The Maserati Boomerang is a

concept car A concept car (also known as a concept vehicle or show vehicle) is a car made to showcase new styling or new technology. Concept cars are often exhibited at motor shows to gauge customer reaction to new and radical designs which may or may not ...

Giorgetto Giugiaro Giorgetto Giugiaro (; born 7 August 1938) is an Italian automotive designer. He has worked on supercars and popular everyday vehicles. He was named Car Designer of the Century in 1999 and inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 2002. He w ...

and produced by

Italdesign Italdesign-Giugiaro S.p.A. () is a design and engineering company and brand based in Moncalieri, Italy, that traces its roots to the 1968 foundation of Studi Italiani Realizzazione Prototipi S.p.A. by Giorgetto Giugiaro and Aldo Mantovani. Best ...

. It was first revealed at the

Turin Motor Show The Turin Motor Show () is an auto show held annually in Turin, Italy. The first official show took place between 21 and 24 April 1900, at the Castle of Valentino, becoming a permanent fixture in Turin from 1938 having shared it with Milan and Ro ...

in 1971 as a non-functional Epowood model, but by the time of the 1972

Geneva Auto Show The Geneva International Motor Show was an annual auto show held in March in the Swiss city of Geneva. The show was hosted at the Palexpo, a convention centre located next to the Geneva Cointrin International Airport. The Salon was organised b ...

it was based on

Maserati Bora The Maserati Bora (Tipo AM117) is a two-seat, rear mid-engine, rear-wheel drive sports car and grand tourer, manufactured by Maserati from 1971 to 1978. In common with other Maserati cars of the era, it is named after a wind, Bora being the w ...

chassis as a one-off. Maserati Boomerang rl

The Boomerang was registered as a road car, but it was intended as a one-off show car. It was shown in dozens of places, and after the 1974 car show in

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

it was sold to a private individual. In 1990, it was shown at the Bagatelle Concours in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, 1993 Concorso Italiano, Carmel (Calf.) and Pebble Beach, with a new owner and some restoration work having been done. It made an appearance again in 2000 at the

Monterey Historic Automobile Races The Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion is an annual event held at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in Monterey, California. Its purpose is to provide an event in which historic racecars can compete. It takes place over the course of one weekend ...

, and Pebble Beach - 50th Anniversary -, 2012 "BEST OF SHOW", May, Monte Carlo, Monaco, 2013 "BEST OF SHOW", October, Knokke, Belgium, 2014 "

Paris Motor Show The Paris Motor Show () is a biennial auto show in Paris. Held during October, it is one of the most important auto shows, often with many new production automobile and concept car debuts. The show presently takes place in Paris expo Porte de V ...

". On 5 September 2015, the Boomerang was auctioned by Bonhams at the

Château de Chantilly The Château de Chantilly () is a historic French château located in the town of Chantilly, Oise, about 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of Paris. The site comprises two attached buildings: the Petit Château, built around 1560 for Anne de Montmore ...

, France, and sold for €3,335,000 (approximately US$3.7 million).

Design

The design of the Boomerang would resonate through Giugiaro's future designs for many years. Its sharp angles and wedge shape could be easily recognised in the 1973 Audi Asso di Picche concept, 1973 VW Passat Mk1, 1974 VW Golf Mk1, 1976

Lotus Esprit The Lotus Esprit is a sports car built by Lotus Cars from 1976 to 2004 at their Hethel, England factory. It has a rear mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout. Together with the Lotus Elise / Exige, it is one of Lotus' most long-lived models. Th ...

and Medici II show car, 1979

Lancia Delta The Lancia Delta (stylized Lancia Delta (letter), δ) is a small family car produced by Italian automobile manufacturer Lancia in three generations. The first generation (1979–1994) debuted at the 1979 Frankfurt Motor Show#1979, Frankfurt Motor ...

and

Maserati Quattroporte III The Maserati Quattroporte () is a four-door full-size luxury sedan produced by Italian automobile manufacturer Maserati. The name translated from Italian means " four doors". The production of the sixth generation ended in late 2023, with the ...

, as well as the 1976 designed and 1981 launched DeLorean.

Specifications

The Boomerang is powered by a 4.7L

V8 engine A V8 engine is an eight- cylinder piston engine in which two banks of four cylinders share a common crankshaft and are arranged in a V configuration. Origins The first known V8 was the Antoinette, designed by Léon Levavasseur, a ...

producing and of torque, driving the rear wheels and mated to a 5-speed

manual transmission A manual transmission (MT), also known as manual gearbox, standard transmission (in Canadian English, Canada, British English, the United Kingdom and American English, the United States), or stick shift (in the United States), is a multi-speed ...

. The interior features a unique

dashboard A dashboard (also called dash, instrument panel or IP, or fascia) is a control panel (engineering), control panel set within the central console of a vehicle, boat, or cockpit of an aircraft or spacecraft. Usually located directly ahead of the ...

layout where the

steering wheel A steering wheel (also called a driving wheel, a hand wheel, or simply wheel) is a type of steering control in vehicles. Steering wheels are used in most modern land vehicles, including all mass-production automobiles, buses, light and hea ...

and gauge cluster are part of a single console that emerges from the dash, and the steering wheel rotates around the stationary gauges.

Other media

The Boomerang featured prominently in a 2014 series of

Louis Vuitton Louis Vuitton Malletier SAS, commonly known as Louis Vuitton (, ), is a French Luxury goods, luxury fashion house and company founded in 1854 by Louis Vuitton (designer), Louis Vuitton. The label's LV monogram appears on most of its products, ...

print and video ads, with photographs by

Jürgen Teller Juergen Teller (born 28 January 1964) is a German fine-art and fashion photographer. He was awarded the Citibank Prize for Photography in 2003 and received the Special Presentation International Center of Photography Infinity Award in 2018. M ...

showing the car and fashion models at the

Giardini della Biennale (Venice) The Venice Giardini or Giardini della Biennale is an area of parkland in the historic city of Venice which hosts the Venice Biennale, Venice Biennale Art Festival, a major part of the city's cultural Biennale. The gardens were created by Napoleon ...

References

External links

Boomerang A boomerang () is a thrown tool typically constructed with airfoil sections and designed to spin about an axis perpendicular to the direction of its flight, designed to return to the thrower. The origin of the word is from Australian Aborigin ...