Giugiaro's stupendous Maserati Boomerang heads to auction

02.09.2015 18:33

When the world's one-and-only Maserati Boomerang reaches the auction block at Bonhams' Chantilly Sale on 5 September, it is expected to fetch close to £3m. That's about 4.1m euros, 4.6m American dollars, 560m Japanese yen or 29.4m Chinese yuan.

Wherever you are, and whatever currency you use, such a sum will buy quite a lot. Like a private jet. Or a medieval castle. For a car, this is very big money. But the Boomerang is no ordinary car. Designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro, it debuted at the 1971 Turin motor show, and there's little doubt that it dropped many, many jaws during its 15 minutes of fame.

Maserati built the Boomerang on the chassis of its production Bora road car, and retained that car's sweet 300-horsepower V8. The Boomerang is fully road-legal and, should the new owner choose to poke the gods of fate with a big pointy stick, it is capable of touching 186mph.

Happily, the interior is as outlandish as the exterior, with slung-back one-piece seats and a dense cluster of gauges and switchgear, including stubby turn-indicator and headlamp stalks, arranged in a circle — inside the rim of the steering wheel.

"It’s considered by many to be one of the most remarkable designs of the 20th century,” says Philip Kantor, Bonhams’ motor-cars specialist. Indeed.

Pointy Italian exotics not your thing? Rest assured, Bonham's Chantilly Sale has plenty of other gems looking for new homes, including one of two 1996 Aston Martin V8 Sportsman Shooting Brakes, a matched set of coupe and roadster 1962 Jaguar E-Types, and the 1976 Mercedes-Benz 450 SEL 6.9 in which the Egypt-born French pop singer Claude François escaped a gun-wielding fan in 1977. How's that for a conversation-starter?

The Chantilly Sale kicks off at 18:00 CEST on 5 September, at the Château de Chantilly, Chantilly, France. Get acquainted with the lot list here.

(BBC)