In an interview in Alfieri magazine #6, I go pretty in depth as to what went wrong at Maserati. Maserati was a political pawn within the FIAT (then FCA) empire. Marchionne never studied his history, what looked good on paper was a disaster in practice. Unfortunately they still haven’t corrected the issues and it has nothing to do with the product.
With out those cars there would be no Maserati at all. If you look at the terms of the sale to DeTomaso he had to suddenly make a volume seller so as to employ more people. I have and still love my 84 but then I modified it to fix the major flaws. It's still the most comfortable car I've had. Those seats are fantastic but not for sporty driving.
You introduced the other cars but no matter. The use of that Ferrari derived cambiocorsa is what made the QP5 a failure. It also hurt the 4200 coupe. Dumb, Dumb, Dumb decision. But for some reason it's Maserati that gets ragged on for that and those sticky buttons but not Ferrari. My 99 Suburban suffers from a few sticky buttons issues as well. I assume that no one is using that crap anymore? The QP6 and new Ghibli are ...
Yes the CC was bad so I don't know if it was on purpose by Ferrari or what bc the 360f1 i drove wasn't as bad. Never drove a 355f1 though. And they could have launched the qp with the zf box from the get go. No idea why they didn't. Ferrari gets a pretty bad reputation too with the sticky. But it's easier to spend 3k when your residual is 90k vs 20k. I don't know if Ferrari stopped. The ff has stickies. Enzo had it. The laf so far seems ok but I think some had it already? I would hope they stopped. It's wild to pay 300k for a car to have thar kind of ongoing quality issue.
That kind of a transmission, even the Ferrari version does not belong in large 4DR sedan that's going to be driven in urban areas. I was a ludicrous choice. I'd bet that Ferrari forced that mistake. That technology was too cutting edge. But they didn't have good automatic transaxle so when they did switch it affected the car's balance. Imagine if they'd had a 6 or even 5 speed transaxle in 4200 and QP5! I think the choices they've made for the MC20 are much better other than being overpriced. Though I've yet to see an interior selection I like but I'm more of a traditionalist. Which is why I really liked the Alfieri. They now have a new Gran Tourismo instead and the Folgore version is insanely fast. I wonder if will depreciate just like the Taycan has.
one of the reasons they used the CC in QPV was obtaining scale and reduced development costs. Problems really came to light when owners were driving in automatic mode, not something that was done often in Ferraris. Also many owners didn’t know how to drive the cars in manual mode, another reason clutches were wearing out fast. Biggest issue is not lifting during an up shift, simply read the owner’s manual.
I was asked by one Maserati official about my opinion for the QPV with F1-paddels. "I like the car very much - but not these strange F1-paddels! Why no standard auto-garbox that would suit much better to this kind of car?" "Walter - you don`t know the issue! The QP s the sports car among all these sedans!" Aha. When the QP V was launched in the US, I was invited in the launch at Pebble and talked to the then time CEO of Maserati North America. Suddenly someone tipped on my shoulder and it was one of the big US Ferrari collectors who owned at that time also a Maserati 300S that he raced most: "Hey, Walter how about you doing?". "Great! blahblahblah...what do you think about this great Maserati QP?" "Ahh...great car - but I don`t like to have this silly F1 gearbox in it in a jam on the LA-highways!" The US-CEO was shocked: "Who is this guy and why does he not order the QP when he has a 300S??". I told him that there were some billions of US$$s was walking away...! The US-sales of the QP V went up and after about 1 year went deeply into south direction. about 3/4 of a year the car came with the ZF-auto gearbox came out! With Maserati (in the past?) it was always the same: 2 steps ahead - and 1 step back! Then some VERY strange marketing mistakes! Example: The Alfa Stelvio came out with more hp than the Maserati Levante - but for a much lesser price! And: the V8 in the Levante came much too late! And Macchionne never understood Maserati and put the last (?) nail in the coffin. I can only hope that Maserati will make the right desicions in the near future....
John , is the cockpit roomy or tight like a McLaren ? Also how’s the engine sound? Better than the F8 or something better ?
I'll just add one more dig at the Cambiocorsa transaxle. At the time there were numerous problems with at box throw codes and I believe Ferrari ended up doing some changes. At the time I had an acquaintance and fellow Ghibli Cup owner who worked first for Aston Martin and then McLaren as a drive train specialist while those companies were developing their cars. He was very familiar with the Cambiocorsa version and it's issues. Besides the questionable choice for Maserati there were a lot of issues with the sensors that monitored everything going on inside the box. I asked if upgrading the sensors was possibly and he said yes but that wouldn't solve all of the issues so a new approach was needed. Perhaps that's what Ferrari did, I don't no?
It has a carbon tub like McLaren but not as tight once inside - actually more comfortable than a 458/488 and easy to use as a daily driver (I have only driven 2 McLaren's and never owned one so by no means an expert on those). Overall I like the way it drives - this feels more like a sports car whereas a 458/488 feels more like a race car - IMO. Sound.....well it is ok. Not as good as my 488 (and let's not even bring up 458 haha). Still have exhaust smell with top down but not as bad 400 miles in. Hope it goes away soon.
Black with carbon exterior package, black wheels, carbon brakes with blue calipers. That is a clean spec.
You couldn't get any more boring or less creative. I don't care for tarted up cars but all black? That's the Stevie wonder spec. Helen Keller or Ray Charles if you prefer ...
MC20 Notte Edition - 50 examples being built. Matte black exterior with gloss black roof, lots of carbon, white gold detailing on wheels and badges etc. https://www.maserati.com/gb/en/brand/stories-of-audacity/mc20-notte?wtl_source=nl Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Looks like the folks at Maserati disagree with you as they just release the MC20 Notte, which is an all black special edition https://www.maserati.com/us/en/brand/stories-of-audacity/mc20-notte Soon we will get the all pink Barbie special edition MC20 Ivan
Black cars are awful. They get the hottest when parked in the sun, and are visibly dirty within a few hours of washing them. Had one once... never again.
I REALLY like the choice of blue brake calipers, subtle, that’s what I was referencing, looks the shizzle.
Sure why not go for the no taste (slutty) look. But hey ... it worked for Lamborghini back in the day and it still does.
One could say that Maccionne never understood Ferrari, other than wanting to be the president of it. I still miss Luca di Montezemolo and Pininfarina.
Folks, forget al these so called "tests" of the MC20. The ultimate test came in the current issue of the German magazin SPORT AUTO,. They always do testing on the old (!) Nürburgring and the F1-Hockenheim circuit. In general they liked the car very much and praised its road handling. Fastest lap for the 20 km circuit with over 170 corners, most of the blind was surprising 7min 25 sec. The epic MC12 hade it in 7 min 24,9 sec in 2008. But a scandal is, that the test car had only 572 hp instead of the officially stated 630hp. They asked for a satement from Maserati and got the somehow silly answer that the car had been dynoed at 757 meter above sea level and the booster pressure regulator only works up to 600 meter...! And then they mentioned that the Maserati mechanics, who prepaired the car for the test, put in 95 octane fuel instead of 98 octane.....! The V/max was only 288 km/h instead of the promised 325 km/h. Acceleration 0-100 km/h was in poor 9.7 sec instead of the promised 8.8 sec. And the overal weight of the car was 1,645 kg against the official 1,475 kg... In general the car made it to position 26 of all cars ever tested on the old 'Ring which is not so bad. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
