Maserati

The Maserati Merak was introduced at the 1972 Mondial de l'Automobile in Paris, over a year after the Bora. The Merak shares the front part of its bodyshell with the Bora up to the doors, but the similarities end at the B-pillar. Giorgetto Giugiaro at Italdesign was commissioned to transform the Bora into the Merak. Unlike its bigger sister, the Merak doesn't have a full glass fastback, but rather a cabin ending abruptly with a vertical rear window and a flat, horizontal engine cover pierced by four series of ventilation slats. Giugiaro completed the vehicle's silhouette by adding open flying buttresses, visually extending the roofline to the tail. It was powered by a 2,965 cc V6 engine, derived directly from the one fitted in the Citroën SM. The extra cabin space gained by fitting a smaller and more compact powertrain was used to carve out a second row of seats, making the Merak not just a less expensive alternative to the Bora, but also a 2+2. Having been designed during the Citroën ownership of Maserati (1968–1975), certain Citroën hydropneumatic systems were used in the Merak and the early Merak SS. Early left hand drive Meraks (1972 to 1975) were fitted with the same dashboard as the Citroën SM, characterized by oval instrument gauges inset in a brushed metal fascia and a single-spoke steering wheel. After 1976, when the French manufacturer gave up control of Maserati, the Citroën-derived parts were gradually replaced by more conventional systems. The lightweight and more powerful Merak SS was introduced in March 1975, although it did not enter production until the next year. In November 1977, the Merak 2000 GT was presented, basically a Merak with a smaller 1,999 cc powerplant. It was built almost exclusively for the Italian market, where a newly introduced law strongly penalized cars with engine capacity over 2,000 cc. Its main competitors were similar two-litre models, specifically the Lamborghini Urraco P200 and Ferrari Dino 208 GT4.