#Biturbo

This 1984 Maserati Biturbo is the gas station sushi of the automotive world: It sounds like a bargain, but it’s quite possibly the worst idea ever.

I’ll admit, my automotive tastes are varied and odd. While I drive a sensible, reliable minivan, I lust after oddball wagons and pedestrian cars made from unobtainable parts. I often check West Coast Craigslists for old Peugeots — Portland is lousy with them for some reason — that I could fly out and drive home three thousand miles.

Then I stumble upon some truly odd stuff. What could be more “Crapwagon” than an exotic Italian sports sedan sold at an East Philly used car lot that shouts on Autotrader that “EVERYONE IS APPROVED! WALK IN, DRIVE OUT!”

The car still has a Bensi Box anti theft device for the Clarion head unit, fer chrissakes.

Your typical Maserati Biturbo isn’t worth much these days, which means that the cost/benefit analysis of one sitting under a tarp in the driveway often results in a trip to the nearest wrecking yard. In this series so far, we’ve seen this super-rare ’86 Biturbo Spyder, this not-so-rare ’84 Biturbo, and today’s first-year ’81 ’84 Biturbo. All three of these cars were photographed in California, one in Los Angeles and the other two in Oakland, and it’s a safe bet than none of them had driven on the street in the decade prior to arriving in the wrecking yard.

Yesterday, we saw a junked Jensen Interceptor that I photographed during a trip to Los Angeles. Today, I’ll follow that up with another rare import from the same yard: a Maserati Biturbo Spyder! This is only the second Biturbo in this series, after this ’84.