Are Maseratis too cheap compared to Ferrari and other brands?

Who are you trying to convince?

Maserati has long suffered from lousy resale value. A lot of people still remember the BiTurbo. They are now good cars that appeal to a certain group of buyers. If the Company could get more for them, they would. I really doubt that significantly increasing the price would improve their bottom line.

Perhaps if they changed the name.

 

I agree that the Maserati cars are beautiful designs.

I keep trying to get the wife to trade in her 2004 Jaguar XJ8 on a QP.
But she loves her Jag sedan too much still.

 

They are/were also hampered by the original Quattroporte being rated as the car with the worst MPG at the time followed years later by the horrible stigma of the "Chrysler TC by Maserati."

 

Pulease, don't dig this stuff up again. You see, once upon a time, in another place, far, far away, Fiat had a pretty good strategy. Ferrari owned Maserati, and Fiat/Ferrari invested a lot of dough into increasing its production capacity. The idea was that Ferrari would capture the high end and Maserati would take the middle. Meanwhile, Fiat would position Alfa to take the low end. Not a bad idea, huh?

Predictably, they screwed the pooch. When Ferrari rolled out Maserati, it predictably got greedy and overpriced the cars by at least 25%. Moreover, FNA made Ferrari dealers spend a lot of money redoing their showrooms. So when Masers ended up sitting in those nice new showrooms because they were overpriced, Ferrari dealers started selling them at their dealer wholesale just to get rid of them. It gets worse. No sooner would a dealer get rid of his dogs than another truck would show up with more. And if the Ferrari dealer refused shipment, no Enzos for you!

Long story short, Maserati starts bleeding massive amounts of red ink. Then Fiat gets the bright idea of doing an IPO for Ferrari, but there's one problem - Ferrari owns Maserati. So Fiat strips Maserati from Ferrari, but then forgets about doing the IPO.

Meanwhile, Maserati starts cleaning up its act. The Q-port becomes a real luxury sedan. The two-door becomes a real luxury sports car. In fact, except for the badge, I think Maser's luxury sports car is better than Ferrari's California.

So it goes.

Dale

 

The designs are fine, and the engines sound good, but thats about it. The electronics suite is hopelessly outdated, assembly quality is a bit dodgy, especially in the interior.

The S550 is a better car by almost every objective measure compared to a QP. Same goes for the CL vs. the GT. Therefore, the only buyers for these cars are those that value the italian design over what is arguably a better car. I don't think you want to make these people pay even more.

 

The QP isn't that great but I think the GT is a proper competitor for the CL. Nobody beats Merc on tech but I would argue that the GT is built as well or better than a CL and the sound and driving experience are far superior to the CL.

The two cars I recommend to people the most is the GT and the full sized Range Rover. I have never met anyone who dislikes either.

 

You're kidding, right?

 

I don't think so, if Maserati was too cheap the demand would drive the price up. The resale value and lousy sales figures in my opinion actually shows they are priced too high.

 

I like how Maserati competes in that market between the exotic brands (Ferrari, Lambo, Bentley), and the luxury brands (Mercedes, BMW, Porsche, Jaguar, Lexus, ect.). I think they can carve out a niche in creating a more exclusive luxury brand, instead of slapping their brand on lower-end models like the other luxury brands have. The key will be in putting out beautifully, well-built cars, marketing the brand and cars, and making sure the dealers are at the top of their game.

 

QP is overpriced by $25000, the market speaks. It is a great car, we have had two trouble free QP's, and love them both. It would be even more suicidal for them to raise the prices.
I agree with dale on this topic, which makes me nervous.
Malcolm

 

I would say yes - and I own both. New or used, especially used, you get much more car for the money if you get a Maserati.

But nobody buys a Ferrari on the basis of value for money. A Ferrari is a special car in a way that nothing else, not even a Maserati, is. If you want a Ferrari, nothing else will do.

 

Well that may be about to change.

You do realize what the new Kubang is based on as well as the rumours about where it will be built?

