Pietro Frua was commissioned by De Tomaso to undertake the restyling of the Tom Tjaarda-designed Longchamp to give the new car a distinctive Maserati feel.

[2][3][4] The Kyalami was launched at the 1976 Geneva Motor Show and was initially powered by a 265 PS (195 kW; 261 hp) 4.2 litre V8 engine with a redline of 6,000 rpm.

[3] Mechanically, the Kyalami was closely related to the contemporary Quattroporte III, which was also offered with the same engines but with a Chrysler-built automatic transmission instead of the Borg Warner unit.

[4] In recent comparison tests, the Kyalami proved to be a better-performing car than the Longchamp it was based on, primarily due to the use of a manual transmission.

Nonetheless, a few customers demanded such a variant and an independent German tuning company began offering a conversion to the convertible body style.