Once upon a time there was a Maserati

The future of the glorious brand, according to the ownership of Stellantis, should be electric. Meanwhile, however, production is on the nose and plants are closed.

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On December 1, 2024, it will be 110 years since Alfieri, along with his two other brothers Ernesto and Ettore, began decorating and creating Isotta Fraschinis in a basement outside Bologna. Twelve years later the first Maserati, named after them, took the track. On the “asthma” sign created by the fourth brother, Mario, who preferred brushes to articles: the Trident of Neptune from the fountain of Giambologna in Piazza Maggiore. Here: now the danger is that all this will sink into oblivion, overwhelmed by the electric current. Maserati – they decided on Stellantis, and Carlos Tavares in charge and John Elkann in agreement – will be a “stack” supercar. To make up for this, they took the Maserati Tipo Folgore run by MSG Racing to the Formula E championship the next time Trident left Ferrari and Alfa in the dust on the circuit. A surprising fate for those who, with a champion like Manuel Fangio, wrote the history of motorsport.

It is a completely Bolognese story that had a unique witness: Walter «Wall» Breveglieri, a motorcycle racer, then a Formula One driver, but above all a great photographer who saved 25 thousand shots of everything that Italy was in the post-war period. “I spent my life searching for information,” he said of himself “I saw the world through a strange lens”. It was on the motorcycle brought by the master of sports journalism Orio Vergani that he reported on the Tour de France; his photos then made the events he witnessed with Sergio Zavoli, Dino Buzzati, Enzo Biagi, Gianni Brera memorable. Giorgio Vecchietti persuaded him to become a cinematographer and left him in the permanent state of his house on the first hills of Bologna where Breviglieri has protected, almost as if he were a vestal virgin, the heroism of the Maseratis. He said: «I was the driver of the brothers when, after selling their creation to Dubu, they founded Osca: I did three great Formula One races; those engines didn’t make noise, but poetry.” In Wall’s pictures there is the whole history of Maserati which, although transferred by Orsi in ’37 to Modena, remained the fruit of the capital city of Bologna.

However, Maserati’s industrial history does not do justice to its value. Let’s repeat it again. From Bears it moved forward in 1968, when it was close to bankruptcy, to Citroën (the French were already in the fate of Trident); then, in 75, Alejandro De Tomaso – a former Argentinian driver who had raced with Osca engines – bought it and with the Biturbo made it a mass production car, in agreement with Chrysler. And today’s history is already written. In ’93, Fiat arrived and still has automotive “opposites” in its hands: Maserati was the car of the aristocracy, Ferrari of those who made money, the same difference between Lancia for the rural upper class and Alfa Romeo, the car of the extreme capitalists. But Fiat itself did what no one had ever dared and even seemed blasphemous: to transfer ownership of Maserati to “its” Ferrari. Like telling Bartali to be Coppi’s technician. In fact, after ten years the “Ferrari-powered” Quattroporte was released.

But it was with the arrival of Sergio Marchionne that Trident hoped to return to independent life. On the other hand, the Marrucino-Canada manager had a preference for Maserati. In Grugliasco, in the former Bertone factory, Marchionne had envisioned a luxury hub: record-breaking cars would be created there, the production philosophy of the Fca group was to be concentrated in a factory called the Gianni Agnelli Plant. Instead there, on the outskirts of Turin, with the new arrival of the French from Stellantis, a great separation between the old Fiat and Italy emerged. At four o’clock in the afternoon on December 23, the last Ghibli left the assembly line in Grugliasco, exactly ten years after the launch of the factory sought by Marchionne, the model that, together with another version of the legendary Quattroporte, brought. 2017 Maserati sold 55 thousand models. Last year it dropped to eight thousand and the Gianni Agnelli Factory was sold on a real estate listing site.

In the example of Stellantis, the elegant site is the shooting star: in the drawings of Carlos Tavares, the Maserati may be “planned”. Or rather we must, because the future of electric models is very certain. Still remaining in Turin, in Mirafiori there were three Maserati in production: Gran Turismo, Gran Cabrio and Levante, the first supercar SUV and Trident. On March 31, the last Levante left the “chain”. Tavares has decided that it will not be rebuilt. So Maserati production in Turin suddenly dropped from 25 jobs a day to eight. Furthermore, the future of the former Fiat model factory seems to have already been written, given the current plans of Stellantis. On March 24 there were 1,520 incentive transfers; the redundancy fund for 500 board workers will start from 22 April, while the program called “solidarity” has begun for a thousand Maserati workers in Mirafiori and will arrive at the end of the year. The reason? Basically two: the slow down of production and the delay of new models of the historical brand. In Mirafiori, in 2023, a total of 85 thousand cars were produced (between Maserati and 500); in 2024 it is unlikely to reach 50 thousand. But the delay of the announced “all electric” models is bad for Trident. The flagship of the company, the Quattroporte that was supposed to be ready in 2025 in the Folgore version, i.e. powered only by batteries, will probably arrive in late 2027, if not 2028. Why? Stellantis explains that “the level of performance must be proven” for a car that should cost no less than 180 thousand euros. The only novelty is the Gran Cabrio, still spotted with an “ancient” internal combustion engine: 3 liters of displacement, on canvas, record performance, price close to 250,000 euros. But the electric version announced as a convertible cannot be seen at the moment. And Grecale and Granturismo and this oil is also postponed. Because the idea of ​​making Maserati a battery-powered luxury car seems to be facing more obstacles than expected. And maybe even reconsider, given the way this market segment is doing today.

One thing is certain: very few remnants of Marchionne’s plan, and also the ideas that Gianni Agnelli had around “another Ferrari”. The latest sign – aside from the idea of ​​using the platform Stellantis’ “big STLA” for the Quattroporte model, which will be adopted for some French models and for the next Giulia Alfa Romeo EV – is what is happening in the factories of Modena. There are 173 redundancies, including 130 designers and engineers who were supposed to form the Design Lab and in January 220 workers from the Mc20 supercar chain ended up being laid off. In 2023, 1,244 units were produced, but the collapse of the Chinese market, which accounts for 22 percent of sales, makes the forecast bleak. The future of Atelier, which was supposed to start last year, is still unclear: it was created as a department of high-performance cars, with the aim of stopping the bleeding of sales that last December reached 48 percent. In fact, in the third quarter of 2023, the revenue decreased to 500 million euros, compared to 600 in the same period last year. After 110 years of history, the pit stop is coming to an end. How long? It depends on the battery recovery time. Indeed, if you look at Wall’s pictures, you don’t see any rack machines.