Ah! We meet at last, Biturbo coupé. You embody everything that went so wrong during the dreaded De Tomaso era, even if you’re not the ugliest of the bunch (Ghibli II, anybody?)… I have already spilled much bile and ink on you, but always by way of a proxy. And now, here you are, in your slightly improved (but still quite horrid) two-door 222 variant. My Italian nemesis. Oh, I think I’m going to enjoy this.
There are, broadly speaking, two kinds of Biturbos: those that were actually called “Biturbo,” and those that were produced later without that name, which had become sales poison. Strictly speaking then, this is the Maserati 222 E – the Biturbo name was officially (but not universally) dropped in 1988, just as this model came to be.
As discussed plenty of times on CC already, the Biturbo’s rushed 1981 launch, ineptly piloted by the infamous Alejandro de Tomaso, was the car’s undoing. Developed on the proverbial shoestring, the Biturbo took its inspiration from the BMW 3-series, though it was aimed at a more exclusive clientele. Initial response was rapturous, making de Tomaso seem like a genuine Midas. The new small and relatively affordable Maser was selling like hotcakes, albeit half-baked ones. Early models (i.e. right until 1985 or so) were plagued by shoddy build, being assembled too quickly by various De Tomaso-owned concerns — including Innocenti, who had no expertise in luxury cars. The new twin-turbo DOHC V6 had its positive points, but reliability was not among them. To top it all off, the car’s handling in the wet was atrocious.
That didn’t stop Maserati from providing their new wundercar in a variety of bodies, including a four-door saloon, a wider luxury GT and a Zagato-built two-seater convertible. But the original Coupé, designed in 1977 by Pierangelo Andreani and taking its cues from the Quattroporte III, was always the archetype of the breed.
The many technical and production issues took a long time to solve. The handling was much improved by a new limited-slip diff and the engine’s most egregious woes were somewhat cured thanks to a new Weber-Marelli fuel injection system, but build quality remained a headache, now compounded by terrible word-of-mouth, bad reviews and dwindling sales.
In 1988, to coincide with the dropping of the Biturbo name, Marcello Gandini was roped in to give the range a bit of a facelift. It was subtle and the budget was tiny, but the designer did smooth out the car’s very late ’70s features – especially that grille.
This was of course spread to the rest of the range. As we can see from this 1989 French advert, the Biturbo name was not entirely dispensed with in all markets by this point in time. Nothing like a muddled PR campaign to help with a troubled car’s image. Some argue that the 222 is a Biturbo and that the name was only properly retired in 1991, when the 222 got a major facelift, or even 1994 when production was halted.
The original Biturbo had been pretty square on the inside too, but that aged rather quickly. The instrument binnacle in this 222 was more fashionably semi-circular and the nasty digital clock that used to be on the dash was replaced by the trademark oval gold clock. The equally (in-)famous “hot dog buns” on the central armrest would be a fixture of Maserati interiors for a good decade.
And yes, these coupés do qualify as four-seaters – pretty tight ones, but four seats nonetheless. Domestic 2-litre cars got cloth seats, but export models were given the leather treatment by default. Though I’m sure a number of Japanese clients would have ordered the cloth interior, if given the choice.
The “E” in “222 E” stands for Export. The Biturbo and most of its derivatives were usually available in Italy (and sometimes France) with a tax-friendly 2-litre V6, but the same model always had a larger displacement abroad – in the present case, 2.8 litres. Both versions were rated the same, at 225hp, but the 2.8 had a lot more torque. Transmissions were courtesy of ZF and included the default 5-speed manual or an optional 4-speed auto.
With under 1200kg to haul around, the all-alloy V6 was able to propel the car from zero to 100kph in about six seconds. Top speed was only around 230kph though, probably owing to brick-like aerodynamics. Contemporary testers remarked that the car’s brakes could be overworked if the 222 was driven hard. ABS was not on the options list, when it really should have been fitted as standard.
The Maserati 222 E is an object lesson in turd-polishing. It was objectively better than its direct predecessors in certain ways, but the fundamental nature of the car meant it was beyond salvation. This led to a spiralling effect (not unlike a toilet flush): Maserati spent time and money trying to address issues, while the Biturbo’s reputation went down the drain, causing sales to flatline and money for further development to dwindle. Rinse, wipe and repeat, until Fiat comes to the rescue.
