Maserati Merak was born back in the late 60’s and was designed alongside the Bora, this week AmbientLife car photographer Tim Wallace had the opportunity to spend a little time with the modified SS version that first was produced in 1975 as the 220bhp option. This particular car had been in a full restoration programme for over 12 months to bring it back to life for a client in Hong Kong where the model is still very popular today with car enthusiasts and collectors alike.
The Merak was introduced as a low cost alternative to Maserati’s supercar, the Bora. Maserati’s goal was to basque on the limelight of the Bora by sharing some of the sheet metal. The French company Citroen was a majority stakeholder at this time and another goal was to utilize the V6 engine that had been developed for use on the Citroen SM.
From the doors forward, the Merak and Bora are virtually identical. The rest of the car is an entirely different story. The first iteration of the Merak can be distinguished by the Citroen style interior. Although not what you would typically find in an Italian car, this rather awkward interior is rather cool. The minor gauges (temp, oil) are very hard to read and rather useless,s and there is an over abundance of warning (idiot) lights. Around 1975 the interior dash was redesigned but still used way too much plastic. Finally in 1977 when the Bora went out of the production, the Merak all of the sudden became Maserati’s only sportscar and it received a significant interior upgrade. Also the car was rebadged as Merak SS. These cars shared
many of the interior components of the Bora, but not the seats nor the hydraulically operated pedals. The SS engine was first introduced during 1975, although the cars did not have the SS designation.
If you would like to learn more about lighting and how Tim works to achieve his photography then please join us online at Kelby Training where you can review and enjoy all of our online video classes, each of which is around a 1 hour in duration.
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