Factory records indicate that this 3500 GT Spider Vignale left the Modena works in August 1961, destined for a client in Milan.

The car was later exported to the US where it was restored for a collector who appears never to have driven it. In 1991 it was acquired by the present owner.

From an inspection condition appears to be superb: the interior is retrimmed in the finest quality leather with new, matching mohair soft top and black carpets.

The coachwork has been repainted in Rosso Corsa and shows no apparent faults. An optional factory hard top is also fitted, restored to the same standard as the body.

Maserati's first series produced road car attracted the attention of Italy's finest carrozzieri: Allemano, Bertone and Frua all created bodies for the 3500 GT.

Most coupés were the work of Touring, while all but one - a Frua-bodied example - of the much less-common spider version were the work of Carrozzeria Vignale.

The latter, one of the most illustrious of Italian coachbuilders, had been founded in 1948 by Alfredo Vignale, whose career had begun pre-war with a successful design on the FIAT Topolino chassis.

Carrozzeria Vignale designed and built cars for Ferrari, Lancia and Maserati among others, and in the 1960s branched out into automobile manufacture in its own right, making a series of models at its factory in Grugliasco, Turin.

In 1969 Alfredo Vignale sold his company to the De Tomaso Group and, sadly, lost his life three days later at the wheel of a Maserati.

Introduced in 1959, Vignale's Maserati 3500 GT spider was the creation of Giovanni Michelotti, at that time the company's star designer.

Constructed on a slightly shorter wheelbase - 250cm as opposed to 260cm - than the coupé and built only to order, the spider lasted in production until 1964, by which time just 245 of these very pretty cars had been made.

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