A badly rusted, rare Italian sports car from the 1970s – a Maserati Merak – was put up for sale in Poland at a relatively low asking price, but will require major repairs before it can be put back on the road.

The Poland-based seller has listed the Maserati Merak for €15,000 – the equivalent of around AU$23,200 – and claims it is a “project to be restored” with complete parts, although the price of restoring the sports car could exceed the acquisition cost an already working example.

Maserati claims to have built approximately 1830 Merak sports cars between 1972 and 1982 and added the ‘SS’ variant to the range in 1976 with a more powerful 3.0 liter V6 engine than the standard car.

Fewer than 1000 examples of the Maserati Merak SS made it into production before the sports car was dropped from the company’s range in 1982 and served as the Italian marque’s last mid-engined model until the 2004 launch of the Ferrari-derived MC12.

In 1976, a Maserati Merak SS cost in Australia from US$80,000 plus road costs – that’s more than US$530,000 today, according to the Reserve Bank of Australia inflation calculator.

The history of this particular Maserati Merak is unclear as the seller claims to have US documents for the car (suggesting that it spent some time in North America) as well as proof of its legal importation into Europe.

The Maserati seller says the car is in Kraków, Poland and can be viewed by appointment.