It’s time again to let an archaic Commodore PET computer pick a random page from the book of 2005. The worst cars in the worldwritten by Craig Cheetham, and then defend and rehabilitate the car featured on this page, because I maintain that Mr. Cheetham has not written a book about the world’s worst cars, as the title claims, but about some of the world’s most interesting cars. Most of the cars in this book – perhaps all of them – do not deserve to be trapped between the covers of this fraudulent tome. And I will rehabilitate them one by one. So here we go.
As always, let’s start by typing in this simple BASIC program to select a random number between 1 and 317, which is the page number of the book. And yes, even though I copied and pasted this introduction, I also want to note that I’m not actually here tomorrow, so there won’t be a Friday edition of World’s Worst Cars Book Redemption, which I hope is OK with everyone.
But we still have today’s! Let’s see what side Mr.Pet wants to show us!
Page 287. Let’s see what treasures lie on page 287!
The Maserati Biturbo!
Oh, by the way, you may notice that I’m not showing the entire double page spread, as I did before. That’s because our publisher Matt raised a very important point, which is that if I left this for a substantial portion of this book, I would effectively be republishing the book here on our website, which is, er, wrong. So, to avoid incurring the wrath (and lawyers) of Mr. Cheetham and that publisher, we’re only going to paste a small portion of the page from here on out. I should go back and crop those other pages too, now that I think about it.
But! Back to the Biturbo! When I first saw this choice, I was a little more sympathetic than normal; these things Do have a reputation for being huge assholes and always breaking. But remember, this is a book by the worst cars in the world. The Biturbo was also the first production car with twin turbochargers and, more importantly, it was Maserati’s first real attempt at building something even remotely close to a mass-market car. And while it wasn’t entirely successful, it set a path that so many exotic car makers rely on today to stay in business: having something that’s more accessible (think of all those Porsches and Lamborghinis and, yes, Maserati SUVs) so you can make money and build supercars.
Alejandro DeTomaso bought Maserati in 1976 and was determined to create something that not only super-rich people could afford, but also ordinary rich people. And if you look at the numbers, he succeeded. Think about it: when DeTomaso bought Maserati in 1975, the company had built 201 cars that year. Do you know how many Biturbos were sold? 40,000. I think he achieved what he set out to do.
And even if Craig Cheetham finds the design boring – and for Maserati it’s a pretty understated design – I think it’s undeniably good-looking. Compared to other luxury cars/sports coupes like the Mercedes-Benz 190E or a BMW E30, it looks downright striking.
And that engine! Twin turbos in 1981! They were 90° V6 engines with a displacement of two to 2.8 liters and a power output of 185 to 225 hp, depending on the year of manufacture and whether they were carbureted or fuel injected, etc. They were fast cars that could go from 0 to 60 in 6.7 seconds! A Maserati Merak from around the same time did it in 7.8 seconds, and everyone thinks that’s a real exotic sports car. The biturbo was faster, more practical and cheaper!
Also check out these interiors:
The Biturbo had truly amazing interiors, opulent seas of leather and wood and craftsmanship, right down to one of the most ornate and sumptuous gearshift gaiters ever seen by mankind. And those seats! They are incredible!
Were there any breakdowns? Was the reliability rubbish? Yes, of course it was! But was it worse than any other Italian sports car with a badge of a horse or bull or snakes eating people or whatever? No. There was just more Biturbos can be seen everywhere. But they are really no worse than other representatives of their particularly tricky breed.
I don’t think a car that looks, sounds and feels like this really deserves to be in a book about the “worst cars”:
Sure, it’s probably a bottomless pit, but it ticks all the boxes of character, drama, thrills and soul in a car, which are incredibly important; after all, these aren’t water heaters, they’re irrational, emotional machines.
I mean, look at this engine:
Before I even begin to imagine what a law might look like that would make the machine stop doing what it shouldn’t be doing or start doing what it should be doing, I’m already getting a few weak knees. It’s a wonderful machine.
Without the Biturbo, the modern Maserati wouldn’t exist, no matter what horror stories you’ve heard from the older brother of your father’s dentist friend’s former squash partner. These models put Maserati on the path to actually holding its own (you know, sort of) and are compelling cars, period.
So, my opinion: grab the book and rip out page 287. The Biturbo says goodbye.
Redemption of the book “The Worst Cars in the World”: Toyota Crown
Redemption of the book “The Worst Cars in the World”: Excalibur SSK
Redemption of the book “The Worst Cars in the World”: Skoda Estelle
