Maserati

Like Alfa, the Maserati badge is mere municipal pride - the trident is the traditional symbol of Bologna, where the cars were originally made.

(Text taken from CAR magazine, July 1999. Written by Martin Buckley.)

Maserati is a famous Italian manufacturer of racing cars and sports cars, established in 1914 in Bologna. The company's headquarters are now in Modena, and their emblem is a trident. Today, Maserati is owned directly by the Italian car giant Fiat, after having been a part of Ferrari (a company in which Fiat has a majority stake) for some years.

History.
The Maserati brothers, Alfieri, Bindo, Carlo, Ettore, Ernesto and Mario, were all involved with automobiles from the beginning of the 20th century. Alfieri, Bindo and Ernesto built 2-litre Grand Prix cars for Diatto. In 1926, Diatto suspended the production of race cars, leading to the creation of the first Maserati and the founding of the Maserati marque. One of the first Maseratis, driven by Alfieri, won the 1926 Targa Florio. Maserati began making race cars with 4, 6, 8 and 16 cylinders (actually two straight eights mounted parallel to one another.)

Mario, an artist, is believed to have devised the company emblem: a trident. Alfieri Maserati died in 1932 but three other brothers, Bindo, Ernesto and Ettore, kept the firm going, building cars that won races.

Orsi ownership.
In 1937 the remaining Maserati brothers sold their shares in the company to the Orsi family, who in 1940 relocated the company headquarters to their hometown of Modena, where it remains to this day. The brothers continued in engineering roles with the company, however. Racing successes continued, even against the giants of German racing, Auto Union and Mercedes. In 1940 a Maserati won the Indianapolis 500, a feat repeated the following year.

The war then intervened, Maserati abandoning cars to produce components for the Italian war effort.

Once peace was restored, Maserati returned to making cars, doing well in the post-war racing scene. The famous Argentinian driver Juan-Manuel Fangio raced for Maserati for a number of years in the 1950s, producing a number of stunning victories including winning the world championship in 1957. After that, Maserati retired from factory racing participation, though it built racing cars to be raced by others after that date.

Maserati Sebring After 1957, Maserati became more and more focussed on road cars, and introduced the 6-cylinder Maserati 3500 2+2 coupe featuring an aluminum body over Touring's Superleggera structure. Next came the Maserati Sebring bodied by Vignale and launched in 1962, the Maserati Mistral Coupe (1963) and the Spider (1964), both designed by Pietro Frua, and their first four-door, the Maserati Quattroporte (1963), also designed by Pietro Frua. The two-seater Maserati Ghibli coupe was launched in 1967, followed by a convertible in 1969.

Citroen ownership.
In 1968 came a great change - purchase by Citroen. Adolfo Orsi remained the nominal president, but Maserati changed a great deal. New models were launched, and built in much greater numbers than hitherto. Citroen borrowed Maserati expertise and engines for the Citroen SM and other vehicles, and Maseratis incorporated Citroen technology also, particularly in hydraulics.

New models included the Maserati Bora, the first mass-produced mid-engined Maserati, in 1971, and the Maserati Merak and Maserati Khamsin soon afterwards, Maserati Quattroporte II which shared some parts with Citroen SM never came into production. The 1970s oil crises, however, put the brakes on this ambitious expansion - suddenly, the demand for fuel-thirsty sports cars shrank. Citroen went bankrupt in 1974 and on May 23, 1975, the new controlling group PSA Peugeot Citroen declared that Maserati also was in liquidation. Propped up by Italian government funds, the company stayed alive, if barely.

De Tomaso.
1975 saw the company back on its feet with Alessandro de Tomaso, an Argentinian former racing driver, the new managing director. De Tomaso had arranged for the Benelli motorcycle company, which he controlled, to buy Maserati from Citroen and install him as its head. New models were introduced in 1976, including the Maserati Kyalami and the Maserati Quattroporte III.

The 1980s saw the company largely abandoning the mid-engined sports car in favour of squarish, front-engined, rear-drive coupes, cheaper than before but with aggressive performance, like the Maserati Biturbo. Two new coupes, the Maserati Shamal and Maserati Ghibli II, were released in 1990 and 1992, respectively.

The company also worked closely with Chrysler, now headed by de Tomaso's friend Lee Iacocca. Chrysler purchased part of Maserati and the two jointly produced a car, the Chrysler TC by Maserati.

