportes used but that was about it. So they told me they’d give me the Northeast. They were going to set up 7 distributorship in the U.S.

SP: Was this 1967?
BG: Yes 1966-67. What we first brought over was the 4-liter Sebring, the Mistral, and the (1st series) Quattroporte. About a year later they showed me the Ghibli and asked me how I thought it would sell which I thought it would. Their philosophy, which at the time was strange, developed after the war as result of not having any air travel. They wanted a touring car, a “family car” that they could drive at a high rate of speed on the autostrada, and that’s why these cars were geared so high. They wanted a four seater, four passenger car. This was not what Americans wanted to buy from them. I then had to educate them about this. I told them they could not sell an Italian four door sedan in the United States because the first time that car has a problem it’s going to be traded in on a Cadillac! They did, however, make this mistake, time and time again. People will put up with a lot from an exotic car if it has style, but not from a 4-door sedan. I did have an influence on them in terms of luxury features that Americans wanted such as better seats, better colors, good radios, tilt steering, etc. For a while I had a great deal of influence with them due to the volume I was selling. I discovered years later that I was selling 1/3 of their production! I was selling all over the place, Chicago, Houston, eventually the whole country, because no one else was selling very many cars.

SP: What year was this?
BG: This was the late 60's. They had a problem because of the new federal standards. Ferrari didn’t bother to comply. So I said “If you guys can comply we can get a jump on Ferrari.” Well they couldn’t do it at first so I said well why don’t we bring the cars in as ‘67 models. They stamped the frame “made in ‘67" and came in that way in ‘68 and ‘69! So every “67" could be either a ‘67,’68, or ‘69!
    In 1970 we finally had to comply. In the beginning it wasn’t so bad, but as they got more stringent every year it was a battle. What with sending over a mechanic, who we’d house, then he’d go out to Ann Arbor armed with a screwdriver,...but every year they’d just squeak by.
    It became a pretty good business although my money still came from Volkswagen and Porsche. Then I picked up Jag again, I got Jensen, and since I had Maserati I also sold the Citröen SM, plus later the Mangusta. We were the largest dealer in the country for Mangusta, selling about 55 Mangustas, which was far more than anybody else sold. Somewhere along the line we were offered Lamborghini and for a while I had them too.

SP: Did you also sell Ferrari?
BG: I was a Ferrari dealer, not a distributor, for a while but then when I started to get close to Maserati I stopped because they just treated me so well. I had a great relationship with the Orsi family and wanted to keep it that way.

SP: When you got involved with Jensen, and the Mangustas, did you ever have dealings with Qvale?*
BG: Unfortunately, yes. He was one of the guys that did me in! There were a few people that eventually did me in, but he was one of them. What happened there was Qvale had owned Jensen. I knew him and we got along well. George Garbutt worked for him. Well first Qvale brought by the Mangusta and I liked it so I sold a whole bunch of them. Whatever I took on, we sold more of than anyone in the country. When that car disappeared he came in with Jensen, so I sold them as well. But when Jensen went out of business they had nothing to import. Since he was friendly with DeTomaso they drew up this Maserati importership.* At that point I was in bad shape financially because Maserati had gone out of business..., Lamborghini was in trouble,...
*Refer to George Garbutt interview in the June iL TRIDENTE for more details on Kjell Qvale and the period
during this transition.

SP: This was in 1975?
BG: ...’75 and ‘76.Volkswagen had stopped making the Beetle (also because of the federal standards) and come out with the Rabbit which made their sales drop from 5000 units a year to about 80! Porsche started shipping me 924s, which weren’t Porsches as far as I was concerned, and wouldn’t send me 911s. So I struggled and struggled, tried to sell the business, then DeTomaso came along and I was out. He wanted to control the whole operation.
    Lamborghini went out about the same time and didn’t come back for years later. There’s an interesting comparison there. My affection was never with Lamborghini it was always for Maserati. The Lamborghini people were a strange outfit. The Lamborghini car appealed to a different kind of buyer. When I bought the dealership I got it for $65,000. I asked “How is this car? What kind of warranty is there?” “There’s no warranty.” “What about publicity, literature, advertising?” Nothing. “All you do is buy the car.” They didn’t do anything but sell you the car! The same thing actually was true in the beginning at Maserati but as we went along we made a lot of progress. At one point when we were having problems I went to them and said ”Look I’ve decided to give the dealership up, I have other businesses and I don’t need all this aggravation.” I had invested a lot of time in bringing their market up, getting good reviews, and keeping a decent resale. When I called them they said “You must come immediately to Modena!” When I got there they said “do you realize that you’re taking a third of our production? If you go out on us we’ll go under!” Well I had no idea, but I gave them a list of demands which they met.

SP: Now in taking this percentage of their production did they give you any special financing?.
BG: Well up to this point I paid for the cars as soon as they came off the boat. But amongst the demands I then presented was 90-day delayed payment. I also asked for a comprehensive warranty program, technical assistance,
advertising and publicity, and I wanted to correct certain problems on the cars. Everything I asked for they gave me in a two page contract that was automatically renewed forever! I showed the contract to a lawyer once and he said he’d never seen a contract like that. It was the best contract he’d ever seen.

