Maserati Biturbo
series of grand tourers manufactured by Italian automobile manufacturer Maserati from 1981–1994 as a successor to the Merak
The Maserati Biturbo is a family of executive grand tourers produced by Italian automobile manufacturer Maserati between 1981 and 1994. The original Biturbo was a two-door, four-seater notchback coupé (of somewhat smaller dimensions than the BMW 3 Series of the time) featuring, as the name implies, a two-litre V6 engine with two turbochargers and a luxurious interior.
The car was designed by Pierangelo Andreani, Chief of Centro Stile Maserati up to 1981, somewhat influenced by the design of the then recent Quattroporte III (penned by Italdesign Giugiaro).
All Maserati models introduced from the Biturbo's inception in 1981, until 1997, were based on variants of the original Biturbo architecture, including the later grand tourers like the Shamal and Ghibli II, as well as the 1994 fourth generation Quattroporte, which used an evolved and slightly stretched (to 2.65 m / 104.3 in wheelbase) Biturbo Saloon platform.
The Barchetta, while of a different layout entirely, used an ultimate version of the Biturbo V6 engine.
History
When Alejandro de Tomaso acquired Maserati in 1976, he had ambitious plans for the marque. His plan was to combine the prestige of the Maserati brand with a sports car that would be more affordable, replacing the higher-priced models that had traditionally made up the Maserati range, such as the Bora and Khamsin which were developed under Citroën ownership.
The Biturbo was initially a strong seller and brought Italian prestige to a wide audience, with sales of about 40,000 units. Sales figures fell in subsequent years, as the Biturbo developed a reputation for poor quality and reliability. De Tomaso used another of his companies, Innocenti, to produce body panels of the car and also to provide final assembly.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Maserati Biturbo” as series of grand tourers manufactured by Italian automobile manufacturer Maserati from 1981–1994 as a successor to the Merak. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1851695. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1981, 1994, 1997 and 1976.
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This entry incorporates text from “Maserati Biturbo” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.