Let's remember her for her glorious story...

Some considerations about Maserati.
Maserati is dead and, if it isn't yet, it is certainly terminally ill.
And all this shame, thanks to the insane policies of the Stellantis group and its Italian shareholders, descendants of the Agnelli dynasty.
For those who, like me, have Maserati in their hearts and in their garage, it's really a big shame,
- The Grugliasco factory (formerly Bertone) has been closed after just ten years from the grand opening. And it's for sale on a real estate website.
- The Ghibli and Quattroporte were built in Mirafiori plant till the end of 2023, the Levante till the end of March 2024. None of these will be replaced.
- The Granturismo/Grancabrio is also built in Mirafiori at a rate of less than ten cars per day.
- The Grecale is built in the Cassino plant (together with the Alfas), where quality has never been a priority.
- The MC20 is produced in Modena with ridiculous numbers.
- The Modena experimental department, shared with Alfa Romeo, is being dismantled.
- The future ( which one ?? ) seems to be electric with the Folgore project.
Every growt project planned by Sergio Marchionne has been deleted after his death, and his dream to create a luxury pole with Alfa and Maserati brands is aborted.
What a shame !!!

 

Stellantis can be blamed for some of these decisions.
The often much praised Macchionne is responsible for many wrong decisions at Maserati:
- The Ghibli III was completely useless. Simply entering the leasing market with a vehicle in which (in Europe) AUDI, BMW and Mercedes are the "big players" and have reduced their leasing rates could not be successful. Plus the wrong decision with the name... (typical Marchionne, who was a technocrat and not a car guy. The man is completely overrated!). When the Ghibli III was on the market, sales of the more expensive QPVI dropped dramatically.

- the Levante did not come onto the market with the V8 from the start. The performance of its 6-cyl. engine was weaker than that of the much cheaper Alfa Romeo. Here Maserati's marketing simply failed in a clear contrast to the more elitist Levante.

- The launch of the MC20 took too long. At Cielo anyway. Now a facelift and increase in performance would be necessary. But it won't come... - The racing series for electric cars uses resources that are missing from the development of a “real” racing car.

- Marketing is generally not the strength of the Italian car industry (exception: Ferrari), or what is left of it.

 

A large number of auto manufacturers everywhere are going through issues now. Stellantis let go of hundreds of employees at Dodge; why? because who wants to pay $90,000 for a Dodge truck? They were not nearly competitive. Stellantis' number 1 brand (Jeep) is even having big issues, again because no one wants to pay the absurd amounts they're asking for a Jeep. Same thing is happening with Ford and GM. That is the underlying issues for many auto manufacturers, they are not building a product at a competitive price and Italian and US unions are not helping the situation. Relatively low skill labor has no business demanding massive salaries, but Unions won't stop their tactics and it's destroying manufacturing and sending it to countries that simply don't have union issues (China, Turkey, Mexico, etc).

Italians feel they are unique in some manner as they take a brand like Maserati, they build a decent car to compete in 'X' category with Mercedes and BMW, then proceed to price the Maserati $20,000 higher than the German equivalent. It's a recipe destined to fail.

 

When Marchionne decided to revive the struggling Maserati brand, he found himself needing to use a lot of the material already available in the group, to shorten the time and making lighter the first step in economic terms. In the meantime, he found himself faced with the key shareholders (Agnelli and Elkann) who had no intention of spending any money, but only the will of bringing home large profits, in any way. He also had to overcome the bad habit of the Fiat management at that time, which favored quantity over quality, and explain to them that it was much more profitable to make fewer cars with high added value, rather than chasing large numbers with low margins for each car.
And he found himself having to face a similar situation with the Alfa Romeo brand too.
I agree that Ghibli and Levante were not quite at the same level, at that time, as their German competitors. But planning a proper subsequent development of those models, the situation would soon improve.
In any case, at least initially, these cars made up for it with their glamour their other shortcomings.
Grecale is a Alfa Stelvio with a posh apparel but an exorbitant price.
Mc20 is light years away from the Maserati heritage.
Both are not true Maseratis .

Marchionne was not just a simple technocrat as you say, he was a true car enthusiast.
His main problem lay in mediating between the enormous economic problems of the FCA group and the ravenous family of shareholders who pretended profits at all costs.
And believe me ( I know what I say ), John Elkann is not so different from the corporate raider Gordon Gekko in the Oliver Stone movie "Wall Street"...

