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Impressions of a Biturbo 425
by Michael J Miles
Following a report in the local paper of the local motoring correspondent sampling a Biturbo which seemed to be full of inane comments, I made various enquiries and due to the kind and considerate help of Cloverleaf Garages I managed to acquire a 425 so that some proper road impressions could be made.
Cloverleaf Garages are situated on the A30 approximately 1 mile East of Basingstoke and Alan Gibson the General Sales Manager there is helped by Jonathan Wilkins and Nigel Edmund who seem to be very keen as far as the Maseratis are concerned. This was the first time that I had visited this garage for many years and when I arrived the metallic Silver Biturbo was sitting outside the garage. This seemed to be quite a good omen because the colour matched the Ghibli Spyder and the Bora so the car immediately felt at home.
I was duly shown the various controls and I took stock of the driving position for the driver. The steering wheel is adjustable in practically every direction and the instrument pinnacle is very sensibly set out. Whilst one does not notice it during daylight, when one drives it at night all the lighted parts of the subsidiary dials are nicely angled exactly in line with the steering wheel rim. There is a large array of warning lights across the top of the instrument pinnacle which look initially rather frightening when the ignition is switched on but the three main dials in the centre are obviously the speedo, plus the rev counter and the turbo boost gauge which was completely new to me. The indicators and light swith are on the left hand side of the steering column, presumably a legacy from the left hand drive cars, and the wipers etc, on the right hand side. I am not blaming Maserati or anybody else for this, but I think at some time or other all the various makes should get their act together and most of my cars at the moment have the indicator switch etc, on the outside of the steering wheel, in other words, the side that the driver is sitting, whether it be left or right hand drive, but I think there should be some standardisation on this world wide.
In the centre of the car above the radio and a set of push buton switches there is the nicely shaped Maserati clock in the shape of the Trident badge. The set of push buttons underneath that include those to undo the boot, the petrol filler cap, fog lights, which were not fitted on this car, rear fog lights, interior lights etc, and underneath that is the air-conditioning and heating equipment, all of which is fairly self-explanatory and on this car seemed to work quite well. The car was fitted with a very nice Blaupunkt radio.
The interior was in tan leather which was very tastefully done. The seats I found particularly comfortable. The drivers seat seems to be adjustable in every way with various electric motors. Backwards and forwards. Tilt, angle of the seat back etc. The passengers does not have quite so many electrical controls, backwards and forwards having to be done manually.
The car was started with no problems at all but I understand in cold weather the choke is needed and this was used on one morning. The normal method with Webers i.e. pumping the throttle is rather frowned upon as it can cause problems, so I had to re-learn that. On my own cars, I have never never had to use the choke. I had looked at the engine compartment and duly checked various levels before sitting in the car ready to go. The boot was also checked and it seemed a little odd to start with seeing no spare wheel until it was discovered nestling underneath the boot and the only unfortunate thing with that is that it is exposed to the elements. The tools are neatly housed in a box underneath the boot lid. These are basic tools and are just adequate but the finish of the tools is certainly nowhere near the finish of the car.
Once settled in the car the engine was started and it idled quite happily to get warm. I pulled away in first and all of a sudden there is quite an increase in acceleration once the revs reached approximately 4,000. Quick change into 2nd and the same applied. You can really feel the boost come in and the same applied to third. I am used to the massive torque of the big V8 engines in the Ghibli and the Bora where one can effectively accelerate quite happily at almost any engine revs and you certainly don't need to have the revs high up the scale for the fabulous performance. With the Bi-turbo to get the ultimate one obviously needs to have the revs fairly high up the rev range. There is a reasonable amount of torque and by this 1 mean not compared with the normal cars but I am comparing it with the large V8 cars. The car will travel at a reasonable rate at any rev range, but if for example you are pottering along in 5th which presumably you shouldn't be in a Biturbo and you put your foot down there is a definite lag before anything at all happens and really you need to drop down two gears to pull away very quickly. The performance is excellent. I did not try any 0 to 60s or 0 to anything else because I don't think it is fair on the car or the owners when it has been supplied to you for road impressions but rest assured that it is rapid.
I think in the main the owners of the larger engined exotic cars such as the Bora, Ghibli, Indy, Khamsin etc, have tended to think of the Biturbo as not being quite the image for Maseratis and not having quite the performance, but I would think on a cross country route anyone of those would be fairly hard put to stay with the Biturbo and in time I don't think there would be much difference. Obviously, the other cars have got a higher top speed and if it is pure motorway work then they could well be that bit quicker, but bearing in mind those funny cars around with a large white stripe and funny lights on the top I don't suppose there would be a vast difference in the time as far as that is concerned either. The car handles remarkably well, there seems to be very little roll, sticks very well to the road and I must say I was most impressed.
As seems to be common at night with may Italian cars, the lighting on dip beam does not appear to be adequate. On every single car that I have purchased, I have had to raise the level of the lights because if one is travelling quickly with the road illuminated well and suddenly you come on to dip beam and you can only see 20 yards in front of you it is a little disconcerting. That is one of the first things that I would do if I was owning the car but on main beam the lights are excellent.
When I washed the car I was very surprised how tall it was. I have obviously been used to washing and leathering the Bora where one almost has to lean down to get to the level of the roof and with the Biturbo is somewhat different and you have to stretch up and if anything I think it is slightly taller than my Mexico was.
I won't say that I did not exceed the speed limit in the car and it felt very stable and very quiet. Very impressive. The car was run in because it had done some 4,000 miles but obviously with a car that is fresh one does not try and do any maximum speed runs, let's just say that at whatever speed I drove it I was impressed.
In checking through the actual data of the car the 425 is some 10 inches longer than the basic Biturbo due to the 4 doors. It has a longer wheelbase and the luggage compartment is that much bigger by some 12 cubic feet according to the technical data supplied and the dry weight is 2,625 Ibs compared with 2,394 of the 2-door Biturbo. This in turn obviously means that the performance of the two-door car should be that much better than the 425 and if that is so I can only say it is even more impressive.
Handbook and details of Maserati agents and various other bits of information are enclosed in a very nice leather bound folder, all keeping up with the quality we have expected from Maseratis.
This article first appeared in the Summer 1987 issue of Trident
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