1970 Maserati Ghibli 4.7 Coupe

This 1970 Maserati Ghibli 4.7 is finished in Argento Auteuil over tan leather and is offered from Constantia by constantia_ghibli, about this seller, its fourth owner and the keeper of the car for eighteen years. It carries the 4.7 litre quad cam dry sump V8 on four Weber 42 DCNF carburettors, drives through the ZF five speed, and shows 82,700km.

The car was converted from left to right hand drive by a Johannesburg specialist in November 1984 at 41,200km. That conversion is the first thing in this listing rather than something a buyer discovers on a lift, the invoice for it is published in full, and the firewall, pedal box and dash structure are photographed specifically so the quality of the work can be judged rather than described. The original left hand drive dash top was kept by the converting shop and does not come with the car.

The mechanical file since then is strong. Suspension and a rebuilt steering box in 2015, timing chains, tensioners and guides in 2019, the fuel tank removed, cleaned and sealed with all lines and pumps renewed in 2022, and all four carburettors stripped, rebuilt and balanced ahead of the sale in June. The car was resprayed to bare metal in the original colour in 2009 with one sill section let in, photographed in primer.

Every question put at intake was answered and nothing was declined. The flaws stated are slow vacuum headlamps with the left lagging the right, an optimistic fuel gauge in the top quarter, a driver's seat that has been recoloured rather than retrimmed, and a gearbox that is notchy into second when cold. Maserati Classiche has not been approached and the seller says so plainly.

Giorgetto Giugiaro drew the Ghibli at Ghia in 1966 when he was twenty eight, and it remains the argument for his being the most important car designer of the century. Long bonnet, cropped tail, a roof line barely higher than the front wing, and a shape that has not dated in sixty years. Underneath it is a 4.7 litre quad cam V8 with a dry sump derived from Maserati's sports racing engines, which is why the bonnet sits as low as it does.

1,149 coupes were built between 1967 and 1973, with the 4.9 litre SS arriving in 1970 and now commanding a premium that has produced a healthy population of 4.7s wearing SS badges. This car is a 4.7 and the seller has never described it otherwise.

Right hand drive conversion is a particular South African chapter. Very few Italian cars of this era were built in right hand drive, the market here was small, and the local answer through the 1970s and 1980s was to convert them. Some of that work was excellent and some of it was appalling, and the difference is visible in the firewall and the pedal box if a seller is willing to photograph them. Most are not.