 

Unfortunately, the harmful Fiat way of thinking is almost impossible to be eradicated. I live in Turin and I know this well.
I totally agree with you, and even more so when you talk about the higher price than German premium cars.
Consider that I seriously looked into buying a Ghibli and then I decided to buy a BMW...

 

YouTube personalities constantly beating on Maserati's (sans the MC20 for the most part) are not helping the brand either. For whatever reason it is the European whipping brand of choice for YouTubers

I am not certain the extent in which Maserati is using outsourcing for parts, but I know pretty much everyone is having parts made in Turkey, Czech republic, China, and just assembling the cars in Germany or Italy. What I find funny is I have been to Istanbul and have seen the parts factories making OEM parts for German brands and they cast 'made in Germany' on the parts, when it's clearly not....

 

Shall we all just slit our wrists and send our Maseratis to wrecking yards?

There's a lot of the "fake news" aspects to this situation that one might find in the political arena and it actively drives sales downwards.
I just spent a week with fellow Maserati enthusiasts in the Santa Barbara area for a rally and social gathering. There were some vintage models but there were also a good number of more modern models and the owners were quite passionate about their experiences with these cars. All is not woe is me for owning one of these cars, so buck up!

 

You missed the debut of this very heavy 5500 lbs Maserati. It will need the extra 200hp to haul itself around. The regular car is 1300lb lighter, and there lies the big problem with E cars, weight. Plus they lack sound, a serious problem for enthusiasts. The fact that Maserati wastes money on E Formula is laughable. Meanwhile Ferrari wins Lemans and gets more press for doing it than Maserati has gotten in the last 60 years for everything!!

First Look Worth the Look: Maserati's Breathtakingly Gorgeous Electric Convertible (motortrend.com)

 

Believe me, it is not necessary to send these cars for demolition, least of all our loved vintage Maseratis.
We simply have to realize that the genuine Maseratis, the only ones that respect the spirit of the brand, aren't anymore the last cars today on sale altough they wear the trident on the nose, without deserving it.
The true and loved Maserati is definitively dead.

 

To give a 4-door sedan the name Ghibli, of one of the most glamorous coupés from the 60s, does not convince me that Macchionne was a car guy! Could you image, that this would happen to Ferrari? That -for example- their SUV would be a Daytona??? Definitely not. Ferrari is playing around by giving some of their new cars similar names of the past: Daytona, TDF, Lusso, etc ....and they know why!

I disagree with you about your opinion about the MC20, calling the car not a real Maserati. But the name is silly...

 

An electric Maserati is a nonsense, like a pizza topped with pineapple...

 

The name Ghibli was also given to a questionable car of the Biturbo generation, light years from the ancestor car. Marchionne din't do it...
The MC20 is the furthest thing there's from the Maserati spirit and heritage, a unrealistic attempt to stomp on the garden of Ferrari and Lamborghini.

 

I was in California recently and one afternoon we decided to look for pizza in Pismo Beach. We ordered a Margherita pizza with pepperoni and sausage and they did a decent job but the crust just wasn't right and one of the toppings available was ... pineapple! I think mango was also available !

 

For them to use electric at all it needs to be how Ferrari does it in the 296 and that they cannot afford to do. I haven't even ridden in an MC20 but the design is growing on me which is saying a lot after they abandoned the Alfieri.
Why do you find the MC20 to be so wrong for Maserati?

 

I love the MC20, prettiest sports car on the market now. Looks wise they absolutely nailed it. Dumb name though

 

Hate electric cars, love pineapple on pizza.....

In the freezer now I have a jalapeno/pineapple pizza....great stuff


The MC20 reminds me alot of the thud heard 'round the automotive world know as the "new" Acura NSX, which came standard with massive depreciation. The difference is I have confidence Acura will still be around and support it....Maserati not so much.

 

Batteries on wheels = The end of the automobile.

