This car was brought to us shortly after the current owner took delivery of it. It had just come out of a lengthy restoration in the US, and the previous owner in Belgium did the final assembly. We inspected the car and took it through the first test miles after the nut & bolt restoration, revealing several minor issues that needed sorting. We improved the braking power by installing new brake lines and a new but original brake booster. Addressing these issues really took the restoration from 95% to 100%.

We passed the car through Belgian MOT and had it registered for the road. The car runs beautifully smooth with the 4.7 engine being very performant. Over the years we performed the usual maintenance. The current owner has enjoyed the car with great care and attention, using it only for country road drives in sunny weather, preserving the car's concours quality to an absolute maximum.

Patrick Hanssens, February 2021

Specifications

Chassis number: AM115*132*
Build year: 1967
Body: Coupé
Transmission: ZF S 5/325
Matching number: Yes
Matching colours: Yes
Price: upon request

History

This early Maserati Ghibli (no. 66 of 1170 Ghibli coupés produced) left Italy via Genova in November 1967. It was delivered shortly after to Foreign Car City inc., Route 59, West Nyack, New York.
The car was finished in the rare but striking combination of Bianco Polo Park with a black leather interior and chrome wire wheels.
The second owner, Mr Bob Carr, cherished the Ghibli and would hold on to it for 37 years until his demise in 2006. His widow, ms. Donna Carr Roberts has nothing but fond memories of the Maserati, but she had to let it go in that same year.
The Ghibli would go on to stay in Indiana as it was purchased by Bill O., founder of a well-known online review site, internet millionaire and colourful figure overall. Although the car was in a perfect original condition, Mr O. decided to commission a complete restoration of the car with Healy Werks in Lawton, Iowa, asking they make it better than new.
What would follow is a classic but mind-boggling case of a restoration project gone wild. The people at Healey Werks must have literally taken every nut and bolt apart and put it under a magnifying glass because at a certain point they had amassed a whopping 1 million (!) dollars in staff-hours and parts. The car was not even assembled yet, and the body was painted but still on a rotisserie. Plenty of photos are available today of their meticulous work.
The project was bought by a Belgian civil engineer, and former airline pilot turned classic car dealer, in early 2016. He tells us the story of how he and his wife embarked on a trip to Iowa where they spent several days packing all the shiny overhauled and recommissioned parts of the Ghibli in thousands of little plastic bags before shipping them together with the freshly painted body in a container to Belgium. Together with his wife, he embarked on an eight-month journey, putting the giant puzzle back together. Hundreds of pictures document this restoration process.
The final result was breathtaking. The Ghibli is simply stunning in white with its original black interior carrying a lovely patina. It is a matching numbers engine/car and has the Maserati Classiche documents. The car's mechanics and body are better than new. Still, after such an extensive restoration, with every nut & bolt having been apart, the enthusiast amateur-restorer was afraid actually to test drive the car and proceeded to sell it in 2017.
The car remained in Belgium, joining an important Maserati Collection. The first thing the current owner did was take the car to Mistral Classics in Lauwe, Belgium. Several minor (but crucial) issues were discovered, confirming that the passionate amateur-restorer was probably right in being apprehensive of driving the car. Mistral Classics addressed the brakes and fuel lines, among some other issues, and once this was taken care of, the car was ready to really prove itself on the open road. This experience underlined once more the importance of having true specialists work on your classic Maserati.
Today the car has a Belgian registration and is driven regularly. Maintenance is done at regular intervals by Mistral Classics in Lauwe, Belgium. The car presents in an absolute concours condition.

Quote of the wife of the second owner:

“I met my husband in 1970 and much of our dating years were in the Maserati, so it has wonderful memories for me. After we married, we took on the responsibilities of his two children from his previous marriage and didn't drive the Maserati as much, maybe two or three times a year.

When he died in 2006, it was difficult to part with it, but I was faced with tremendously difficult business challenges and the downturn of the economy.

And, yes, the 42,000 IS the actual mileage. We only drove it on special occasions so we were proud that the mileage was minimal.

These are the only photos I could find and the quality is not great. They were taken around 1970. I hope these are of some help and useful in spite of the age of the images.

Regards,
Donna"

1967 Maserati Ghibli - 4.7 litre

History

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