Maserati Works Trofeo GT4

Year:	2010
Mileage:	11250
Engine size:	4.7
Gearbox:	F1
Fuel type:	Petrol
Colour:	Bianco Eldorado
Price:	£57,950

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For sale is an incredibly special road-going Race Car. This Works Maserati Granturismo Trofeo GT4 is one of 42 works Trofeos manufactured by Maserati, one of just 2 here in the UK, and the only one worldwide which has been registered to be legally driven on the road. It is surprisingly compliant on public roads which means it can be used for a mixture of events, track days, and country road driving. It is number 04/42, it has a V5 and a new MOT and a clean bill of health.

By way of background, Maserati ran their 'MC Trofeo' racing series from 2010 to 2015 where wealthy amateur and semi-pro race drivers holding appropriate FIA race licenses, would pay an annual fee and make their way to a circuit for a weekend of racing with a fully prepared race car, set up and maintained by Maserati race mechanics, ready and waiting for them. There would be a grid of 26 identical cars and each driver would carry out qualifying on the Saturday morning to determine the race 1 grid position and then compete in race 1 on Saturday afternoon and race 2 with a reverse grid on Sunday. The drivers would then fly home until the next race, when they would once more fly out the circuit where their, now serviced and fixed, car would be waiting for them once more. There would be 6 race weekends over the season visiting circuits such as Monza, Paul Ricard, Virginia Raceway, Zandvort, Suzuka and Abu Dhabi.
Maserati produced 42 of these cars in total as they had a few spare cars on hand plus used some for promotions and events such as Goodwood FOS etc. Each of the cars started out as a regular 4.7 GTS on the production line and indeed were assigned a VIN, and logged internally as a Granturismo finished in Bianco Eldorado. However, mid production and assembly, once the engine was fitted to the body shell, they were taken off the line and moved to racing division for the remaining build. This is where the magic happened and where they differ hugely from the road car. The engine and body shell is the same but ancillaries such as the manifolds and air intake are different plus there are no catalytic converters. There is no ABS, they have race brake discs and pads, there is no park brake, the gearbox does not have an automatic option. There is a different, fixed damper suspension set up, different anti roll bars, there is a bladder fuel tank and unique 18" diameter wheels which are a colossal 11" wide at the front 13" wide at the rear. The glass is all plexi, the wings, bonnet, nose cone, boot, doors and rear bumper are all composite material. They have a heavy duty roll cage with Sparco 6 point harness and Pro-Adv seats, a plumbed in fire extinguisher system, toggle switches for all controls and a removable Sparco steering wheel. It has a rear diffuser, straight through rear pipes, canards and a front splitter, extending to a full floor aero section. There are probably many other differences that I am forgetting but the good thing is that there is a full parts catalogue published and in theory, all parts are available to buy from your main dealer.
At the end of 2015, Maserati announced that they would end the series and 40 of them would be serviced and converted to GT4 spec. They would then sell these cars to private teams around the world who wished to enter them in the GT4 class of their respective GT racing series. Many ended up in America where they competed in the Pirelli World Challenge and the others were scattered around the rest of the world from Europe, to South America and the Far East.
Two of them were imported by Ebor GT in Yorkshire with one being successfully campaigned for a season in the British GT Championship and various other guest entries in the UK and mainland Europe. The other car was supposed to be raced in the UK too but Ebor were not able to find a pair of drivers who could bring a sufficiently competitive sponsorship package, so it was used as an occasional track day & test car. It is this car 04 of the 42 made, it came to the UK having covered around 16,500km and has covered a further 1,500km since then. The first four were built in the second half of 2009 with the remaining cars built in late 2009 and early 2010. All of the cars were rotated throughout the seasons and in the final season, this car was entered into four of the six rounds of the series at Paul Ricard, the Red Bull Ring, the Virginia International Raceway and finally at Abu Dhabi which was the final race of the series in December 2015.
When the car was purchased by the U.K. Maserati enthusiast who wished to make it road legal, it needed a great deal of work:
Firstly, needing road legal tyres (easier said than done with the wheel dimensions), a park brake, windscreen washers (it had wipers) and the emissions needed to be significantly cleaned up. Each item was worked through on the list with the emissions being the most difficult to tackle.
The car had a race map written onto the ECU, no cats and a non standard manifold. It had a pair of cats made and fitted into bespoke pipes by CSK race exhausts who used HJS for the 200 cell cats, the same used by Larini. Fortunately, Maserati used a standard loom for the race car so there were connectors already there to fit the front and rear lambda sensors into which in turn, send their readings back to the ECU. The ECU however had a specific race map which was designed to dump so much fuel through the injectors and was used to working with 110 octane race fuel. Rather than replace the ECU, it was decided to take it off and send it to DMS who have worked with 4.7 GT engines for a number of years and they took off the over-fueling race map (saving it on their hard drive in case we need it in the future) and put their road map on. It was re-presented it for the MOT and whilst it was much better, it was still way to high on the hydro carbons so it was decided to send the car down to DMS to tweak the ECU on their rolling road with the car, rather than just bench testing it. The car was then running very well and gave us peak power of 506bhp at around 6,800rpm but still the emissions were too high. Sports Italia then got involved: The race car does not have the usual air box and filter, instead is had a cone air filter with no box and subsequently does not have a MAF sensor. The ECU therefore cannot accurately mix the fuel and air resulting in dirty gasses. A MAF sensor was ordered, a beautiful bespoke billeted section was manufactured to house the sensor between the filter and the throttle body and hey presto, problem solved!
Once it had an MOT, ‘MyCarimport’ carried out the registration process which was also tricky because you are supposed to inform HMRC via the NOVA scheme within 14 days of a car entering the country - it's been here since early 2016. You also need a date of manufacture letter from the manufacturer which you would ordinarily get through your main dealer but it's not so easy when the VIN is not listed on their usual system. However, the registration process went very smoothly and was confirmed in less than 2 weeks.
The car then stayed with Sports Italia to have a thorough inspection, all of the belts and fluids changed, track rod ends and drop link replaced and anti corrosion treatment applied to the chassis and some other fettling.
The car then went back to Ebor in Yorkshire for a new front floor to be made to take the place of the splitter which was far too vulnerable and also an MOT failure as it protruded at least 20cm. Also, the rear pipes and diffuser required modifications.
It has been used sparingly since and has now been serviced and checked by Aldous Voice at AV Engineering Ltd and is ready to go, clutch is just 10% worn. There are a huge array of spares that will be included with the car. Any questions you have please don’t hesitate to get in touch.