Maserati 3500 GT

The Maserati 3500 GT and the Maserati 3500 GT Spyder are 2-door coupé and convertible grand tourers made by Italian car manufacturer Maserati between 1957 and 1964. It was a seminal vehicle for Maserati as the company's first successful attempt at the Gran Turismo market and series production.
In the early 1950s Maserati had achieved racing success and international visibility, thanks to cars such as the A6GCM; its 2-litre, twin cam inline-six engine had already been enlarged to three litre capacity on the Maserati 300S. Chief engineer Giulio Alfieri felt the next step was to design an all-new 3. 5-litre engine; the resulting long-stroke six, designed foremost for endurance racing on the Maserati 350S, was ready in 1955. In the meantime Maserati's first forays into the grand tourer market, the 1947 A6 1500, 1951 A6G 2000 and 1954 A6G/54, had proven that the business was feasible; but the A6 road cars were still built in just a dozen examples a year—hardly series production. A different approach was needed to build fully accomplished grand tourers....