Incredibly exotic and luxurious at one time, the third-generation Maserati Quattroporte (III) is now an interesting and affordable-to-buy used car. It’s still exotic and still luxurious, but maybe more scary than anything for most buyers due to old technology and often neglected maintenance. This 1985 Maserati Quattroporte, on the other hand, appears to be a gem! The seller has it listed here on eBay in Tarzana, California, and they’re asking $9,500 or best offer.
With around 265 sunny days a year in Tarzana, I’m bummed that all of the photos were taken in the shade. Maybe it was too hot at the time the photos were taken, but I’m sure the sun would have made the photos pop. Shade or sun, this car appears to be in almost perfect condition, inside and out. The Quattroporte was a four-door sedan, of course, but I’ve always wondered what a two-door coupe version may have looked like…
The third-generation Quattroporte was made from 1979 through 1990, although after 1987, they were known as the Royale. Yeah, no, it’s Quattroporte for the win, in my opinion. The Royale sounds like a blender, not the ultimate in luxurious, sporty four-door exotic cars. Whether it was a 4PORTE, Quattroporte, or Royale, this generation would be the last of the hand-built cars from Maserati. We don’t get to see inside the trunk or underneath, but the seller says this car is still wearing its original paint, and it looks fantastico. Hagerty is at $13,800 for a #3 good-condition car, so the seller’s asking price seems like a deal, no?
The seats appear nice, with appropriately-creased leather given this car’s 40-year age and with just over 44,000 miles on the odometer. Maserati’s leather seats in this era are legendary in both the Quattroporte and the Biturbo family of cars. A five-speed manual would have been available, and would have really made this a driver’s car, but this one is saddled, I mean, this one has a Chrysler-sourced TorqueFlite automatic. That being the case, it’s 50/50 whether I’d want to drive this car or be driven while lounging in the spacious back seat.
The somewhat clean and somewhat updated engine (Jacob’s Omni Pak coil) is Maserati’s 4.9-liter DOHC V8, which was rated at 288 horsepower and 308 lb-ft of torque when new. Sadly, the intake “horns” appear to be missing, so I’d hit eBay asap to try to locate replacements. Backed by that automatic transmission, it would be unfortunate to be soundly thrashed by a minivan or Prius while hammering your Quattroporte, but then again, they’re driving a minivan or a Prius. This one is said to run, drive, and shift as smoothly as it did from the factory, and it sure looks like a deal at the seller’s asking price. Any thoughts on this Quattroporte?
Never knew they had so much power. Probably one of the most powerful cars on the road in 85′
Maserati brothers started this company in early 1900’s as a race car company that put their winning engines in street cars. Very expensive and the most powerful Italian cars until Ferrari arrived. Legend says that the Ferrari engineers made a bet with the Maserati engineers about who can make the most powerful 3 litter engine. Maserati won the bet.
I’ve read one potential pitfall of these was that the fuel tank is mounted fairly high in the rear, between the back seats and trunk and above the Jaguar-style IRS, so parking the car facing downhill can gravity-feed fuel to the front while it sits parked. If there’s any leak in the fuel lines underhood or any pinhole leak in a carburetor diaphragm, accumulating fuel vapors underhood could spark a fire when the engine is fired up. For that reason, I’d add a fuel cutoff petcock in the trunk for safety and peace of mind in cases where parking downhill can’t be avoided.
For me it says $12,500 or best offer. Sellers feedback number (1).
Wow, that’s weird, I guess I’ll have to start doing screenshots of eBay ads now like I do for Craigslist and Facebook.
I’ll have to find in my library the Car amd Driver edition that test drove one between 83 and 85. And i’m sure i still have a Road & Track of the era also. By memory the reviews were positive even with the horrible fuel millage. And the Torqueflite was a police package issue with as decrived ” forcefull shifts “. Could be a nice buy and you don’t see many of these anymore so cars and coffee will welcome you. ;)
Love to know the performance numbers and see the article Robert. Love Car and Driver magazine. 👍
Robert and Stan, here is a 1982 article, I didn’t see a later one for the Quattroporte from between 1984 and ’85.
https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a32207773/tested-1982-maserati-quattroporte/
That car was $65,000 in 1982! That’s a whopping $216,531 in 2025 dollars. Unreal.
While I was working,I had a lady say to me “I have a problem”,
to which I of course replied “What’s that?”.She then said “I can’t get my-
Maserati started”.
This struck me as a little strange,as we didn’t have hardly any of
those kind of cars in our area.I then told her that I’d take a look.
Imagine my surprise when I went out to the parking lot with her,
& here was a almost brand new Light Brown Quattroporte!I figured out
that it was probably the fuel pump not working.I then heard her say “I –
like my Accord better”.
These cars are gorgeous,but usually a big money pit.
