Maserati Mexico

Maserati Mexico at a glance

The Mexico stood in Maserati's range next to the four-door Maserati Quattroporte, from which it took its mechanical base. Other Maserati models of every period are in the Maserati catalogue.

How the Mexico got its name

The story begins with a one-off. Vignale built a coupé prototype on the chassis of a 5000 GT, the 4.9-litre Maserati grand tourer. That chassis had suffered damage, and the new Vignale body was fitted before the car went on display in Turin in the autumn of 1965.

After the show the prototype was sold to Adolfo López Mateos, the president of Mexico. That sale gave the production car its name. Wikipedia adds a coincidence: in 1967 John Surtees won the Mexican Grand Prix in a Cooper-Maserati T81, a Formula One car with a Maserati engine.

The series car was first shown at the Rimini concours in August 1966. Two months later it was presented to an international audience in Paris.

Vignale design

The body was drawn by Virginio Vairo, who worked at Carrozzeria Vignale. Vignale's prototype of 1965 had already set the basic look of the two-door, four-seat body. At 4,760 mm the Mexico is a long car, but it is only 1,360 mm high and 1,720 mm wide.

Its wheelbase is 11 cm shorter than that of the Quattroporte saloon, which provided the platform. The prototype's look was later borrowed by Pietro Frua for a one-off, described below.

Engines and performance

The Mexico uses Maserati's 90° V8, which breathes through four twin-choke Weber 38 DCNL5 carburettors. The larger Tipo 107/1 engine displaces 4.7 litres and is rated at 216 kW (290 hp). A smaller Tipo 107 engine of 4.2 litres was added in 1969 as a second choice. With 216 kW and Wikipedia's dry weight of 1,830 kg, the 4.7 has about 8.5 kg to move per kilowatt.

Both versions could be ordered with a three-speed Borg-Warner automatic instead of the manual gearbox. Top speed is quoted at roughly 240–250 km/h. The source has no torque figures and no output for the 4.2-litre engine, so they are not given here.

Chassis, brakes and equipment

The platform is the Tipo AM107 of the first Quattroporte, with the wheelbase shortened by 11 cm to 2,640 mm. No earlier series Maserati had servo-assisted ventilated discs at all four corners; the Mexico introduced them.

The standard equipment list was long. Leather seats for four people, electric windows, a wooden dashboard, halogen headlights and air conditioning were all standard. Automatic transmission, power steering and a radio were extra-cost options. The 4.7-litre cars rolled on chromed Borrani wire wheels, while the 4.2-litre cars had steel disc wheels. Both used Pirelli Cinturato CN72 tyres in size 205VR15.

The Frua one-off

In May 1967 a second, very different Mexico appeared. The German dealer Auto Koenig commissioned it from Pietro Frua for one of its clients. Frua based the shape on the look of Vignale's prototype but used a shorter tubular chassis from the 3500 GT, with a wheelbase of 2,600 mm.

Instead of a V8, this car had the 3.7-litre six-cylinder engine of the Mistral, with Lucas fuel injection. It was painted in Oro Longchamps with a black leather interior and used the dashboard of the Quattroporte. It remained a unique car.

The Kyalami that followed

Wikipedia lists the Kyalami as the successor of the Mexico. It arrived in 1976, four years after the Mexico ended, and was again a four-seat coupé with a quad-cam V8. Pietro Frua designed its body on the basis of the De Tomaso Longchamp, and only 210 were built by 1983. The Mexico had sold more than twice as many.

Legacy

The Mexico gave Maserati a four-seat V8 coupé alongside the Quattroporte saloon, built on the same mechanical base. It also brought all-round ventilated disc brakes to Maserati's production cars. For the brand's longer story, read our history of Maserati.