After years of fiscal loss and an inordinate budget poured into its racing program, Maserati was, by the late 1950s, in desperate need of an appealing production road car. Salvation appeared at the 1957 Geneva Salon in the form of the 3500 GT. Featuring a detuned version of the six-cylinder engine from the successful sports-racing 350S, the 3500 GT was initially equipped with 12-inch finned drum brakes and a Salisbury-type rear axle, marrying a powerful motor with a compliant and sporting chassis.
Customer demand soon necessitated the formulation of an open-top version, and Maserati duly assigned a small number of chassis for design studies to Frua and Touring, the latter of which had already bodied the popular saloon. But ultimately the manufacturer approved a Giovanni Michelotti design built by the carrozzeria Vignale for a standard production model, which was officially introduced at the 1959 Turin Salon. Mounted on a shorter chassis for superior agility, the delectable Vignale Spyder was built in a modest quantity of just 242 examples through 1964. Later cars are particularly desirable for being equipped with front disc brakes and a ZF five-speed gearbox.
A distinctively styled alternative to the open models at Maranello, and one offering equivalent performance, the 3500 GT Spyder reversed Modena’s flagging fortunes while signaling a fresh chapter in the company’s celebrated history.
THE MASERATI IN THE TRAILER
The centerpiece of a decades-long saga, this 1961 Maserati 3500 GT Spyder was pursued and saved from entombment—literally. The story begins in 1992, when the current owner of the Spyder befriended a local Italian car repair specialist in Colorado. Over the course of a conversation pertaining to their shared interest in Italian sports cars, the repairman mentioned he had owned a Vignale Spyder since the early 1980s, but its location and status remained undefined.
Years later, in 2013, the Maserati was inquired about once again with the expressed interest to purely get a glimpse of this rare beauty. As it turned out, the car was interred within a semi-trailer buried under a pile of car parts at a storage facility outside of Denver. With some persuasion over the next year, a team was assembled to unearth the car. After cutting the locks to get into the trailer and several weekends of work to sort through the piles of parts, the Maserati was finally re-discovered with the preserved and largely corrosion-free body and chassis intact. Better yet, nearly all the car’s components were accounted for, including its original engine and body panels (which revealed matching-number stamps). Much of this process was photographed for posterity, and the images are truly a fascinating sight.
Not too long after this discovery, an agreement was made, and the car was sold to the current owner who had pursued the car for all this time. In 2019, Classic Investments began the process of making the Spyder whole once again. A well-executed restoration, the car is now presented in Grigio Flemington over Marrone (brown) Connolly leather with Borrani wheels, front disc brakes, and a five-speed transmission. All together over 5,000 hours, and over a million dollars, were invested into the car during this immense project.
Just 242 examples of the 3500 GT Spyder were built back in the 1960s, but few have as rich a history as the example on offer. Finally complete after over 35 years disassembled, stashed out of the public eye within a trailer, chassis AM101 1115 has been saved and restored to the benefit of all that appreciate one of the most beautiful cars from the 1960s.
