Lot 340: 1979 Maserati Merak SS

In the creative environment that coincided with the beginning of the 1970s, Maserati began work on the design of a car with high performance sporting characteristics capable of dominating the hard-fought 3 litre class of the market. In order to avoid risks the layout of the Merak, the name of a star in the constellation of Ursa Major, had more than one point in common with the company's successful flagship, the Bora, and something beyond a simple resemblance. The Geneva Salon of 1975 saw the debut of the most desirable Merak, the SS. Improvements included a reduction in overall weight of 153kg, an increase in power of 30bhp, an increase in wheel and tyre sizes to those of the Bora (with revised suspension settings to accommodate them), greatly improved instrumentation layout, interior, comfort and general build quality, and an increase in top speed to 250km/h. Weight distribution was also altered from 59/41 to 57 (front/rear) to make the car more evenly balanced than its sister, further enhancing the available performance over fast winding roads. Only some 250 SS versions of the Merak were produced before the model ceased to exist, as opposed to 1309 of the normal 3000 and 102 of the Merak 2000 (built exclusively to avoid the over-2-litre tax in the Italian market). This Merak SS of 1979, finished in Galio Fly with a black leather interior, sits proudly on its correct alloy wheels is described as being in excellent condition and comes complete with a years MoT.