Many major events and launches in the automotive world have been postponed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, one of the more tantalising of which was the relaunch of the Maserati brand that’s been pushed back from May to September.
Maserati, like Alfa Romeo, has been promised a lot by its parent firm Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) owner over the past decade or more, but been given the chance to deliver very little to realise its full potential.
And what has come from Maserati, the likes of the Maserati Ghibli and Maserati Levante, has been well short of rivals including Porsche and Mercedes-AMG. While actually creating at least some of the cars has been an improvement on some of the revival plans of the past, creating them to match and better the ever-higher standards has been beyond Maserati thus far.
Now there is a new plan, and an even more ambitious one at that. As we reveal, it includes up to 10 new models, including derivatives, before 2023, kicking off with a dramatic carbonfibre mid-engined supercar called MC20. The investment runs into the billions.
If it feels like we’ve been here before with Maserati, we have. However, there’s one key difference this time.
FCA’s upcoming merger with PSA puts Maserati’s feat under the ultimate control of Carlos Tavares, the future head of the combined PSA-FCA. No-one has a better track record in recent years of turning around brands, as he has shown both with Peugeot-Citroen and then again even more impressively for Opel-Vauxhall, loss-making in each of the 17 years previous.
Under Tavares’s watch, there can be no excuses for Maserati this time.
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MC20 supercar will lead bold Maserati revival
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Same problem.
Maserati has the same problem as Jaguar, they are producing Maserati, excluding the Levante, cars that looked dated inside and out.
Sorry but
Rebadging small cheap PSA products and calling them Vauxhalls is one thing, reviving an Italian sports car manufacturer is another thing entirely, I hope they have sackfulls of cash and a sense of humour, they are going to need it.
Owner vs brand history
The owner might be French mainstream, but VW is doing well with Lambo, Bugatti and Bentley; Geely is shaping Volvo back on track.... its all about brand history, finding the niche, setting up service, quality and good engineering, and last but not least a CEO who understands all that. Unfortunately thats a rare thing.