► Mark Walton reminisces about Maserati
► The 3200 GT saved Maser’s bacon before
► Can anything save it the same way now?
I was in Modena in September 1998 for the press launch of the Maserati 3200 GT, the one with the boomerang-shaped tail lights. I remember CAR wanted to get an exclusive first twin test, comparing the new GT to the Jaguar XKR. In order to foil the Maserati PR team (who would have gone nuts if they’d found out) we cunningly hired my brother to drive the Jaguar down to Italy, leaving me to innocently take part in the full extravaganza that is An Italian Press Event – Stirling Moss, Luca de Montezemolo, lots of pasta, the full works. The idea was, I’d get the keys to the GT, wave goodbye to the PR team, set off (alone), then duck out of the official route to meet my brother and the CAR photographer on a quiet back-road to carry out our clandestine two-car shoot.
The plan was perfect, until it wasn’t. Back in the era before ubiquitous mobile communications and – to be fair – without all the facts at his disposal, my poor brother drove the thousand miles to Italy and then unwittingly booked himself into exactly the same hotel as the whole of the British press contingent. I mean, of all the places in Modena, what are the chances? But it happened – and as our Maserati host took us all out for dinner the evening before our drive, we left the hotel and I was horrified to see a dark green Jaguar XKR on UK plates parked literally outside the front door, bonnet still warm and exhaust still ticking from the drive down. All the journalists started hooting and ribbing the poor Maserati PR guy, who’d clearly been mugged. By the time I returned from our secret shoot the next day, everyone knew the XKR had come to meet me. Awkward – but CAR got its twin test.
I was reminded of the 3200 GT with its boomerang-shaped tail lights by the news a while back that Stellantis had thought of flogging Maserati off, due to its soggy sales chart. Maserati revenues halved in the first six months of 2024, down from €1.3 billion in 2023 to €631 million, a catastrophic fall when you’re investing in electrification like Stellantis has been. The flop triggered a write-off of over quarter of a billion quid to ‘reset’ Maserati’s finances, which clearly hurt, and the now-departed Stellantis CEO, Carlos Tavares, said there was ‘no taboo’ against selling off underperforming brands. ‘If they don’t make money, we’ll shut them down,’ he said, in a brutal Portuguese manner that would have made every right-thinking Italian patriot shudder. Maserati isn’t used to being treated like this! It normally drags the pain out for years and years, sucking the parent company dry until they all go bust and then Maserati is sold to Citroën or Morgan or some other completely inappropriate new owner.
But even if it is sold, what next? The 3200 GT really saved Maserati in a way that I don’t think any single car could save it now. Back then, a Ferrari-developed sports coupe with boomerang-shaped tail lights was exactly what Maserati needed, and it injected new life into a brand that was well into TVR territory back in 1998, selling around 500 cars that year. Now Stellantis says Maserati is barely viable shifting 26,000 cars (which it did in 2023) and it’s dead if sales are halved.
So what next? Over to you, our intelligent, well-informed readers of CAR Magazine. What would you do with this great brand? Another Maserati V8 coupe? I doubt it, in 2025. An electric SUV? It’s already producing the Grecale Folgore and clearly no one wants that. And should Maserati be making SUVs at all? When Ferrari bought Maserati in the late 1990s, it distinguished the two brands clearly – Ferrari made wedge-shaped supercars, Maserati made the elegant Quattroporte and the GT with its boomerang-shaped tail lights. Maserati’s brand essence was so easy to grasp – sophisticated, grown-up cars for Italian steel magnates who look like George Clooney and drive the autostrada from Rome to Milan for business meetings. Fast forward to 2024 and Maserati makes a range from the mid-engined MC20 to the great-to-drive GranTurismo and the Grecale SUV. And it’s not working.
So what next? I was going to suggest selling Maserati to De Tomaso so it can make a GT with boomerang-shaped tail lights, but apparently that ship has sailed. So – dunno. Maybe Maserati should just become an app?