Yes, maintenance is challenging.
But it’s a luxury Italian sedan! Acres of leather! What could possibly be the downside?
“What could possibly be the downside?” You just said it, luxury Italian sedan LOL.
Scotty – in response to your comment about what a 2-door version would look like, and I know you did a mockup – the 2-door version was basically the BiTurbo. If you look at the angular lines, the taillights, the headlights and the interior, they’re very similar/same.
Maintenance and whatever negative comments aside – I thought these cars were beautiful from the first time I saw one in Rocky III, to then seeing them on the showroom floor at Maserati and Rolls-Royce of Beverly Hills to seeing one parked in front of my father’s medical practice (belonged to a local doctor here in town). I like today’s Quattroporte – but it doesn’t hold a candle in terms of beautiful design like this one.
Lando, good eye. I thought of that after seeing what the two-door looked like. The Quattroporte is about 30″ longer, but it’s hard to tell unless they’re sitting side-by-side.
Scotty, I thought the same thing – a Bi-Turbo is essentially the 2 door version of this car.
However, I always thought that they looked too stubby, where your version looks better proportioned.
Mechanically speaking, the 2-door version of the Quattroporte III was the Kyalami, itself a mild refresh of the De Tomaso Longchamp, which in turn was derived from the De Tomaso Deauville — so the platform evolved from a 4-door sedan, to a 2-door coupe, to a slightly different 2-door coupe, and finally back to a 4-door sedan, switching V8s from Ford to Maserati power along the way.
Biturbo stylist Pierangelo Andreani cribbed heavily from Giugiaro’s QPIII design here to lend a family resemblance, but mechanically they shared little if anything in common. They’re at least an entire size class or two apart; the QPIII has incredible Presence in person, but it’s hard to tell from photos just how huge it really is, a testament to its generally excellent proportioning, with maybe one quibbling exception.
I suspect the Biturbo front end was closer to what Giugiaro originally proposed for the QPIII before De Tomaso insisted he bulk up the front end for a larger, more imposing and prestigious grille. By comparing the two cars closely, you can kinda see where Giugiaro likely massaged a few details here and there to accomplish this, arriving at IMO the only slightly awkward aspect of the car’s massing and proportions.
These are fantastic. They are basically 1960s cars. Biggest problem is most have just sat far too long. Italian cars need to be driven regularly and then you can handle the issues that come up from time to time like any 60s cars. Well maybe a bit more often but what a magnificent beast. I actually do own a Maserati
Beautiful to look at, Beautiful to drive, Ugly to repair and maintain. I will drive someone else’s, thank you very much. (Which I got to do and enjoyed every minute of it. And they paid me very much to work on it ONCE!)
nicest one I’ve seen in a long time
I love these cars. Test drove a Rosso Rubino 1980 and was jonesing to buy it something fierce. But single digit MPG and the prospect of having to fiddle endlessly with four Webers…
Interestingly, with so much conversation about the styling etymology, nobody mentioned the VW Quantum?
There is an expensive tool that goes on the barrels of the Webers and calibrates them.
As an owner of one of these for the last 30 years, I can assure these are pretty fun on the road! Even as an automatic and a fairly heavy car! -at 60mph+ it sort of ‘shrinks’ around you in bumps and hard curves, and the wonderful chassis-geometry comes to play it’s part.
-a manual one would be a whole other animal, though!!…
I haven’t had much any issues with mine in 35 years! But it has been ‘clean’ and maintained, and with regular oil-changes and control of the Webers. Only drawback being that I don’t get to drive it enough during the dry summer months, though!
They are also relatively easy and simple to fix and maintain, especially when compared to almost anything less than 20 year old cars! -if you have a factory manual, just read that. -not at all harder than any American-made car, really, IF you have to start and learn from scratch with something! And there are parts-specialists here and there, also in the USA (like ‘MIE’, or ‘Campana’ and ‘Candini’ in Italy). And most local foreign-car mechanics in the USA with knowledge of simple carburetted cars and aluminium engines and cases (knowledge of right torque etc.) etc. should be able to tackle with service and all. And again, an owner’s manual comes handy here!… -do not expect a dog to know what a cat is, if he’s never seen one before!… ;-)
Rust is another issue, though, as these are fast to rust if exposed to rain over the weekend! ;-)
-otherwise great build quality, though, but bad steel material (too much of ‘ferrite’?) and many cavities to trap water if water channels are stuck (like on the bottom of the doors and front/rear glasses). That’s why I try to explicitly avoid rain when ‘exposing mine to the elements’ from the gentle warmth of ‘his’ garage. :-) Therefore it is absolutely critical to find a rust-free example. Then after it’s pretty straight forward. You just have to ‘do your diligence’ and go by that!
Whoever buys this, have fun!! :-)