[Editor's Note: This feature is originally from our May 2016 issue. Some information may be different.]
Maserati is best known for its sports cars and racing machines, but the four-door Quattroporte has been part of the company lineup for more than half a century. Collectors haven’t exactly flocked to these models, however, leaving depressed prices for the rest of us.
Exhibit A: the …
yupididit said:So...I know this is old but
I came across this this and remembered how they could sound like THIS. Are they forbidden fruit?
To me nothing in that price range that is 4 doors make those noises. Besides the v10 m5's, but I know better than that!
Holy E36 M3, i think I need a cigarette.. 
Anyone else check car-part.com for engine prices? $3-5k for various older years.
2008, $8,000 starting bid
The space between the grill and the headlights make it look like a kit car, or one of those motor homes from the 90s that used GM passenger car front lights. YUCK.
Carfax on 12/30/17 search in the mid-atlantic where I see them fairly regularly just showed a few under $20k actually one or maybe two under $19k if my short term memory is right. Tempting for sure especially for a one or two year fling then move on. But where is the floor then? Two years of gentle driving would your resell value be horribly lower or at about the same. If the latter for those with the means I'd say go for it. Those examples were all '05 and auto but hey... 
I always wondered if you could grab one with a broken transmission and put something more reliable in there. For the maintenance costs, I think you could do a pretty good swap to any number of manual or clutchless manuals.
The automatics are actually reasonably reliable.
But and I mean this the only modern cars I have ever seen catch fire on the side of the freeway are these things. At least two in the last couple years alone.
In reply to wearymicrobe :
Really? I thought I remembered hearing that the robo manual (this is what I meant, not the of auto) had really short, really expensive life cycle. These are so far outside of my wheelhouse though that anything I say is hearsay.
kinda sketchy ad but 2005 for $14000
But where is the floor then?
I've been watching them for years now and they aren't really getting any cheaper other than you can find shabbier and shabbier ones that are cheap because they're half-trashed. Decent ones haven't gotten cheaper in the time i've been looking.
singleslammer said:In reply to wearymicrobe :
Really? I thought I remembered hearing that the robo manual (this is what I meant, not the of auto) had really short, really expensive life cycle. These are so far outside of my wheelhouse though that anything I say is hearsay.
Robo manual is a pile of dog turds. It is on par with the Aston version which was developed by the devil with Lucas looking over the design docs and deleting things at random.
Actual automatic is OK
In reply to yupididit :
Do it.
Damn! That Maser sounds like a modern Jag wishes it could sound like!
In reply to The Staff of Motorsport Marketing :
Great car at a great price. We owned and enjoyed an '07 for more than two years. Sold it for more than we paid for it. HOWEVER, do NOT buy one unless it has the ZF automatic transmission. The F1 paddle shift gearbox is lousy and unreliable.
In reply to johndej :
No! Has to be an '07 and up to get the ZF trans. Older, cheaper ones are NOT bargains!
yupididit said:So...I know this is old but
I came across this this and remembered how they could sound like THIS. Are they forbidden fruit?
To me nothing in that price range that is 4 doors make those noises. Besides the v10 m5's, but I know better than that!
This video still lives. Thanks for the reminder, canoe.
Watch Sreten Milisavljevic's enginne teardown and opinion at his ' M539 Restorations' website: Some crappy engineering, and parts no longer available for an engine still in production.
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