Okay, let’s see now... Table of Contents... Lancia, Lotus – wait, here it is: Maserati. Maserati Bora, Maserati Ghibli, Maserati Mistrale... nothing for Maserati Khamsin. Not a word. As far as the big glossy World Supercars to Wet Yourself Over type of publication is concerned, the Khamsin never existed. The DeLorean or the Porsche 924 might get some coverage, mind you, but not the Khamsin. You won’t see it mentioned all that often in the enthusiast press, either. For a genuine 170mph Italian thoroughbred exotic, for the car that was the legendary Trident’s last and arguably best traditional front-engined GT, the recognition it gets is decidedly underwhelming.

Tough to figure, and tougher still when I was standing contentedly alongside one, contemplating the exquisite shape in the soft early light of a Mediterranean summer morning, totally unable to find a bad line anywhere. ‘God,’ I sighed, with a tone perhaps slightly too evocative of the aforementioned book title, ‘it is a beautiful thing, isn’t it?’

‘Oh yes, it’s gorgeous,’ said owner Michael Quinlan. ‘That’s one of the reasons I bought it. That, and the price; it just seemed like so much style and performance for the money.’ And the figure he quoted to me at that point, while not exactly pocket change, was a lot closer to new Japanese MPV than to classic Ferrari Daytona. Then he paused for a moment. ‘To be honest, though, I wasn’t specifically looking for a Khamsin – what originally attracted me was all the CitroΫn pieces.’

Which rather strikes straight to the heart of the model’s public profile dilemma. The Khamsin was a product of Maserati’s brief stewardship by the French firm better known for daringly engineered saloons than for grand prix glory, and, along with siblings Bora and Merak, it shares some of CitroΫn’s fascinating and innovative but definitely non-Italian technologies. For a died-in-the-wool CitroΫn man like Michael, this is a positive attribute.

As you might recall, Michael is the British expatriate Monégasque who recently invited us to bring down the new Maserati Quattroporte and try it out through the breathtaking mountains of southern France against his lovely CitroΫn SM. ‘Actually, I had been considering a Bora, but a couple of years ago I went to a Christie’s auction and saw this, loved the combination of engineering and styling, and started bidding. As a point of interest, it once belonged to Mike Oldfield, the fellow who did Tubular Bells. Didn’t seem to push up the final price, though... I guess it’s been a long time since The Exorcist.’

But if the Khamsin is appreciated by progressives like Michael, it was not so well received by the cognoscenti of the 1970s – and still isn’t. Total sales then were a third of its predecessor the Ghibli, a problem that was often attributed to the first oil crisis yet somehow didn’t harm contemporary sales of the equally thirsty Ferrari Boxer, and in today’s market the Ghibli is typically worth a 30 to 40 percent premium over a comparable Khamsin. If there is any surprise in this, however, it’s only that anyone is surprised. Cars are bought with the heart as much as with the head, most emphatically so by those of us who love Italian cars, and from day one the model has been dogged by whispers that it’s ‘not a real Maserati’.

It’s a shame, because in reality the Khamsin’s bloodlines are fundamentally as pure as any other post-war Maser road car. Conceived at Bertone as the Ghibli’s replacement, it debuted at the 1972 Torino Show and entered series production in ’74, ironically just before CitroΫn and Maserati parted company. The designer was Marcello Gandini, whose other work includes the iconic Lamborghinis Miura and Countach, the Alfa Montreal and the Lancia Stratos.

Unlike the mid-engined Bora and Merak, the first two cars introduced after CitroΫn’s 1968 takeover, the Khamsin’s layout is dead conventional: front-engined, rear-drive, long-bonnet Italian Grand Tourer; in physical dimensions and basic silhouette it is an almost identical twin to the Ghibli, and they share the same quad-cam, 90-degree V8 engine design that goes all the way back to the thundering Tipo 450S sports racer of 1956.

In fact, direct visual evidence of CitroΫn influence is pretty hard to find, even when you’re looking for it. Practically speaking, CitroΫn approached the mechanical relationship with Maserati as a mutually beneficial technology exchange: from the Italians, they got the neat little V6 that went in the flagship SM coupé, and in return Maserati got bits of their famous hydraulic expertise.

For the Khamsin, this meant an engine-powered pump to assist the brake, clutch and speed-sensitive power steering, raise the driver’s seat (yes, really), lift the headlamp pods, and very little else. True, this was the first road-Maser with independent rear suspension, but it’s bog standard IRS via double-wishbones, not CitroΫn self-levelling, and the chassis definitely doesn’t settle when the power goes off.