SP: This was with Maserati under Citröen?
BG: Yes, but then my dumb lawyer let DeTomaso take it all away. Citröen decided they wanted to be the importer and let me keep the dealership. At the time I thought well that’s not so bad because they’ll stock the cars and I’ll just buy them as I need them, but it was the biggest mistake I ever made. Once I let them do that I was dead. Then what really brought the factory down was that Peugeot had bought Citröen and decided they didn’t want Maserati. At the time due to the need to make engines for the SM, the factory had about 900 employees. They now would only need about 300. However, in Italy there was legislation preventing you from firing anybody. Finally they went broke. 

An early Mistral Spyder sketch by Bob

SP: Then the government stepped in with DeTomaso.
BG: Yes,Well DeTomaso was very shrewd. There was a government agency called GEPI that financed troubled businesses in Italy. Since Maserati was a tradition DeTomaso got them to finance the whole thing as well as building a new factory for Pantera, and picking up Moto Guzzi. He was just a very nasty little guy.
    When he became the owner I didn’t know where I was going to stand. So a meeting was arranged in New York on Madison Avenue at a deli! When we got there it was three deep at the counter. This is where our meeting was to take place! But I convinced him to go elsewhere and we ended up at the Pierre where we had a good conversation for about three hours. I saw right away who I was dealing with. At first (before the deal with Citröen was concluded) he agreed to give me half the country and honor my dealership. Then we started talking about cars, deciding which ones to continue bringing in and what not. I told him I liked the Bora and he said, “I hate the Bora, my car, the Pantera is a much better car!” Then I heard that he fired Alfieri the chief engineer, who subsequently went over to Lamborghini. I knew him well. In fact during one of the last visits I made to the factory before this all took place. Alfieri begged me to find an American buyer before DeTomaso could take over, because he knew it would be a disaster.
    So anyway DeTomaso mentions in the course of the car discussion over the Bora that “the engineers all agreed with you and I fired them!” He said “I like the Merak, I think I’ll keep making Meraks and Quattroportes.”

SP: Amazing that he liked the Merak and didn’t like the Bora since the Merak has somewhat similar lines to the Bora but less power. I guess since it wasn’t competition for the Pantera...
BG: I ‘ll tell you my own opinion on the Merak. I think that in the end it was one of the best cars they ever made. In the beginning there were a lot of problems with breaking timing chains. They (the Citröen management) said “Well you have to adjust them every 6000 miles.” Plus they wouldn’t honor the warranty on them. But eventually they straightened that out and it became a very reliable and well built car.
    Another car I liked a lot was the Mexico. It came out the same time as the Ghibli. It had a great driving position, and was more comfortable than the Ghibli. But they never sold very well.
    Thinking back about when I had Lamborghini, it’s interesting the difference between the two companies. Lamborghini was very heavy in engineering.

SP: From years of making tractors and farm equipment.
BG: Yes, but administratively, they were unbelievably bad. I have never dealt with a company like that. And the sales manager,...I saw a big article on him recently,... was a crook! When the Countach came out you had to pay him to get one. He was on the take!

SP: The customers or the dealers?
BG: With everybody, the dealers and the customers. The first guy I dealt with there became a very good friend of mine then he was ousted and I was left with this guy who was unbelievable. At one time I tried to get a consortium together to buy the company-it was available for $5 million! Isn’t that unbelievable?!!

SP: When was this?
BG: In 1978. We went there with a group but I couldn’t find anyone to even talk to about it. Yet they owed money to everyone-ZF, Michelin, etc. Really DeLorean should have bought it instead of starting his own company. Then in later years they made a lot of money with that horrible looking Countach.

SP: I think it’s an outrageous design.
BG: I thought it was the ugliest looking car I ever saw. Yet they made a fortune on those cars. At the time it came out it would have cost me $27,000 at the factory! Most of the cars I sold with them were Espadas.

SP: I can’t imagine paying $27,000 for a Countach!
BG: Well the first Ghiblis were to retail at a price of $16,900. The Mistrals that preceded were at $16,000. Yet the Mistral was probably just as expensive to make as the Ghibli because of the aluminum body. I decided I couldn’t sell Mistrals against Ghiblis so I upped the price of the Ghibli to $18,900. I was making a nice profit since the car cost me $10,000 at the factory! A few years later I got them to make the Ghibli Spyder which they weren’t interested in at the time because in Italy there was no demand for open cars. The reason for this is the climate. Convertibles sell better in countries with worse weather because when you get a nice day you want to enjoy it. But if you’re in the sun all the time you don’t have as much desire to be in it.
    So they didn’t want to build it. They said if we build it how many will you take. Knowing they couldn’t build that many I said “I’ll take everyone you can send me.” Which ended up being 50.

