My first introduction to the Maserati 430 was by way of Automobile Magazine, and I still remembering unsheathing from its plastic wrapper and flipping open to the article. Being a car obsessed teenager, it struck me as an odd, undeniably quirky Italian sedan oozing with charm, mystery and probably just a few skeletons hiding inside its Bitrubo underpinnings. The years following that article were not particularly kind to the Biturbo, and even if the 430 had remedied many of the Biturbo’s earlier gremlins, it was still a Maserati that was surrounded by so much internet folklore ad myth I simply knew that I needed to own one so that I could satisfy both my desire to own one and to also set the record straight.
In November of 2019, I put forth the winning bid on a well known online classic car auctioning platform eagerly and awaited the arrival of my new-to-me 430 being shipped across the country from Seattle. It wasn’t the first time I had purchased a car sight unseen, nor was it my first Italian car of this vintage, so my expectations were reasonable: be prepared to spend an additional $3 – $5K right out of the gate to make it a worthy, weekend road warrior.
The Maserati arrived in a torrent of rain and I wondered if it would make the 50 mile drive home or if I would phoning a flatbed to rescue me. Much to my surprise, the 430 made its maiden journey without so much as a single warning light and it did not leak a single drop of water inside the cabin! It was an auspicious start, and the subsequent next few months with the 430 proved to be almost as uneventful. After performing a timing belt service and addressing a few other items (and satisfying my $3- $5K rule) I began taking it on longer trips. Just when I was ready to call BS on all the internet warriors, trouble struck, and I found myself stranded a few hundred miles from home with a clutch pedal stuck to the floor.
I hated to admit defeat, but I called AAA and had it flat bedded to Eurotec in Livingston, NJ, a trusted Italian car specialist that is well versed in these cars. They quickly repaired a failed slave cylinder and had me back on the road. Almost 2 years followed without major incident and then I began to experience the dreaded Biturbo electrical gremlins: no outside lights or turn signals, a dead instrument cluster, random no starts, etc. I sourced a rebuilt fusebox and everything was great again for another few years until that one also expired. Fortunately, there’s rejuvenated interest in Biturbos and 430s, and a company called Biturbox now makes a substantially upgraded plug a play fusebox which my car now has installed.
Over 5 years of ownership, the 430 has mostly delighted me and, in my mind, has put to rest all the unfounded rumors swilling from non Maserati owners. Like most of the other cars I own, the 430 is an underdog, a car that isn’t supposed to be very good. And the reward for me is finding out that these cars, are in fact, the exact opposite of what has been written about them by critics and people who have never driven them. I guess I’ve always been drawn in by cars that are under the radar, that aren’t the obvious answer because the universe is full of so many strange and wonderful automobiles.
The difference between car enthusiasts and car collectors is the enthusiast doesn’t go into ownership expecting a return on investment. We buy the cars we love first and foremost, and find out first hand, through trial and tribulation, what is true and what isn’t, always keeping our minds open to the experience. It has always been about the experience for The Autosnob and I will never stop seeking the unloved and undiscovered underdogs of the car world.
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