firedome . . .
In our Premier the PRV V-6 was almost faultless over 125,000 miles. Didn’t use oil, always started and ran well, didn’t overheat except when the heater hose burst or the radiator failed (plastic tank failed catastrophically late one night in Hollywood). Biggest issue with the powertrain was the damned slushbox with weird overly tall ratios: it constantly upshifted and even a small hit on the accelerator required a downshift, probably one reason the tranny died at 65,000. It would only allow the engine to rev in 3rd, at about 80 the engine was really in its’ powerband and sounded nice but I didn’t like the car enough to risk a big ticket to see how long it would hold 3rd. It was no ball of fire but completely adequate, with a proper manual five-speed would have been a much nicer car.
Regarding 90 degree V-6s, not they’re not ideal but can work OK. The PRV, like the Buick 3.8, started out as an odd-fire engine and like the Buick was then morphed into an even-fire engine via split crankshaft throws. There are lots of stories of why the PRV was 90 degrees rather than 60 as it should have been but none really make sense. In Buick’s case they wanted a cheap alternative to the aluminum 215 V8 and so weren’t about to buy new tooling for a 60 degree engine.
The SM’s Maserati C-114 V-6 is also 90 degrees but should not be confused with the PRV or any other engine. It has its’ own evolutionary limb in Maserati’s engine history and is distinct from even the later Biturbo V-6s; the layout is totally different with the flywheel being on the front of the C-114 and upper timing chains located above the bearing planes rather than at the end of the engine. When Citroen purchased Maserati in ‘68 the SM design had been largely finalized for a couple of years but they didn’t want to use their own resources to design an engine for a limited production car. Maserati provided the solution. Like Buick Maserati didn’t want to spend money for new tooling so a 90 degree engine looked to be a good answer. I once briefly met Guilio Alfieri but thought it would have been rude to ask if they looked at the Buick engine in designing the C-114!
When properly fettled, the C-114 is a good and reliable engine. Jerry Hathaway has seen a 2.7 go 225,000 miles and a 3.0 150,00 and his standards are very, very high. The vast majority of SMs are 2.7, the 3.0 was primarily a Maserati Merak engine but it ended out in most automatic SMs to compensate for the power losses of the crappy Borg-Warner automatic. A few manual 3.0s were produced for North American sale in ‘73 as well. However, the C-114 has no tolerance at all for poor maintenance. It will reward this with a very expensive lesson for the owner, as with the Volvo four vs. the PRV one of the problems here was the overall excellence and anvil-like reliability of the old Citroen DS inline four. It’s very hard to kill a DS engine and many owners, not to mention Citroen dealers, had no idea of how to deal with the C-114.
In terms of automotive progress the Buick 3.8 and C-114 make an interesting pair. For all it’s foibles the C-114 had a lot to recommend it in ‘70: it was very light, breathed well with double overhead cams, had good fuel distribution with the triple Weber two barrel carbs and had a special and sophisticated point style ignition system. It made excellent power and contrary to what people sometimes think about old-school exotic engines it has a very even powerband from low revs. By contrast the Buick was a pig, heavy and gutless, with no real virtues aside from being cheap and low maintenance. Fast forward to the late ‘80s however and GM’s careful development had completely transformed the 3.8: with electronic engine management and computer-driven internal changes the 3.8 had become a smooth, powerful, seriously reliable, durable and easy to maintain engine. Proof that even in the bad years GM still had some very real engineering and development talent.
By contrast C-114 became almost homeless after Peugeot bought Citroen in ‘75 and immediately canceled the SM and forced Maserati into receivership; it wouldn’t do for Citroen to have any glamour models. Maserati continued the C-114 for the Merak through ‘82 but aside from some porting work for the SS model and a Bosch stand-alone electronic distributor did no development on the engine. So it died as it was born, a curious little engine that could work well but could also be a bit challenging to keep that way. There is a clever guy in Phoenix who has managed to combine a bunch of old GM distributor parts intended for the early odd-fire Buick 3.8 and later HEI ignition to create a Delco distributor that fits the C-114. It isn’t such a technically elegant solution as the OEM dual point, dual condenser and dual coil SEV Marchal distributor but eliminates the unique set of dual points and special cap that each cost about $350, and of course no maintenance ever. Given what GM achieved with the 3.8 it boggles my mind to think what they could have made out of the C-114.
