The Citroen SM was the first 4-wheel product of the Citroen marriage with Maserati. Then came the Maserati Bora, mostly Maserati but using some of the Citroen wizardry in hydraulics. Now we have the Maserati Merak, latest offspring of this union, rightly to be considered a little brother of the Bora but also closely related to the SM. A first meeting with the Merak was bound to leave a strong impression. It's fair to say that this car was one of the most beautiful Gran Turismo cars ever made. As mid-engine exotica go, sharing of bodies between models was rare, but Bora and Merak did just that. To good effect, too: the V-8 Bora was a smooth, successful design, and the Merak looked virtually the same from its nose back to the rear window.
From there rearward, though the basic shape remained similar, the Merak had entirely different sheet metal. The smaller engine (a V-6, remember) allowed more freedom with lines; the Merak had a lighter feel through the center of the car and surface interest the Bora lacked in this area. Whereas the Bora was all of a piece from cab on back, things were opened up on the Merak, leaving only flying buttresses to carry the roofline to the rear and avoid a chopped-roof 914 look. The buttresses were a masterpiece of execution, though of course they were purely decorative.
There was also more Citroen in the Merak than there was in the Bora, in fact the whole SM cockpit front - instruments, dash cantilevered-rim steering wheel and all - was fitted neatly into this seemingly unrelated body. No coincidence! But the seats were an all-new and completely Maserati, , arguably the best seats in any mid-engine coupe from the era - excluding the Bora itself. You didn't get the Bora's hydraulically adjustable pedals in the Merak, so the seats themselves had to be more conventional.
Another departure from the Bora was that the Merak was, by some remote stretch of the imagination, a 2 + 2. The shorter engine allowed something resembling two occasional seats behind the main ones, and it was conceivable that two small children or adult cats could sit there. If nothing else these did provide a little extra storage space, though, and for anyone given to claustrophobia they could be valuable as mere space.
The Merak's engine was the then latest 2965-cc version of the 90° V-6 that started at 2670-cc, in carbureted form with three Webers capable of 190 bhp @ 6000 rpm. The SM had essentially the same unit, although in detoxed form the Citroen version did not develop that same 190 bhp. The 5-speed gearbox through which it drove was Citroen, not ZF as was used in the Bora. Chassis layout was like the Bora's and the Merak's brakes were also fully powered by the Citroen high-pressure hydraulic pump. The Merak's steering was conventional rack-and-pinion despite the implications of the SM steering wheel.
Entry and egress was easy for a car of this type because of extremely wide doors. Once inside and behind the wheel there was the feeling that there was lots of space: adequate room for 6-footers, unusual in a mid-engine car. The pleated leather door panels featured perfectly placed leather armrests that would remind you that the Merak's designer, Giugiaro, earned his reputation of master interior designer. Going up through the gears 6000 rpm would come up quickly, and the gearbox was such a beauty that getting from one gear to the next was sheer pleasure.
Acceleration was impressive but not brutal, accompanied by the V-6's deep throb. There was a lot of this wonderful noise going toward the redline in the lower gears - but slip that lever into 5th and everything quietens down beautifully for an untiring long trip. One of the great advantages of mid-engine cars, particularly from this era, was the ease of steering most of them enjoyed without any power assist. The Merak was no exception. Steering required little effort; yet there was a heavy - perhaps a better word is secure - feeling to the car. At low speeds it seemed absolutely glued to the road and soaked up all kinds of road surfaces in its stride. As you increased speed the feeling lightened, but not too much, and on high-speed curves it tracked as if on banking.
The brakes felt like Citroen brakes and required a special touch. Pedal travel was virtually nil: apply pressure and you got a kind of remote-control feel of braking power as if you were actuating some giant disc brake as big as the engine. Everything stopped, and the car maintained its great tracking stability under heavy braking. Only 200 lb lighter than the Citroen SM or 500 less than the husky Bora, the Merak was no lightweight but a luxury sports car built to last. It wasn't all that cheap either. It was produced in smaller numbers to its nearest competitor, the Ferrari Dino, and Meraks came off the same assembly line as Boras, put together by the same people. |