There was also two further very challenging projects: the Chubasco - a V8 midengine supercar - unfortuantely due to lack of funding stillborn. The Barchetta made it to a racing model, 18 units or so produced. It featured a midengine V6 biturbo engine 2 L, a central frame and a very light plastic body spyder, accelerating the car to about 180 mph. The racing series Grantrofeo Barchetta was held 1992 and 1993. The development of a road version was stopped at a late stage and today some cars hold a road titel in Europe.

Fiat ownership.
1993 saw the company acquired by Fiat. Substantial investments were made in Maserati, and it has since undergone something of a renaissance.

In 1999 a new chapter began in Maserati's history when the company launched the 3200 GT, the only "Fiat Maserati". This two-door coupe is powered by a 3.2 L twin-turbocharged V8 which produces 370 hp (276 kW); the car does 0-60 mph in less than 5 seconds. Its top speed is an amazing 285 km/h (177 mph). With the addition of a Ferrari-designed and -built V-8 and automated manual transmission for the 2002 model year, this car continues to be produced today as the Maserati Coupe (hardtop) and Spyder (convertible model).

Ferrari.
In 1997, Fiat sold a 50% share in the company to Maserati's long-time arch-rival Ferrari (though this was, and is, itself controlled by Fiat). In 1999 Ferrari took full control, making Maserati its performance and luxury division. A new factory was built, replacing the existing 1940s-vintage facility.

More recently, Maserati has signed an agreement with Volkswagen for the German company to share its Audi division's Quattro all-wheel-drive technology (originally meant for the still-born Maserati Kubang sport-utility vehicle concept) for Maserati's current Quattroporte platform. The agreement has been made on the condition that there will be no corporate espionage or reverse engineering, since Volkswagen owns two of Ferrari's direct rivals, Lamborghini and Bugatti.

Meanwhile two new models have been shown to the public: the MC12 road supersports and successful GT racer with a Ferrari Enzo derived chassis and engine. And the Quattroporte, a high luxury saloon with the 4l V8 engine. Maserati is nowadays back in the business, very successfully selling on a global basis.

Today.
In 2005, as a consequence of the termination of the agreement between Fiat and General Motors under which GM may have been obliged to buy Fiat's car division, Maserati was separated from Ferrari and brought back under Fiat's full control. Fiat plans to create a sports and luxury division from Maserati and another of its marques, Alfa Romeo. GM had to pay Fiat around $2,000,000,000. Maserati sold 2006 cars in the United States for all of 2005.

(source: luxurycar)

The Maserati brothers (Alfieri, Bindo, Carlo, Ettore, Ernesto and Mario) were associated with motor cars from the very early days; Alfieri, Ernesto and Bindo built two 2-litre Grand Prix cars for Diatto in 1925, then took them over and linered them down to 1.5 litres when Diatto withdrew from racing a year later.

The new car, driven by Alfieri, won the 1926 Targa Florio, its first race. Maserati made their name with racing cars with four, six and eight (even 16) cylinders of 1088cc to 4995cc, though road-going cars with detuned racing engines did appear during the 1930s. Even one of the fearsome "sedici cilindri" (two straight-eights mounted in parallel, with the crankshafts geared together) was converted into a road car.

In 1937, Omer Orsi took over control, though the Maserati brothers stayed on until 1947, when they left to found OSCA. Racing cars were again the mainstay of the company after the war, most famous being the 250F, designed by Giaocchino Colombo in 1953, and raced until 1958 in various forms, by drivers including Moss, Hawthorn and Fangio.

Then Maserati decided to withdraw from competition, and concentrated on a range of expensive sports cars, with the six-cylinder 3485cc 300S engine (3500 GT), and V8 5 liters(5000GT),4 liters (Ghibli, Indy). However, the 1994cc and 2890cc "Birdcage" Maseratis enjoyed some competition success in the early 1960s in private hands.

In 1969, Citroen took over control of Maserati for approximately 1000 million lire; the Modena factory then built about two-and-a-half cars. a day as well as some 30 engines for the Citroen Maserati SM grand touring model.

In 1975, Maserati announced that it was going out of business, but was rescued at the eleventh hour by the De Tomaso group, and offers the mid-engined V6 Merak, of 2965cc, and the smaller Merak 2000; a mid-engined 4719cc V8 Bora; the 4930cc Khamsin V8; and the dohc 4136cc V8 Quattroporte.

Now, Maserati owned by Fiat, is under the control of... Ferrari

(Vintage European Automobiles)