Maserati Bora

During the 1970s, cars were badly built, unreliable, impractical and slow. And this is not a downside: its a distinguishing characteristic of the period!
A certain genre (if you can call it a genre) could be labeled as 'Italian Exotica'. Cars of this genre generally had classic 70s wedge body shapes, muddled dashboards, bumpers which defied US traffic safety laws, vacuum powered pop-up headlamps which took ages to pop-up, hopelessly unreliable mid-mounted engines (in a low-capacity high-stress configuration) and electrical systems that never worked at any point during the cars life. They were also built in strictly limited numbers. The high price tag when new, coupled with the lack of rust proofing (which generally meant cars disintegrated after just five years life; Alfa Romeos were good at doing this) meant that there are few of these 'Italian Exotica' cars left today. Only 564 Maserati Boras were ever made, meaning that the chances of owning one today are quite slim.

This is a huge shame in my view. Cars like the Maserati Bora are in a class of their own. They aren't supercars, but they aren't hypercars either. They fit somewhere in between. This may, and probably will sound weird. Think of an orange. Full of Vitamin C for the immune system and a fresh, tart flavour that tingles the tastebuds. This is a supercar. Now think of a lemon. This is like an orange with all dials turned up to the max. More Vitamin C, a powerful hard to handle sour flavour that burns the tastebuds. This is a hypercar. Now think of a lime. Still a citrus fruit, but very different in flavour and the feeling on the tastebuds. This little analogy (hopefully) has explained the 'Exotica' genre.

The Maserati Bora is (in my view) the best representation of the 'Exotica' genre. It was Italian. It was mid-engined. It had a hopelessly unreliable 5 litre V8. It was beautiful. It was shaped like an aircraft wing. It featured slow pop-up lights. It had a dashboard that only the manufacturers could understand. It also featured a beautiful brushed stainless-steel roof, which was there purely for extra style and finesse. All of these things culminated in one of the most beautiful exotic cars of all time.

There are a few sad things about the Bora though. As mentioned earlier, the car lacked proper low speed crash protection, or 'bumpers' for short. The Bora passed all low speed crash regulations in all countries apart from the US, which was a huge market for all European car makers. Rather than risk losing huge profits by not selling the Bora in the US, Maserati fitted US bound cars with very ugly and unflattering black rubber spongey blobs on the front grille, and a hugely ugly black rubber bumper thing on the rear end of the car. This piece of ruinous legislation (which was really to reduce insurance claims from low speed accidents rather than passenger safety) meant that many stylish and elegant European cars were treated to ungainly and awkward black rubber bumpers which ruined the style and elegance which made the car attractive to the US market in the first place!

Thankfully, less than half of all Boras made were fitted with these ghastly additions, as few went to the US. Sadly, like an antique, few bought them when they were new and cheap, but this rarity has led to the value of mint condition Boras soar in the past few years. I saw one for sale in the US for NZ$200,000. Bear in mind that even a mint condition Bora will still be hard to drive, expensive to service and maintain, hugely costly to insure and finding parts when something drops off is damn-near impossible. And yet, I believe this is a blessing. Any normal person will heed these risks and only drive the Bora on special occasions. They will look after it with utmost care and attention. They will drive it with the utmost care and attention. In return, the car will make the driver feel special.

Because thats what Italian Exotic cars do. They make their drivers feel on top of the world.      

Alpine-Renault A-310

Why is it that when a product stands out from the crowd, it usually ends up with hardly any buyers, a company in severe debt and a tarnished reputation when something goes wrong. Think of the Concorde- the world's first and probably last supersonic airliner. It had hardly any passengers (despite being able to cross the Atlantic in three hours) hardly any airlines bought it and when ONE, yes only one crashed, the whole project was slowly dissolved into the pages of history.
Not only was Concorde fast and ground-breaking, it was different. It looked beautiful when standing on the tarmac next to boring, fat old 747s. It was more of a living thing, according to pilots, than an Airbus: which is more like a tool with no soul. And yet, it still died a horrible death: It ended up in a museum when it was more technologically advanced than the planes that took the museum goers to see it, standing on the museum floor with its engines never to breathe another molecule of air again.

Another product that was ground breaking was the Citroen SM. Not only did it look extremely stylish and aerodynamic, it was fast and it had the best suspension system ever invented: Hydro-pneumatic. A hugely costly system (which is why few cars these days use it) it enabled a comfortable ride at low speeds, but a firm and rewarding feel with minimal body-roll through corners at higher speeds.
It also had a 2.7 litre Maserati V6 engine, sending power to the front wheels. This last fact, coupled with the strange interior with unfathomable dashboard dials, and a high price when new, meant that the SM found few buyers.
This also makes me sad. Why, when Citroen went to all that effort to be different, was no one interested? This clearly indicates a level of ignorance among most car buyers: everyone chooses price first. This is obviously a huge part of buying a car, but it should be second or third on the priority list. When most people look for cars on eBay or Trade Me, they set a price bracket then check what type of car it is. I browse cars the other way round.

So what about the whole point of this post? The Alpine Renault A310. This was a weird car. No doubt about that first fact. It was based on a race-winning, rear-engined car called the Alpine A-110. This was a car built by  French company, Alpine (being French it was pronounced "Alpeene")
This car was built in the early '60s, and die out in the early 70s, but in the late 70s, the brand was bought by Renault, and they resurrected the brand and began churning out new versions of the original A-110. Called the A-310, it was absolutely brilliant. It was still as rear engined as the original, and Renault had focused it more toward the GT, luxury supercar end of the car spectrum, as opposed to the bare-no holds racer on which it was based.

So why do I like the A-310 so much? It was hugely different to all the other supercars being designed at the time, which were all mid-engined wedge shaped boxes, (step forward Lamborghini Countach and every Lotus built in the 70s) It was also deceiving. It had huge flared wheel arches and a very smooth aerodynamic profile (which earned it the title of having the lowest drag co-efficient of only 0.26) this meant that passers-by saw you driving along and believed you were in some exotic Italian supercar, costing far more than what you paid. The rear engine gave the Alpine unique handling. Massive amounts of fun oversteer thanks to the rear engine, rear drive layout but tamable and rather safe thanks to the excellent suspension and chassis setup.

Sadly, like the Citroen SM, it was a revolutionary car that no one was interested in, despite the valuable racing pedigree. It had a weird name that no one (except the French, who bought most of them) wanted to pronounce. It was also expensive for what it was ( the engine was the same 2.7 litre V6 once used in the Renault Espace people-carrier) and this engine didn't produce much power. The positioning of this engine also meant practicality was sort of non existent. In the 80s, a new Alpine A-610 was born, this time with a turbocharged 3 litre V6 and a new, perhaps even better looking body shape. This also found few buyers.

Like Concorde and the Citroen SM, the Alpine-Renault A-310 was a shot at being different that was instantly shot down by the masses. It was a shot at the weird and wonderful that many didn't care about.
This makes it rare, exclusive, and above all- different.