 

Easy there. Luv me some Hawaiian pizza.....and I know that it is cool or trendy or whatever for "true car guys" to be hating on electric cars in these forums, but I love my Tesla Model S. Incredible performance, so quick and responsive, and sexy looks to boot. It's hard not to love. What Tesla lacks is deep automotive design and manufacturing knowledge, which just makes them a bit quirky, like an Italian car! But they certainly figured out how to build a super fun machine. I never tire of all of that instant power (buying a Model S is not about saving money on gas!). Maserati has the potential to do the car part very well with the GranCabrio electric, but they are way behind on the technology. I hope they can catch up. That may very well be what determines whether Maserati stays with us as a part of our future or is just remembered fondly as a part of our glorious past.

 

=The end of sportscars as we know them. The new auto appliance will emerge, not born for the enthusiast.

But I think ICE/electric hybrids will win out as the world is not ready for full EV and will not be for many years due to many problems that are arising.

 

When one of the Biturno models was given the name Ghibli, it was not the times when heritage was important to Italian cars!
But when this 4-door sedan got that important name, the times they had changed....but Macchionne did not understand that!
As I said: this would NOT have been happened with Ferrari!

PS.: and even Alfa Romeo "recreated" the name Alfa 33 to a car that basically is a MC20 in new clothes....!

 

I didn't say that the MC20 is a wrong car, I just said that it is light years away from the Maserati heritage and that it takes up some concepts and stylistic features of the latest Ferrari and Lamborghini.
If Maserati identifies these two brands as its target competitors, it will be 100% a loser.
The concept introduced by Orsi, who made Maserati great, was to make elegant and luxurious cars, equipped with maximum comfort but, in the mean time, developing top performances.
A car, with which you could go to the opera premiere, take trips in comfort and luxury, use it daily with a non-fatiguing driveability, and all this with supercar performances. A concept that was probably much closer to Aston Martin than to Ferrari.

 

"a Margherita pizza with pepperoni and sausage", exists just in US. It cannot be called Margherita, believe me...

 

That was "supercar" performance circa the 1950's and 1960's but then things began to change as the 1970's arrived. Much in the automotive world has changed since then ... those light years.
I'm not sure what you think Maserati could or should build at this point? I don't believe that they could survive just making low volume niche super luxury sedans and coupes. I saw a very nice QP5 sport with the ZF automatic at the club event I attended in Santa Barbara. Maserati got the styling right on that car but that original cambiocorsa was a sin for that car. Had it arrived with the ZF to begin with and it could have I think it would have done much better.
Still, that was no luxury supercar like you could have gotten from AMG or in a BMW M car. I got a chance to drive a BMW 7 series as a rental for a day at that same event. We disliked that car so much we exchanged it for a Mercedes GLC 300 that had wonderful, sumptuous sports seats, adequate performance and good enough handling for us to place second in the club rally. The HVAC wasn't a very easy to operate or adequate. Ditto for the 7 series BMW. This kind of shocked me. Even now my 2015 Lincoln has a far superior HVAC system but sub par handling. The seats are no where as comfortable as those in the Mercedes whose comfort reminded very much of the seats from the QPIII and early Biturbo but with proper side bolster support WO being intrusive.

When Maserati underwent it's relaunch in 2002 with 3200 morphing into the 4200 mostly cabiocorsa cars I was skeptical that they could compete technologically. I still am because they don't have the resources that most of their competitors have. They are still sporting some Ferrari technology with a bit of Maserati flavoring but it's my understanding that this has come to an end.

 

It exists here that way because people add those toppings which pretty normal in NYC metro anyway. There's more freedom to customize your pies here and those two I find quite appropriate.
But when they start putting on pineapple no thanks.

 

The proper competitor to refer to now, would be Porsche.This in terms of range of products and in terms of numbers. And this was the target fixed by Sergio Marchionne when he was ceo of FCA.
But it would take so much money, that Stellantis would never invest.
So I said, for that reason, that Maserati is now a terminally ill.

The "supercar" performances of the '60 ( Maserati and Ferrari ) were similar to each other, so were the powers of their engines .
But it was so different the drivabilty. A Mistral was totally different from a 330 GTC in that terms. The same was a smooth Ghibli compared with a rude and heavy Daytona. When Lamborghini Miura then appeared and made the competitors cars age ten years, Ferrari, altought later, decided to follow it on a similar path.
In any case the performances of today's supercars, are not so different each other ( excluding the hypercars ), and even the technology of competitors is more similar to each other than it used to be.
What is different is the purpose of any car and the customer target of each brand. This is what i meant.