Maserati Marks Trident Centenary at Goodwood Revival With Eldorado and Birdcage

Maserati is the headline act at this weekend's Goodwood Revival, and it's bringing serious hardware: three of the rarest machines from Modena's Panini Collection — the Eldorado single-seater, the Tipo 61 "Birdcage," and a Pininfarina-bodied A6GCS berlinetta — will be displayed around the circuit to mark 100 years of the Trident.

The Revival runs September 18–20 at the Goodwood Motor Circuit in West Sussex, and the 2026 edition is themed "La Dolce Vita," a weekend-long celebration of Italian style and motorsport of the 1940s through 1960s. The racing program has been reshuffled to match, including a "Battle of Modena," while Sunday brings back the RAC TT Celebration, the event's marquee race.

The timing is no accident. Maserati dates its racing story to the Tipo 26's class win at the 1926 Targa Florio — the first victory for a car wearing the Trident — and has spent 2026 marking the centenary.

For American readers, the Eldorado is the one to know. Ice-cream maker Gino Zanetti commissioned the Tipo 420M/58 in 1958 for the Race of Two Worlds, a 500-mile, Indy-style event on Monza's banked oval that pitted European teams against American roadsters. Painted cream white with a grinning cowboy on the nose instead of Italian racing red, it became the first single-seater in Europe to carry a commercial sponsor's livery — the starting point of modern racing sponsorship.

Stirling Moss drove it at Monza on June 29, 1958, finishing fourth and fifth in the first two heats before a steering failure put the car into the guardrail in the third. Moss walked away, and the car survived. Power came from a 4.2-liter V8 derived from the 450S sports racer, and Maserati puts its top speed beyond 217 mph.

The A6GCS berlinetta is the beauty of the trio. Shown at the 1954 Turin Motor Show, it wrapped Pininfarina coachwork around the A6GCS/53 racing chassis. Only four were built, and Maserati notes it was the last Pininfarina-designed Maserati for more than half a century.

The Tipo 61 "Birdcage" earned its nickname from a spaceframe welded from roughly 200 small steel tubes, lighter and stiffer than the ladder frames of the day. With the factory out of works racing, privateers delivered the results: Lloyd "Lucky" Casner's Camoradi team won the Nürburgring 1000 Km outright in 1960, with Moss and Dan Gurney sharing the car, and repeated the win in 1961.

That any of the three is around to display owes much to one family. When the 19-car factory museum collection was consigned to a London auction in 1996, Modena entrepreneur Umberto Panini — of soccer-sticker fame — bought it before the sale, keeping the cars in the city where they were built. Maserati Classiche is supporting the Goodwood display.

The Revival caps a busy centenary calendar for the brand, and with the "Battle of Modena" on the race schedule, the Trident's birthday party won't be limited to static displays.