Those looking for an affordable classic exotic sports car from a famous Italian automaker need look no further than the 1964-70 Maserati Mistral, named after a famous wind that blows over the French Mediterranean coast.

The Mistral was one of Maserati's most successful cars and marked the end of the 1958-60 era of Maserati six-cylinder production models because the automaker switched to V-8s.

The Mistral also was the last of the traditional front-engine six-cylinder cars on which Maserati had built its post-World War II success as a producer of fast, luxurious sports cars.

Not that the sleek Mistral was slow with its "six." Far from it. Several early Mistrals had a 3.5-liter twin-cam six with two spark plugs per cylinder that was a detuned 235-horsepower version of Maserati's 350S race car six-cylinder. But the 3.5 soon was replaced by larger 3.7- and 4-liter versions of that engine with 245-255 horsepower. They displaced 225 and 245 cubic inches, respectively, thus letting Maserati beat the "1 horsepower per cubic inch" figure that was magical in America then.

The engine emits an appropriate exotic sports cars howl during hard acceleration. It did 0-60 mph in 7.2 seconds with the larger six-cylinder engines and had a top speed of 145-152 mph.

In fact, on a power-to-weight basis, the 4-liter Mistral was the hottest production Maserati road car ever. It weighed some 154 pounds less than its immediate predecessor, the Sebring, mostly because of its aluminum doors, hood and rear deck (hatch for the coupe, trunk lid for the convertible).

Steel reportedly was used for the rest of the body, but an undetermined number of Mistral coupes had all-aluminum bodies and thus were especially fast -- including one I owned.

The two-seat Mistral had much more going for it than the Maserati nameplate and a potent, race-derived engine. It was a total break in style from the automaker's previous two road cars, with distinctive, somewhat idiosyncratic styling from Italy's Pietro Frua.

The Mistral had Frua's characteristic design themes: a long sloping hood leading to a blade-like front bumper, low-set grille, tall, glassy "greenhouse" (for the coupe version), rounded corners and a high, short tail. The car looked sleeker and faster than its predecessor 3500GT and Sebring road models, with a lower door line and much larger glass area with more markedly curved glass.

The Mistral coupe was introduced at the 1963 Turin, Italy, auto show, and the convertible version debuted at the Geneva, Switzerland, show in 1964. A total of 828 coupes were built from 1964-70 and 120 convertibles were made from 1964-69. That was an impressive number of essentially hand-built cars from a small, exotic automaker. The car sold well both in America and Europe.

The construction process was somewhat complex, with bodies supplied by Maggiora of Turin, Italy, finished by Padane in Modena and then sent back to Maserati for engine and running gear. (All outfits in the Italian exotic car world knew each other.)

The rarer convertible, which had a stylish, optional hard top, is valued by the Old Cars Price Guide at $70,000-$100,000 in good to excellent condition, while the coupe is worth $31,500-$45,000. The Mistral cost $13,600 when new, and the price had risen to only $14,700 by 1968.

Convertible sports cars most often are worth more than coupes, and the highly coveted Mistral convertible is gorgeous. But the coupe looks more distinctive. While both versions of the Mistral have an unusual wedge-shaped hood and air-intake grille beneath the wide bumper, the coupe has a large lift-up wraparound rear window/hatch instead of a conventional trunk lid.

The rear-opening glass was an unusual feature later used for Porsche's 1977-88 924 and 1983-91 944 sports cars. The glass did away with an extended trunk lid that let Frua give the Mistral coupe a handsome, purposeful-looking "blunt" rear end.

Both Mistral models had a posh interior with space behind the seats for luggage or a small child. The large, supportive seats were fully adjustable, and a steering column helped provide a wide range of driving positions. Loaded with chrome-rim gauges, the dashboard looked as if pulled from a private airplane. Pedals were oversized for easier operation, and the long, nicely shaped wooden gearshift knob for the five-speed manual transmission looks gorgeous.

A three-speed automatic transmission also was offered, but most Mistrals had the easily shifted manual gearbox, which worked with a very light-action clutch pedal.

As with most exotic Italian sports cars of the 1960s, the Mistral still turns heads and has the performance to back up its racy styling. It can still easily devour open roads.