Related posts:
Curbside Recycling: 1989 Maserati Biturbo Spyder Zagato – Italy’s Interpretation Of The Chevy Cavalier Z24 Convertible, by Jim Klein
Car Show Classic: 1990-96 Maserati Shamal – The Wildest Biturbo, by William Stopford
Curbside Classic: 1986 Maserati Biturbo Spyder – Do You Feel Lucky?, by Tom Klockau
Curbside Classic: 1992 Maserati 430 4v (AM332) – The Better Biturbo, by T87
CC Capsule: 1984 Maserati Biturbo Si – Sexy, Immobile, by Jeff Nelson
CC Capsule: 1997 Maserati Ghibli GT – The Last Vulgarati, by T87
CC Outtake: Maserati BiTurbo – Slammed In The Weeds, by Lee Wilcox
For me it just lacks the presence and charisma you need in an Italian car of this era to offset the reliability and durability issues.
+1
well said
Bite your tongue you shall, T87-san! It’s a little known fact that while most people believe the word BiTurbo means something has two turbos, really it’s a suburban Modenese slang word that translates to catnip. And I just can’t resist it.
I don’t know that I really want to live the ownership “experience” to its fullest myself, however that’s obviously just my frugal wallet commandeering the keyboard. I’ll cut Maserati a lot of slack for coming out with a car (or a dozen plus) that isn’t visually an overt “sports car”, in several variants from almost the beginning, realizing there could be improvements made, and then spending the better parts of two decades issuing an almost unfathomable number of different variants on the same basic platform with almost every aspect of it changing over that time, yet fundamentally still appearing much as the very first one did, or at least being clearly recognizable as such. All while being an in incredibly tight budget and generally playing with Other People’s Money. Yes, yes, Ghibli II made do with a trunk lid appearing to be fashioned by a fiberglass picnic table factory, however there’s clearly statement of purpose in many of the “upgrades” and changes over the years, up to and including the grille seen here meant to soften some of the initial lines; we had of course switched from a rectilinear styling era to full jellybean and that was Maserati’s apparent initial offering to the trend – “Gandini’ll fix it, he’s a master”. The interior was always (unless seen in severe distress) recognized as nothing less than sumptuous, I do like me a good soft hot dog bun or eight, and even in 1989 a 143hph top speed really wasn’t that easily/commonly achievable by others and of course they couldn’t have been all that unreliable, someone somewhere somehow got one to that 143mph figure to be able to tell of it right? I do wonder why though they never took the opportunity to try their hand at an estate format, somehow forgetting the clear potential for (maybe a few hundred?) more sales.
As an aside, the bigger sin regarding the BiTurbo era really isn’t from Maserati, a tiny and more or less broke car maker with many decades of history then just emerging from a shed, who never pretended to be for the common man (or woman); if it didn’t start, take a different car; if it broke, call a cab; if it caught fire, just order another, but really the sin is other makers introducing cars at around the same time such as the Citation from a maker with unlimited resources and capability sending many hundreds of thousands of cars out there that were in the aggregate no better but to people that had to actually depend on them day in and day out, and found parts of their days and lives upended by their cars that they were paying for with vastly more limited resources.
The head-on shot you provided says it all to me, opening the garage on that in the morning would provoke a very large smile, the look of those lights, fogs and grille reminding me of an eager and salivating (perhaps leaking coolant?) bulldog ready for its morning walk, and just tugging at the leash before even venturing past the threshold. The 222 coupe (and all the BiTurbo variants) are something we’ll never see again, they somehow got Maserati through one crisis and admittedly now into another, yet was also one of its most successful eras in terms of ubiquity and variations of form if still not perhaps overall profitability, rivalled only by today, yet today’s offerings are clearly far “too” common in some parts, leading to a loss of palpable excitement when spying a current model (most of them anyway).
What can I say, I’m spunky, I like my oatmeal lumpy, I love my Masers chunky, I’m sick with this…even here in the underground where you found this chariot of the lords. May the Biturbo live long and if nothing else provide plenty of fodder for us to opine over. Great find!
I had an inkling this one would be right up your alley, Jim-san…
Not sure a wagon would have tallied much more than a few dozen sales, myself. I’m not even sure if the 4-door cracked the 1000-unit mark. The really sold a lot of the early ones (all coupés) — I think 8000 in the first 4 years or something like that. And that was way too much for production to keep up. The poor build quality and reliability issues on the early Biturbos can therefore be seen as a way to lower demand (and expectations), while keeping prices up. Alejandro de T. was a visionary.
Sort of got a soft spot of sorts for this sub-species of Maserati – the BMW 3 series sometimes feels a bit too rational, unemotive, almost that cliché tactless (and nonsense) portrayal of German….this doesn’t but feels Italian in an era when the mid market Alfa Romeo saloon was not universally adored and starting to get a bit lost…
Also, it looked like you’d expect a Lancia Delta saloon to look…..
I’ve long thought the 425/430 versions to be a beautifully-proportioned proposition.
Even nicer than a Prisma…
Another opportunity expertly-wasted by the Italians.