Maserati Classiche and the Maserati Certification of Authenticity

December 14th, 2021


Today Maserati Classiche announced they have started to certify cars and recreate spare parts.
You can read the full press release here: https://www.media.maserati.com/en-ww/releases/1667 and visit the Maserati Classiche website: https://www.maserati.com/international/en/ownership/maserati-heritage/maserati-classiche



Naturally, this evolution brings excitement to the community and will help enhance the perception of the cars and their restoration. Together with the Maserati Classiche team in Modena, Alfieri magazine has compiled a detailed article in Alfieri magazine #3. And the 12 workshops that are part of Classiche Masters are available to help obtain certification for your car. You can contact info@classichemasters with any questions.

Overview of the 12 workshops: https://www.classichemasters.com/workshops-listing

More on Alfieri magazine: https://www.classichemasters.com/alfieri-magazine


FYI,
Maserati Classiche is based at the Maserati factory in Modena.

Classiche Masters are 12 workshops located in Europe. It is a private initiative to unite experts in classic Maseratis who support the brand and its heritage by keeping the cars on the road.
Alfieri magazine is the independent publication for and by Maserati enthusiasts.

 

OK, some questions:

- but Maserati offers it and the 12 -independent??- workshops are doing the certification?
- Are they accepted by Maserati S.p.A. to do so?
- who supplies the written confirmation? The workshops OR Maserati S.p.A.?
- WHAT exactly are they confirming (VIN? Engine-no.? Gearbox-no.? Maserati did not write down the ZF-gearbox-no. in their documents for each 6-cyl.-car. From Ghibli I onwards they did. But Maserati and paperwork is a highly delicate issue. I wonder if they wrote the ZF-gearbox-no. with all V8-cars....!
So what are they confirming then in the certification process....that the particular 6-cyl.-car has a "type-correct" gearbox fitted. Sorry - but that is not enough. Ferrari wrote down everything properly by typewriter while these docs with Maserati look rather odd and it seems that the person who wrote it down by hand was in much haste due to an Atomic war...!
- and what about the differential-no.?

With the race cars:
- I am pretty sure that these 12 workshops that were promoted by Classiche Masters never had any race car in their shops. So how would they do the certification process?

MC12:
- Maserati also mentiones the MC12. So sorry, but I also doubt that these 12 shops ever worked on such a car...

 

No one outside of Europe.

 

Hello Walter,

I understand your reply but to avoid any confusion:
Maserati conducts the certification process at the factory without any involvement of the Classiche Masters. Maserati operates on its own.

The Classiche Masters workshops or any other Maserati experts are best positioned to assist in the preparation of cars before they go to the factory in Modena and hand over the car to the team at Maserati Classiche.
So, I repeat: the workshops are not involved with carrying out the process of certification.

What Maserati confirms and checks, how they score cars and how they come to a conclusion, I am not allowed to divulge. Any information or communication about that is solely the responsibility of Maserati Classiche and its team.

Sorry if the initial post created any confusion.

My best regards,
Pedro Cappelle

 

Maserati will conduct the certification inside the Maserati factory in Modena. So any cars outside Europe will have to be transported to Italy. This will be so for a certain time and during this period they are rolling out a service to other countries around the world. But for now, cars have to be in the Maserati factory.


To be clear, the Classiche Masters workshops can assist in preparing cars before they are shipped to Modena, but they are not involved in the certification process.

 

Pedro - many thanks for clarification. I can fully understand that you promote the 12 workshops, but to avoid any confusion you should be more selective WHERE you promote them. And you know, that there are more than 12 shops who have a very profund knowledge about Maserati...

 

To avoid any confusion:
Maserati conducts the certification process at the factory without any involvement of the Classiche Masters. Maserati operates on its own.

The Classiche Masters workshops or any other Maserati experts are best positioned to assist in preparing cars before they go to the factory in Modena and hand over the car to the team at Maserati Classiche.
So, I repeat: the workshops are not involved in carrying out the certification process.

 

I guess if it's a really rare and valuable collector car this might be worth the effort but so many vintage Maseratis don't fall into that category. If I had a mid 60-late 70's GT Maserati in the Americas, Asia or Australia I suspect that only the spyders might be worth what this would cost including he transportation. Who in the USA is going to send a Mexico, QP1, QPIII, Indy, Khamsin, Merak or Bora over for this?

