The fastest saloon car of the sixties. In the early 1960s, Giulio Alfieri started to work on a completely new project. Inspired by the success of its Gran Turismo cars, Maserati was now thinking about a saloon car. The new Quattroporte (Italian for “four doors”) of course needed to offer the same level of elegance, refinement, power and performances as the other trident products. With a top speed of 230km/h, it was the fastest saloon production car at the time. The design was from stylist Pietro Frua who took inspiration from the 5000GT, and the bodies were built by Vignale. The car had a modern sheet metal monocoque structure with box-section rails instead of a traditional tubular frame, and its 4.2L V8 engine derived from the unit used in the 5000GT. Seven of these cars cars were built with an engine that had its capacity increased to 4.7 litres. Famous Quattroporte I customers included Anthony Quinn, Marcello Mastroianni, Alberto Sordi and Prince Rainier III of Monaco.