The Maserati 450S is a 2-door speedster (automobile) / speedster / 2-door coupe from Maserati, built from 1956 to 1958, at the height of the post-war boom. Under the bonnet: 4.5-litre DOHC V8 engine. Medardo Fantuzzi (original design) / Frank Costin (1957 coupe) drew it.
The background
The Maserati 450S (Tipo 54) is a Sports prototype produced by Italian automobile manufacturer Maserati for participating in FIA's endurance World Sportscar Championship racing. A total of nine were made. Development of the 450S started in 1954 under the codename Tipo 54 led by Vittorio Bellentani and Guido Taddeucci. Their intent was to use larger engines than those then used by Maserati.
The engineering
Power comes from 4.5-litre DOHC V8 engine; other versions carried different engines, listed in the specification table below. It shifts through a 5-speed manual. The layout matters: a front engine drives the rear wheels, the classic proportion — long bonnet, cabin set back — that most people picture when they picture a sports saloon or a grand tourer. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Where it sits
Its family tree is legible: it took over from the Maserati 350S; assembly was at Modena, Italy. Its contemporaries in the catalogue — the Nissan Skyline, the Fiat 500, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class — show what else the money bought that year. Its Maserati stablemates include the Maserati 150S and the Maserati 200S.
What it costs now
There is no federal ownership record for the Maserati 450S — it predates the complaint database or was never sold in the United States — so MotorJury publishes no running-cost figure for it. For a car of this age the price is set by the collector market and the condition of the individual example, not by a formula.