It’s red, it’s rare, it’s Italian and it’s at least 30 years old. And yet, there’s not much one can say about the Shamal that is unequivocally positive. It’s always a compliment sandwich – criticize, praise, re-criticize. It could be the other way around on occasion, but rarely as it’s not easy to come up with two praiseworthy features in the same sentence about a Maserati from the dreaded De Tomaso era.
But let’s try this positive-negative-positive thing. Ahem. The Shamal ushered in a completely new twin turbo V8 engine, so while it was still a Biturbo in essence, it was the ultimate Biturbo. There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?
The Biturbo was a short-term solution devised by De Tomaso to transform Maserati into a sort of Italian BMW – minus the build quality, but with more gingerbread. The Biturbo’s smallish V6, even with the eponymous twin charger, put a limit on the car’s ambitions, though. Maserati did have a V8 on the roster, a rather large (4.1 and 4.9 litre) pair used in the Quattroporte III, but that engine dated back to the ‘60s. Some new blood would be required.
De Tomaso was a past master at running his businesses on a shoestring, but in this case, there really was no replacement for investment. A brand new V8 was created along the lines of the Biturbo V6, meaning smaller (3.2 litre) and doubly-turbocharged, providing the rear wheels with 326hp via a 6-speed Getrag manual transmission.
Using the shorter floorpan of the Biturbo Spyder with an updated rear suspension, the powers that be at Maserati figured this new, more powerful Biturbo variant would be the ideal mode of transport for the yuppie on the go who wanted something spicier than the Porsche 928 and couldn’t quite swing a Ferrari.
They dubbed it “Shamal” – another windy PR bit of hot air, just like the Mistral and the Khamsin. But as names go, not a bad one. Beats Nor’easter, Foehn and Flatulence, that’s for sure. (I think that last one would go well for a French car… “The new Renault Flatulence. It’s a gas.”)
Speaking of going like stink, Maserati claimed a 270kph (168mph) top speed for their little V8-powered coupé. People who actually tried to push these to the limit at the time usually agreed that 260 was the real number. The 0-100kph time was a commendable 5.8 seconds. It still made this the fastest production Maserati in history, up to that point in time.
And said point in time was, fittingly, the start of a new decade: the Shamal was officially unveiled in Modena in mid-December 1989, with actual deliveries only set to begin trickling in by mid-1990. Marcello Gandini, who designed the body, was obviously stuck between two decades. The front end still had the ‘80s feel of its Biturbo brethren, but the rotund child-bearing hips, signature rear wheel cutout and rollbar-cum-B-pillar try to anchor the rear of the car into the ‘90s.
There is something deeply unsettling about the headlights on this thing. It’s as if it’s one of those design studies where the designers try out different detailing ideas on the same clay model. And the worst of it is that the rest of the Maserati range caught this eye infection pretty quick.
And far be it from me to second-guess the great Gandini, but just what was the point of this? Apparently, it’s supposed to help shoo away the rain drops so that the wipers don’t have to work as hard, or something like that. Weird, and given that you don’t really see this on any other car, probably not all that effective.
The interior is a lot less Middle-Eastern than the contemporary Ghiblis and Quattroportes, I must admit. The trademark three-hot-dog-bun central armrest and the obligatory gold clock sure look familiar, but the rest is mercifully restrained and lacking the gaudy wood inserts found in most Maseratis of the period. It’s not that the odd touch of burl walnut does not appeal, but there are ways to do it tastefully, like Jaguar and Mercedes, and ways for it to look awful, like ‘90s Maseratis and, dare I say it, Tatras.
And that’s the main failing of the Shamal, ultimately. It’s not pretty, it’s not luxurious and it’s not as fast as some for the price. Because these cost a pretty penny, of course. Let’s take a look at that in the Japanese context, because that’s where this car was found.
Just to add a couple of extra pointers, now that you’ve gotten over the shock of seeing the Allanté in such hallowed company: a Toyota Soarer or a tri-rotor Eunos Cosmo would have cost less than ¥5m and a Bentley or Aston Martin was over ¥30m. And the Benz, the Porsche and the BMW could cost a less than the Shamal when featuring slightly less powerful engines, but still impeccable fit and finish.
Sales were off to a very slow start and never really progressed. When Fiat finalized their takeover of Maserati in 1993, the first to get the chop was the Shamal: production stopped in 1994, but it took over two years to sell the remaining stock. Cars were either red or black, except a few of the leftovers that were customized to the wishes of the (rare) clients that still sought one of these by 1995.
With a total production run of a paltry 369 units, the Shamal is one of the rarest Biturbo variants. At least it has an engine worthy of its badge, the last Maserati motor developed prior to the marque’s amalgamation into the Fiat/Ferrari/Stellantis borg that we have today.
I was in two minds about this final ‘90s-month post. There are several suitable Ferraris in my files that could have been written up just as well, but in the end, I went with the Shamal, chiefly because I realized this would run on Halloween. With that colour, that horrid face and those bulging sides, I thought it would make for a very suitable jack-o’-lantern.
Related post:
Car Show Classic: 1990-96 Maserati Shamal – The Wildest Biturbo, by William Stopford
Rear wheel arches remind me too much of the latest 2026 RAV4, which applies this square shape to all four corners. Not very attractive trend highlighted with cladding even if the horizontal portion on the Rav is… horizontal.
Love that you added the Alfa to the table – a Zagato design that looks better than what Gandini came up with!
Interesting opinion of the author. I always like Maserati, since.1978. The guy that own Jelly Belly candies has his orginal manufacturing next to where I worked in Emeryville, CA. He had model III GHIBI as I recall
The cowl looks like they could never properly align the hood-cowl joint, so they decided to accentuate the gap. The rear whell arch is… no words. the rear deck looks like a pickup tailgate. The question is not why did they sell so few, but how did they sell so many?
It looks like a cheap Japanese knockoff of something. Thanks for presenting this to us.
Thomas Hobbes may have been talking about how life for man in a state of nature without any form of government would be “…nasty, brutish, and short” but he could well have just been 300+ years ahead of his time and really been describing the Maserati Shamal. Yet those qualities are precisely what I adore about it. It’s Nasty, like Janet! It’s Brutish, like modern concrete architecture, yet something I spent a not inconsiderate amount of time in as a child whose best friend’s father was an architect and designed such a house for their family which while austere and hard on the exterior was filled with joy, love, and intriguing design throughout the interior and exterior if one looked beyond the obvious. And it’s Short, having no more length than what is needed, i.e. just enough to “git ‘er dun” and then be done with it, a quality that is all too lacking in today’s society as well as my sentence structure.
It may well not be to everyone’s taste, but that’s too bad. For them. For the enlightened it’s magnificent. And not to be questioned of course, just as one does not question the Virgin Mary.
And, I’ll have you know, it is one of the premier finds of mine in the toy aisle of Wal-Mart this past year, when no other authority than the Mattel Corporation saw fit to recognize it and made a Hot Wheels version. Presumably with a higher production count than the real thing, of course.
Quite a find, and a perfect write-up!
I think the one thing that Maserati always had going for them was an excellent name – “Maserati” gives off similar vibes to “Bugatti” and suggests the most exotic of Italian supercars. Unfortunate that the product hasn’t matched the name for decades, and is probably better known now for spectacular depreciation