During his decades in the automotive industry, Frank Stephenson has designed some truly iconic cars – and one of the most striking was the Maserati MC12.

In this video discussing the design of the MC12 and actually showing Stephenson sketching it out with a ballpoint pen, we get an insight into why the car looks the way it does and how the Moroccan-born designer had to compromise on one key area.

As you probably already know, the MC12 shares its chassis and many mechanical components with the Ferrari Enzo, but the Maserati hit the market being much longer, wider, and slightly taller than the Ferrari. In fact, if you were to show an MC12 and an Enzo side-by-side to someone, chances are they wouldn’t know the two are related.

The key area Stephenson had to compromise on was the shape of the side windows, which needed to maintain the same overall profile of those from the Enzo. Stephenson would have ideally liked to reshape the windows to more seamlessly flow into the wrap-around windscreen but was unable to do so.

Another interesting aspect of the MC12 that distinguishes it from the Enzo is the fact that its roof can be removed, further adding to its appeal.

Maserati only ever produced 62 examples of the MC12, and of those, 12 were race cars with the others being customer-delivered vehicles. Used examples rarely find their way onto the used car market, but those that do typically cost well over $2 million nowadays.