It started with a French pigeon. While hammering down a rural French D road during the Tour Auto, the errant bird made a surprisingly large dent in the front of this A6G Zagato. A few miles later, when the distributor exploded, the owner figured it was time to call it a day. Having only just bought the car this was their first event together, but he planned to do a Mille Miglia with it. He therefore decided to send it to McGrath Maserati to be prepared.

This car was presented new on the Maserati stand at the 1955 Paris Salon and its original colour was light blue. A previous American restorer had changed the colour to burgundy and it had also lost its unique polished aluminium bumpers. Our brief was not to completely restore the car, for it was intended to be used in anger, but instead to go right through it mechanically and repair the damage, oh and if we could just make some new bumpers…

That first round of work took place in time for the 2012 Mille Miglia and included resin impregnation of the cylinder head to overcome some porosity, a complete brake and suspension overhaul, wiring work and engine ancillary work including a complete carburettor overhaul. There are no off the shelf parts for A6Gs and therefore everything has to be made or adapted. It’s a slow process but the car was ready and tested ahead of that Mille Miglia and completed the event successfully.

It came back for some detailing prior to being exhibited next at the Uniques Concours in Florence later that year and then left to return to the USA. By 2016 it was back, the temptation to do just one more Mille Miglia too much to resist, but this time an engine fault developed and the car didn’t get any further than Rome. It therefore returned to McGrath, this time for a complete engine overhaul.

The damage was to the delicate valve gear, peculiar to the A6G engine but the rest of the engine was tired and a full rebuild with new internals including a new crankshaft was carried out by McGrath. In May 2018, the car returned to the start line in Brescia and this time it ran like clockwork.