Strip the Maserati Type V4 back to its specification sheet and the character is already there: 3961 cc 22.5° V16 32-valve DOHC, 375 hp. Maserati built from 1929 to 1932, the vintage years, when coachbuilders still shaped most of what was sold. Zagato drew it.
The background
The Maserati Tipo V4 was a grand tourer-style torpedo car, designed, developed, and built by Italian manufacturer Maserati, between 1929 and 1932. It was also notably the first known racecar to be powered by a V16 engine. Working on a shoestring budget, as always, the Maserati brothers found a solution that would allow them to use as much of the existing design as possible by simply stacking two straight-eight engines on a common crankcase at a 22.5° angle. Of course, in reality, it was not quite as simple as it looked on paper but this was the avenue pursued by Maserati. The new engine/car was dubbed the Tipo V4 in reference to the V16 engine and four-litre displacement. In order for the two engines to be fitted side-by-side with a central intake the head on the right side bank was reversed. This row of cylinders also ran in the opposite direction to allow for the two separate crankshafts to be connected through a single gear on the output shaft that was connected to the gearbox.
Gears at the front of the V16 engine were used to drive the twin overhead camshafts. Each bank of cylinders featured its own Roots-type supercharger mounted in front of the engine. In order for the engine to run properly, Edoardo Weber himself spent two weeks devising two meticulously tuned updraft carburettors for the V16. Once completely sorted, the new Maserati engine produced 280 bhp (209 kW; 284 PS), which was almost twice as much as the most potent Tipo 26 straight eight. The gearbox featured four forward gears only. The new V16 was mounted in a slightly widened steel ladder frame. Suspensio
The engineering
Power comes from 3961 cc 22.5° V16 32-valve DOHC; 375 hp is the published figure. 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. The wheelbase is 2670 mm. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Where it sits
Its contemporaries in the catalogue — the Bentley 8 Litre — 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 Type V4 — 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.