The Maserati Merak SS was a sports car manufactured by Italian auto company Maserati. Car experts consider the Merak to be essentially a scaled down version of the more expensive Maserati Bora with a smaller engine and a marginally different exterior appearance. In all other key aspects, the Merak is almost a clone of the more popular Bora. The Merak is considered to be an exotic sports car due to a combination of factors like the vehicle’s production in very limited numbers not exceeding two thousand specimens and also due to fact that its factory production stopped after 1982. The Merak produced a seductive combination of good looks allied with excellent performance if the twin parameters of high speed and fast pickup were taken into consideration. The car cost around $12,000 at the time of its launch in 1974 and today a fully functional Merak can fetch anywhere in the range of $30,000 to $50,000 in an auction.