SP: That car had some of the most beautiful lines they ever came up with.
BG: It wasn’t that great a car unfortunately because they didn’t reinforce the chassis and it had a lot of lateral shake. They gave me their first car for the show in New York which I kept as my own personal car. The main reason I wanted them to build it is because I like driving open cars! The first car I ever bought from them was a used Mistral Spyder. The first time I went to the factory I asked if they had any used cars and they wheeled out this Mistral Spyder over which I haggled price with Sig. Orsi for about 10 minutes. Then he smiled and told me I’d be a good distributor because he liked the haggling back and forth. It’s a sort of game with the Italians. What they used to do was take used cars and recondition them on the assembly line till they were like new. I bought that car for $1,900! Imagine getting that car in that condition for $1,900!

SP: How would you characterize the difference between Maserati and Ferrari in those days.
BG: I owned a lot of Ferraris but a Ferrari you couldn’t drive everyday. You could not live with a Ferrari every day. On the road, on the autostrada, it was a different story. But a Maserati you could live with everyday. In those days I was very prejudiced toward Maserati yet I did still race Ferraris even when I had the dealership. In retrospect Ferraris have held up much better. I hate to tell you that, but that’s how I feel.

SP: Well the question is, better in what respect.
BG: Well the only thing is the Bora. The Bora is the exception. I don’t know why anyone would buy a 308 or even a 328 when they can have a Bora. And the Bora is a very nice road car. I used to even use it at the track as a pace car. I could keep up with anyone with that car.
If I put proper race tires on it I’d race it. In fact I’ll tell you what happened. I was always after Maserati to make a race car for me.

SP: When was this about?
BG: During the Bora years, about 1974. So finally, they started to build a race car around a Bora. They made two cars, aluminum bodied, per spec with plastic windows. It was better than the (Ferrari) Daytona because it was homologated at 2500 lbs. and the Daytona was about 28-2900 lbs. We had started to put together a racing team. Then they went out, there was a road accident, someone was killed, and the whole thing was shelved. So one of the cars went to a French distributor by the name of Thepenier, and the other ended up with Bob Rubin over here in Bridgehampton. It’s a shame it never happened. It would have helped their image a lot.

SP: Absolutely. That’s what they’ve needed for some time now.
BG: DeTomaso, in my opinion destroyed Maserati. He made nothing but mistakes. He missed completely the wonderful 80's during which you could get anything for an exotic. By definition a Maserati, Ferrari, or Lamborghini have to be overpriced. But you can hide that if you’re building a $150,000 car. What difference at that point does it make whether it’s $150,000 or $100,000 price. But in a Biturbo it makes a big difference. What he should have done was make an expensive, exotic car. Look what happened to Lamborghini. They were in much worse shape than Maserati financially when they came out with that ridiculous Countach and people ate it up! That’s all they had to do was make a fast big car and a nice small exotic. I mean how can an Italian manufacturer hope to make a mass-produced car and sell it over here. So I don’t think he ever did anything for the company. What are they doing now?

SP: Well the new manager appointed by FIAT, Eugenio Alzati, has spent the past period since they took over upgrading the last couple of cars that DeTomaso had on the drawing boards, this being the new Ghibli and the new Quattroporte. He has apparently been concentrating on upgrading quality control and putting the factory back in order. Since both of these cars were more or less DeTomaso carryovers the real indicator will be the new coupe that they are now working on which is being designed by Giorgetto Guigiaro and rumored to be previewed in December. This will be the first completely new design since DeTomaso and should forecast the direction they are headed.
BG: It makes me very sad to see the Italian manufacturers leave the US. I blame a lot of it on the automobile industry in this country. They just never had a good lobby. Look at the power of the National Rifle Association and what they get away with. That always infuriated me. Now all these brands are gone, Maserati, Alfa, Citröen, Peugeot. As time went on you also needed more and more volume in order to be profitable. Now there’s no time to produce an individual car for an individual taste. You have to produce for a mass taste. That’s why I’m so intrigued by the older cars. That’s also why I told people many years ago that when they look under the hood of an old Maserati they were seeing something that they just weren’t going to see again. You can’t. They pay a worker too much money to spend time doing all the handwork that was involved in these cars. As time goes on it’s going to be even more difficult to build these cars. 

SP: All the more reason to treasure these cars and drive these cars now.
BG: Absolutely. 

 
In his Bridgehampton studio in 1995 (photo: sgPond)

SP: How is the drawing going.
BG: Very well, I’m doing illustrations for a book that I’m putting together on the evolution of American automobile design between 1927-42. I’m also planning another book on my racing experiences. In addition I draw on demand for private clients,  drawings of any car they’re interested in. I should have a show shortly in Westhampton.

SP: Seems you’ve come full circle from when you were a  youth drawing on that bed board! Thanks for your time today.
BG: Thanks to your members for their support throughout the years❧!!

(Note: Reprints of our August, 1995 issue are still available. See complete list on iL TRIDENTE page.)  

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