The Original Gran Turismo
Maserati’s A6 Set The Standard for Post War Grand Touring

For Maserati, the relationship between road cars and racing cars was always a close one; road cars spawned racing versions, and often a racing car provided the essential components for a roadgoing coupe. This is a tradition which lives on, with the marvelous GranSport coupe and its racing sibling, the GranSport Trofeo and, of course, with the championship-winning MC12.

So it was only natural that the very first Maserati road car, the Tipo A6 Gran Turismo, should be the starting point for the 2000 Sport – better known as the A6GCS. Their common heritage wouldn’t be immediately obvious if the two were stood side by side, but under the skin most of the running gear was common. That began with the straight-six engine, which was bored and stroked to take its capacity from 1.5 to 2 liters. In the A6GCS the single overhead camshaft, two-valve motor ran at a heady 11:1 compression ratio – the unreliable gasoline available at the time meant that an alcohol mix was required, which helped it to produce up to 140hp.

When Maserati first introduced the A6GCS, in 1947, the engine quickly became popular with racers in the post-war years; with a single camshaft, and only two valves per cylinder, it was simple and easy to work on. Similarly, the suspension used the same technology as the A6 Gran Turismo, and so was a proven design; even the final drive ratio was retained.

The engine made its contribution to the arcane name, as the ‘G’ stood for ‘ghisa’, indicating the cast iron used for the engine block. ‘A’ stood for Alfieri, it had a straight-six engine and was a road racing model – Corse Sport, hence A6GCS. The designation was retained for a car with the same chassis but a revised body – the two versions spanned a period of seven years.

Everything was done to optimize the handling, including positioning the engine to the right – this allowed the driver’s seat to be placed lower as it no longer had to clear the transmission tunnel. The engine was positioned behind the front axle to improve both weight distribution and handling – a design feature used today for both the Quattroporte and the new GranTurismo. But the most distinctive feature of the car was the single headlight, placed square in the middle of the nose; this led to the car being known as the ‘Monofaro’.

In its very first race, on the Circuit of Modena in 1947, the A6GCS took first and second places in the hands of Alberto Ascari and Luigi Villoresi. Not content to rest on their laurels, the car was subject to continual development by Maserati; it could also be configured for closed-circuit racing by removing the passenger seat and cycle-style fenders, which cut the weight to a mere 580kg.

The A6GCS was so successful that Maserati used it as the basis for the A6GCM, a dedicated Formula 2 racing car – the ‘M’ designation stood for Monoposto, or single-seater. The ‘G’ was retained, even though the twin-cam engine used an aluminum block. Even before the A6GCM hit the track, Maserati tried fitting the twin-cam engine, suitably detuned from its full-on racing specification, to the A6GCS; and in 1953 the ‘second generation’ car was launched, using the twin-cam engine and radically different bodywork after cycle-style fenders were outlawed. This turned the A6GCS into a very pretty open-top sports car; weighing only 740kg, and with 170bhp available, performance was rapid, with a top speed of around 140mph.

The new car was an instant success; racing in the 1953 Mille Miglia, it took first and second in class. A month later, in the Targa Florio, Emilio Giletti finished second overall and took another class win; third place and second in class went to another A6GCS, shared by Sergio Mantovani and one Juan Manuel Fangio. Giletti again took second place in the Circuit of Pescara, and went on to take the overall win in three Italian races – the Coppa del Toscana, the Giro dell’Umbria and the Giro delle Calabria.

The car’s successes were not confined to Italy; for example, the Swiss driver Emmanuel de Graffenried borrowed the A6GCS belonging to Giletti and entered two races in Brazil – the Rio de Janeiro Grand Prix, run on a 6.6-mile street circuit, and the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, on the Interlagos circuit. De Graffenried won both races, despite a torrential thunderstorm during the latter race. Another car, imported to the US by Fritz Koster, won several races across the States.

In 1954 Pinin Farina used an A6GCS rolling chassis as the basis for a stunningly beautiful berlinetta – a shape so inspirational that it bears a remarkable resemblance to that of the latest Maserati, the GranTurismo. This marvelous bodywork did not survive, sacrificed when a chassis was needed for a competition car. In recent years the owner of the car undertook the mammoth task of recreating the Pinin Farina design – and when the car came up at auction in 2002, the hammer fell at just over a million dollars.

Meanwhile the racing success of the car continued; 1954 saw the A6GCS take third and fifth overall in the Mille Miglia, while Luigi Musso claimed outright victory in the Naples Grand Prix. The A6GCS continued to be produced into 1955, but it was soon to be replaced by the first of a new dynasty of successful Maseratis, the 300S. With a total of 67 models built, the A6GCS became the most successful Maserati car – and that total would not be surpassed until the 3500 GT came along, in the late 50s and early 60s.

The A6GCS was an innovative and successful car, in both its versions. Originally developed sixty years ago from the A6 Gran Turismo, it was a fine example of the way that, for Maserati, road and racing cars were inextricably related. The wonderful Pininfarina coupe provided the inspiration for further generations of road cars – and it was such an elegant, timeless design that its echoes can still be seen in the latest Maserati, the GranTurismo.