The First Maserati 5000 GT Frua Buried For 30 Years Resurfaces

Maserati has handed its Classiche certification to a car that spent three decades locked in an Egyptian warehouse. Chassis 103*064* is the first 5000 GT ever bodied by Pietro Frua. It is now the first 5000 GT Frua to carry the authentication.

Only 34 examples of the 5000 GT were built, and Maserati marks their production span from 1959 into the mid-1960s. Three of those cars wore Frua's bodywork.

This one's history runs through a shah, an imam, and a Saudi king before it vanished entirely.

Origins, Design, And Royal Commission

The 5000 GT exists because the Shah of Persia drove a Maserati 3500 GT and wanted something grander. Technical director Giulio Alfieri answered with project AM103. He dropped a 5.0-liter V8 derived from the Maserati 450S race car into a road-going grand tourer rated at over 350 hp.

Carrozzeria Touring built the first three cars. They appeared at the 1959 Turin Auto Show and picked up the "Shah of Persia" nickname after the man who started it all. Maserati then opened the AM103 platform to other coachbuilders, and Allemano, Pininfarina, Monterosa, Ghia, and finally Frua each put their own body on the same mechanical foundation.

Pietro Frua built three 5000 GTs in 1962, and chassis 103*064* was the first. It wore a "Luci di Mezzanotte" exterior over "Camoscio" interior trim, with a lower beltline and larger glass area that gave it a sleeker profile than the Touring and Allemano cars before it.

Maserati used the car for testing trials before putting it in front of the public at the 1963 Geneva Motor Show. Karim Aga Khan IV drove it there and liked it enough to order his own 5000 GT Frua.

From Royal Garage To Maserati Classiche Restoration

The prototype went back to Modena at the end of 1963 and sold to a new owner in Rome. In January 1966 that owner traded up to a newer Maserati and returned the Frua car to the factory, which repainted it "Rosso Rubino Chiaro" at the request of its next buyer, Saudi Prince Magid Ben Saoud.

Magid gave the car to his father, King Saud bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, and that gift set off the strangest chapter of its life. Egyptian authorities seized the car in 1967 after the Six-Day War and the king's departure from Egypt. It then sat impounded in a Cairo warehouse for more than three decades.

When the car resurfaced in 2000, it had covered roughly 7,900 miles and still had its major components intact. A Texas collector bought it and shipped it back to Modena, where it underwent a four-year restoration before reappearing at the 2004 Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este.

That restoration sits in the same tradition as Maserati's modern one-off work, including the one-off GT2 Stradale built as a tribute to the brand's racing roots. The car has now obtained Maserati Classiche certification, which verifies the authenticity of historic models using factory archives and technical checks. Separately, Maserati Fuoriserie and its Bottega studio, launched in 2021, handle bespoke customization and special projects for current and classic cars.