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Maserati future plans unveiled
The shining light of the Fiat Group, Maserati is about to go on a product spreeCoupe and convertible versions of the Geneva Show-stopping Alfieri concept car will lead Maserati into the next phase of its €2 billion growth spurt.
CEO Harald Wester yesterday admitted public pressure had essentially forced Maserati's hand on the Alfieri, which will take on the Porsche 911 Turbo and the Jaguar F-Type V8 as soon as 2016.
Speaking at yesterday's huge Fiat Chrysler Automobiles product plan presentation, Wester said the Alfieri and the Levante SUV would lead Maserati to volumes of 75,000 cars a year by 2018.
The existing plan called for Maserati to jump from around 7000 cars a year in 2010 to 50,000 cars a year by 2015, so the new, €2 billion plan's 50 per cent rise in volume indicates growing confidence in the brand's future line-up. Maserati sold 15,300 cars last year, though with only half a year of Ghibli production.
While it won't have a big impact on volumes, the Alfieri, which is named after one of Maserati's founders, will be sold as both a rear-wheel drive and an all-wheel drive, with a choice of two twin-turbo V6 powerplants, and will sit below the GranTurismo.
Wester said yesterday that the Alfieri would retain the concept car's name and could be built at the new Grugliasco plant, near Torino. That would indicate it uses the same core architecture as the Ghibli and the Quattroporte. Both the four-door sedans are built in Grugliasco, while the older GranTurismo and GranCabrio are effectively short wheelbase versions of the last Quattroporte and are built at the company's headquarters in Modena.
The "new" Maserati plan began to unfold with the Quattroporte and then the Ghibli ranges, with the GranTurismo and the GranCabrio the only existing Maserati cars that predate the new engineering strictures.
In fact, while the Alfieri concept car was sold as production-ready during the Geneva Motor Show, it was actually sitting on a shortened GranTurismo chassis, similar to the one beneath the low-volume Alfa Romeo 8C production car.
But that was done for reasons of haste and convenience, because the rest of the car was geared up to sit on a shorter version of the Ghibli architecture, complete with its five-link rear suspension. While a coupe version will lead the way in 2016, a two-seat convertible will follow a year later.
The GranTurismo itself will be facelifted next year before making way for an all-new model, which will retain its four-seat layout, in 2018, Wester said. The successor to the GranCabrio is due a year later, however Wester refused to confirm that it would be built in Modena.
Maserati also reconfirmed its plans to launch its first SUV, the Levante, next year to underpin the volume growth in what will eventually be a six-model lineup.
It will come standard with all-wheel drive and boast a choice of turbocharged V6 and V8 engines, along with a V6 turbo-diesel.
That has encouraged Wester to forcast around €6 billion in revenues for Maserati in 2018, which will be a thumping 350 per cent jump in just five years. The investments needed to reach those targets include the development of high-mileage green cars, believed to be plug-in hybrid versions of the Levante, Quattroporte and Ghibli.
The standard Ghibli and Quattroporte lines will be regularly refreshed with more power, better economy and a more sophisticated version of the 3.0-litre turbodiesel V6 already in the works.
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Written byMichael Taylor
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Please see our Editorial Guidelines & Code of Ethics (including for more information about sponsored content and paid events). The information published on this website is of a general nature only and doesn’t consider your particular circumstances or needs.
If the price does not contain the notation that it is "Drive Away", the price may not include additional costs, such as stamp duty and other government charges.
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