who is the rarest of them all

O37

Member
Messages
101
You go to pick up your relatively rare Maserati Grancabrio following its yearly MOT, then find the next car on the ramp is one of just two, a bird's custard yellow 8C….

All in a quiet back street in a provincial town. Magic...

Made my chuckle when the MOT station said it was booked in simply as an Alfa…

8c.jpg
 

O37

Member
Messages
101
It's great. You should see the street ;)

The other relevance here to Maserati fans is it shares one of 'our' engines, 8C is the F136 YC whilst the GC sport is F136 YK, not sure what else is used on the 8C from Maserati, I did have a peek underneath and there appears to be plenty of carbon fibre splash plates below the transaxle. Believe the gearbox (single plate clutch) is from a Ferrari 599 (2006 onwards?), not sure how close this is to the one in the Maserati Stradale (coupe) MC shift ?

Either way the shift times of the 8C are close to the GC Sport Auto MC shift, 150ms.

People always say it's the best sounding car on the road, maybe I'm biased, but when the Maser fired up it sounded both louder and meaner :cool:

You can see I've convinced myself that it would be difficult to justify one at nearly £200K ;)

I'll get my coat....
 

alfatwo

Member
Messages
5,517
It's great. You should see the street ;)

The other relevance here to Maserati fans is it shares one of 'our' engines, 8C is the F136 YC whilst the GC sport is F136 YK, not sure what else is used on the 8C from Maserati, I did have a peek underneath and there appears to be plenty of carbon fibre splash plates below the transaxle. Believe the gearbox (single plate clutch) is from a Ferrari 599 (2006 onwards?), not sure how close this is to the one in the Maserati Stradale (coupe) MC shift ?

Either way the shift times of the 8C are close to the GC Sport Auto MC shift, 150ms.

People always say it's the best sounding car on the road, maybe I'm biased, but when the Maser fired up it sounded both louder and meaner :cool:

You can see I've convinced myself that it would be difficult to justify one at nearly £200K ;)

I'll get my coat....

The Alfa 8C is just brilliant as long as you don't have to carry any luggage and like driving in the gutter with it being a left hooker...apparently the later 8C Spider is even better as they'd sorted the suspension by then!

Dave
 

hilts uk

Member
Messages
945
Totally agree my experience the 8c spider is a great fun but with a tiny cramped interior and no boot (well not one that can hold even a Ryan air carry on) its just a daytrip car. Seems to me the 8c is a mish mash of Ferrari and Maserati parts - the radio and many switches are the same as the 599, the engine is a tweaked GTS. The gearbox is the F1 from the F430. Chassis is a QP hence its very very wide (almost a square car :) The sound is better than the GTS and stradale. The noise on the overun is ridiculous. The best stock exhaust ever imho. It even pops when changing up between 3 and 4 if you hit the revs. With 450bhp it should be quicker than its stats but its quiet a heavy car despite being all carbon body - thanks to the QP chassis. There are about 30 in the UK (500 globally) nearly all are stashed away in collections and not driven. You never see one with more than around 10k on the clock. I've only seen one other coupe on the road before and never another spider.

Here are some videos from my trip to Spain in it

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Lu1RCdXlxp3uG5qS2
https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipPD6MbIIO_rj0_x5leiIHZTpWAl9KJJ0QIi6Clc
https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipPbc-4OHaTggrJe7sG-Mx1h_7wiwZwW_Md2jQi_
 

Ewan

Member
Messages
6,756
As you say, it's become a car for collectors. A colleague at work has an 8C coupe with less than 2k miles. It's now in long term storage, all fluids drained, etc. Will be recommissioned when it is finally disinterred many years from now.
 

Felonious Crud

Administrator
Staff member
Messages
21,011
A colleague at work has an 8C coupe with less than 2k miles. It's now in long term storage, all fluids drained, etc. Will be recommissioned when it is finally disinterred many years from now.

Now that seems a shame, Ewan!
 

O37

Member
Messages
101
Hilts - Thanks for the owners insight, fascinating, saw one earlier in Edinburgh back in early September with a parking ticket on it, the DVLA check showed it had travelled just 3000 miles since 2010.

8c.jpg
 

allandwf

Member
Messages
10,958
Quite sad really. IMHO they should be driven to be enjoyed. Some, it may seem though, ownership is enough.
 
Messages
307
I’ve heard one and they do sound amazing.

Anyone know what they did to the exhaust to make it sound like that? I.e how do I get my Strad sounding like that? 4 years and 19k miles in and and I feel the modify itch coming on....
 

hilts uk

Member
Messages
945
Not sure what they did to get exhaust to get so much noise on the overrun etc. I imagine they took the view that it wouldnt be a day to day car so they could make it as loud as they liked. I like the blue colour on that one. Most spiders are pearl white which was the launch colour.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk
 

O37

Member
Messages
101
Just intrigued, is the limited slip differential lifted from a F car ? or Maserati's own? I only asked after looking closely whilst in the MOT bay.