 

biturbos don't count?

 

Are you kidding! LOL NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

 

]biturbos don't count?
In many cases the cost of certification will probably exceed the value of the car, so the demand will be less than great.

To me it is still not clear what you get. Is it similar to the Ferrari Red book? How much is it? The basics when you want to sell a service is to explain how much and what you get for your money. If I already have the classiche documents proving that my cars are matching numbers and colors. What is the benefit of this?

 

Certification is good for people that have no idea what they are buying and need someone else to tell them what it is. Or race cars and prototypes where the history might be convoluted. I, for one, refuse to pay Ferrari $7,000 (or whatever they are charging these days) so that they can tell me my Daytona is a real Daytona.
I know a situation where an owner thought he had a real Ghibli spyder when in fact it is a conversion. For these type of owners certification is a good thing.

Ivan

 

That kind of news would REALLY spoil your day…..

 

Hi,

the programme starts in Europe and it will be rolling out to other continents after the first 12 to 16 months.
Part of the procedure includes a pre-certification questionnaire to check eligibility.
When the programme expands, there will not be a need to ship cars from Australia, Canada, the US, ... to Modena.

 

For Maserati Classiche, Biturbos DO count as they are included in the list of cars that can receive certification.

 

The Classiche documents tell a car owner how the car left the factory and are useful during restoration e.g.
The Certificate of Authenticity will tell you how the car is compared to the 300-points in their checklist. They look at the use of materials, conversions, basically how close it remains to the homologation specifications. So, for example, US cars that have been converted to reflect EU specifications are not eligible for certification because they are far off the homologation specs.

Their pricing is set to allow everyone access to the services, e.g. Biturbos will be 1500 or 2000 euro (Coupé - Spyder), cars pre-1973 are priced at 3500 or 4000 euro (Coupé - Spyder).

 

Would be interested once the Assetto Corsa gets a few more years under its belt.

 

An interesting statement here is that 'So, for example, US cars that have been converted to reflect EU specifications are not eligible for certification because they are far off the homologation specs'....

Wow - I wonder how that will apply to those who converted US bumpers, exhaust manifolds, side markers, etc.. to EU equipment....!!! Will probably need to wait and see, but if these 'converted cars'
can't be certified... again Wow!!!

Mike

 

Mike just enjoy your cars and forget about this. I can think of so many things done to the GT cars of the 1970s-80s and especially the Biturbos to fix engineering or manufacturing issues that I'd never reverse. Not just the bumpers which I bet they'd let slide. That's like those photos of yourself with the bell bottom pants and silly haircut that never see the light of day. Everyone understands. BTW I think we're giving Pedro a little bit of a bad time. I hope he's a good sport.

 

In many cases the original equipment is not up to today's standards if you want to use the car. For example my Mistral received an updated Bosch fuel pump when the injection system was restored. This makes the car work in a perfect way like it could not with the old original fuel pump. I guess it could not get certified with a working fuel pump? I fully agree that modifications made to the appearence or other major changes should not be approved, but if it is for usability, I think it should.

 

Give them time, Maserati’s Classiche is still a work in progress. As the saying goes “Roma wasn’t built in a day”. Ferrari’s program began in 2006, it has evolved from its humble beginnings to the point that it an asset to the car to have a Red Book. As long as Maserati gets the right personnel involved it too will be an asset to Maserati owners.

 

Hi Mike, I just spoke with Pedro about this and will be writing Classiche about US bumper conversions not being punished.
Watch this space.

 

Hi, I am a good sport.
And so is the team in Modena, so let's give them ample time to roll out the efforts.
In the next Alfieri magazine, I wrote an editorial titled Familia mea, robur meum. "My family, my (source of) strength",
referring to Maserati, the fans and the car owners as that family and all benefit from a strong Maserati.

 

Yesssss...and thats exactly what I mentioned from 1945 () on...
As long as the Bora and Khamsin have the "US" stamped into their chassis number with all their ugly US-"additions", its original. Like it or not. Should these cars be converted to EU-specs, they are NOT original anymore.

 

I absolutely agree - but Ferrari was from the 1st day on very specific about the individual specifications of each of their cars! It will be interesting to see how Maserati S.p.A. will handle the number-puzzle they created many, many moons ago...