Almost a year ago Mr. Kogure, from Team Shamals in Japan, together with a few close friends, drew up plans for a very special two-day event to celebrate the Maserati Shamal's 20th anniversary - “20° Anniversario della Maserati Shamal – Venti di passione…”.

Team Shamals are not only active on the race track, they often organise "get togethers" with their Ghibli brothers and Quattroporte sisters. Known locally as “Gandini Touring”, this group meet up for short trips into the countryside and visits to places of special interest, and are usually joined by a maximum of 5 to 6 Shamals. However to celebrate this special occasion, the Team set themselves an ambitious target of assembling over 20 Shamals !!

Team Shamals and their friends made strenuous efforts to contact every Shamal owner in Japan, by making full use of their personal internet network including; event homepages, blogs, e-mails, etc. and through the Maserati service dealers network.

Having done their level best, the number of owners meeting up at the Nippon-daira Hotel in Shizuoka to participate on Day 1 ( the party staged on the eve of the event ) stood at 16, so the success of the event depended largely on the other 6 cars due to take part on Day 2.

An overcast sky, with a strong breeze made conditions a little chilly outside, but that morning in the background, Mount Fuji also celebrated the event by showing its beautiful and awesome snow-covered peak through the clouds.

The organisers, on the other hand, were a little more apprehensive, worrying about the numbers for day 2. As it turned out there was no need for them to be concerned, for they had exceeded their target with 22 Shamals in attendance, making it one of, if not the largest ever gathering of Shamals at a single event to date!!!

One of the highlights of the event occured later that day when, as the Shamals made their way to the venue for the photoshoot, they formed a most memorable line of supercars !