Once you open the bonnet, some differences do finally become apparent, provided you can drag your eyes off the sculpted, wrinkle-finish cam covers on that big lump of V8. For one thing, it’s a little more crowded than Masers used to be: the spare tyre lives under there, CitroΫn-fashion, and likewise the power steering rack is right up top in plain sight. That leads me to notice something else, something Michael had told me about and isn’t listed on your typical spec sheet: the engine sits way back in the chassis, behind the front axle line. This is technically a front-mid-engined car, a quality it shares not only with the SM but also with – guess what – the new Quattroporte. Maybe putting that CitroΫn hydraulic fluid into the Khamsin did introduce a little French DNA into the Italian gene pool after all.

Fortunately, when I slid through the driver’s door, it was back to all-Italian again. Sorry, CitroΫn fanciers, but this is the way I think the interior of a fast car should look: big, round Veglia gauges, alloy-spoke leather-wrapped steering wheel, huge central tunnel with stubby shifter, the hand-brake lever from my old Fiat 124 Spyder... hmmm, those keys seem familiar, too: Fiat 131? It doesn’t matter; it all looks super, and with the exception of the silliest plus-two seat in the history of the planet, it’s also pretty comfy. Although I will admit it took a while to realise the hydraulic jack for the driver’s seat was useless without the engine running.

With that I put the key in the ignition, pushed in the clutch pedal, and – bloody hell, I certainly hope we don’t get stuck in traffic; I’ve felt lighter clutches on antique bulldozers. Find neutral (quickly), lift the left foot before it cramps, and spin the starter; the engine fires more easily than most others with a double downdraught Weber for each pair of cylinders and, after a few seconds, the glaring red eyeball slam in the middle of the dash goes out to signal the Bridge that Hydraulic Pressure Has Been Successfully Achieved, and we may Proceed. Suddenly, the seat-jack not only works, it’s so eager that anyone over six feet had better be damn careful, or they’ll put a Dan Gurney-style GT40 helmet blister in the roofline.

Right. I gritted my teeth, grabbed the gear knob and gave the clutch an almighty shove, promptly slamming it resoundingly against the floorpan. Ah yes – hydraulic power-assisted clutch actuation... something else that works much better with the engine running... oops, that’s not first gear, is it, glad I didn’t stall and Sweet Holy Mother I sure got close to that gatepost... nobody was looking, were they?

A word of advice: take your novice Khamsin test-drive in a quiet, wide place with no distractions. The notoriously immediate CitroΫn power steering seems faster still in this car (Michael says it’s because the front wheels sweep a wider arc for the given amount of steering input); furthermore, the shift pattern is the cantankerous upside-down racing style, with first gear out of the ‘H’, and then there are the well-known CitroΫn zero-tolerance brakes. Add it all together, and somewhere in the first few miles you’re simply guaranteed to make some sort of embarrassing mistake; it’s a normal part of the learning curve. Sadly, it’s probably also one more reason for the label ‘not a real Maserati’.

Keep driving it, though, and the anxiety stage soon passes into a confidence stage – and ultimately leads to a downright cocky stage. Before long, I realised the engine has so much torque the first gear slot could very well be hidden in the glovebox for all it matters – you only use it for starting off anyway – and that a high, firm, sensitive brake pedal with absolutely no free travel is exactly what I want for driving deep into the turns. As for the steering, I was sold the minute I took a hairpin without shifting my hands on the wheel, just like the in-car camera shot over M Schumacher’s shoulder. Add in the excellent neutral handling balance and a total lack of fussiness, and you can get attached to this car in very short order indeed. Meet it halfway, and it’ll do anything in the world for you.

Then, on some out-of-the-way winding road I couldn’t possibly find again near our photoshoot village above Cannes, I happened across this set of corners. There was a tight, blind second-gear right, followed by a sweeping, open left-right-left, accelerating flat-out completely on through the lot with the car dancing gracefully along back and forth on tip-toes and an upshift in the middle, and back on the brakes hard, hard, harder and a blast on the throttle for the downshift for another blind right-hander, and finally nail it up through third and fourth with all those V8 horses bellowing down the mountainside. Well, yes, I should remember that part well enough, shouldn’t I? After all, I did turn around and drive it five times. Not a real Maserati, my ass.