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=336845

 

Years ago, I remember looking at 'new' Bi-Turbos that were sitting on a lot. The salesman opened the hood and you could already see rust, on some of the parts.

 

Funny.

Dale

 

Where'd all these things come from? I never saw one in my life until 18 mos. ago. Now they're like Ford pick-up's around here.;

 

I would say they are too expensive. Ferrari's are way too expensive these days as well. I just do not see the value in them. Resale value is bad on all luxury cars so the market speaks. The GT should be about $70,000

 

When I think Maserati I think beautiful but big and slow.
Big and slow does not win the resale race.

The Bora is one of my all time faves.

 

In Europe, Maseratis are priced at approx. the same level as Aston Martins with a V8 engine, but somewhat pricier than equivalent spec Jaguars, Porsches, etc. This appears more or less right to me.

If Maserati could have sold more cars - of their current line up - at a higher price, I suppose they would have done that...

A different matter, of course, is whether there is a market for more expensive Maseratis, perhaps with a 12-sylinder engine. Well, there might be, but FIAT doesn't seems interested in going in that direction with Maserati.

 

Yep, design and technic are fine! Sspension and geametrix are great - but the electronics are totally BS!

The Italians have not understood so far that in our days in this price level, customers expect

Q U A L I T Y !!!!!!!!

The Maserati media-system is still lousy. But Maserati Sp.A. don`t want to spend more money for better systems coming from Becker or VDO. Hopeless!

Also - and this is my talking since many moons!- a Quattroporte with V12 (derivated from a Ferrari V12) is small(er) no.`s would have helped image worldwide!

Ciao!
Walter

 

And if you'd left the Ferraris sitting outside as long as some those near abandoned Biturbos they would have looked the same too. Anyone have any electrical or fuse box issues on Ferraris from the 1980s?

The interiors were very fragile though. They didn't like long exposures in the sun. Kind of like the sticky buttons issue with modern Ferraris and Maseratis.

 

Slow? Come on.

 

That was the intended target price for the original 3200GT back in the mid 1990s when it was to be sold in the USA. But that was a hell of a long time ago. it never happened. Then Ferrari got a shot at re-working that car with a a new engine. By then it was north of $100K but had trouble selling.

They will never be able to build cars as reasonably as the bigger companies. So there has to be a reason to spend more for their version of a car.

I guess for some on here that's the problem. It's not a Ferrari, never will be but then either is a Lamborghini. Get over it already.

 

Personally, I wouldn't want Maserati to be anything like Lamborghini in its current shape.

I'd never want our cars to be a bunch of spare parts produced in Germany, then shipped to Italy and assembled there in a parking lot. A collection of plastic parts from cheap Audi cars. No thank you.

Here is some homework, take a cheap Audi A3, put it next to an expensive Gallardo and start counting all the parts which go to both cars... you'll be surprised how similar they are.

Anyone remember what happened to SAAB? GM bought them, completely ripped them apart, used SAAB's technology to upgrade their aging brands (Buick for example, which is a SAAB 9-3 car in Buick skin on top of the Opel platform), then once the brand was completely done, they sold it off. During the decades under GM, they only car they managed to produce was the SAAB 9-7, which was a complete failure because the car was just a re-badged TrailBlaizer.

Do you see the similarity with Audi and Lamborghini? The Gallardo is a mess of spare parts from Audi and Audi went on to produce the Audi R8 with what was Lamborghini in the first place.


What I'm trying to say, is that I'm glad Maserati is related to FIAT and Ferrari and Italy in general, and not owned by the Germans or the Americans or the Chinese or anyone but Italians (for good or for worse).

 

well, please accept my different view on the Lamborghini-issue!

Ae you sure that those people who work for Lancia and Alfa share your point of view?
They would be more than happy if -for example!- VW would buy them.

And VW has so deep pockets to buy a company twice as big than FIAT (not to mention BMW and Mercedes...)..

Ciao!
Walter