Maserati Granturismo 2010 News

Despite talk of a new Maserati sports car being in the works, the Italian brand’s flagship GranTurismo is here to stay and will be spawning a successor sometime in 2015. Not much is known about the new GranTurismo, though Maserati styling boss Lorenzo Ramaciotti has previously revealed that its size will be smaller than the current GranTurismo. This will mean that the four-seat layout of the current GranTurismo will shrink to a 2+2 arrangement, similar to that found in the Jaguar XK, allowing the new car to be more compact and dynamic. Edmunds, citing a company insider, is reporting that the new GranTurismo will also reveal a change in styling direction for the Maserati brand. A new GranTurismo GranCabrio convertible is also planned. Maserati’s new sports car, which is tipped to revive the GranSport name, will also be launched in 2015, though not until after the new GranTurismo is launched. The change in styling direction is a key step in Maserati’s overall plan to boost its sales from less than 7,000 units last year to as much as 50,000 within the next several years, as it will not only keep the lineup looking fresh going forward but also lay the groundwork for the launch of even more models by offering a more versatile design than Maserati’s current theme. www.motorauthority.com  

Maserati will launch a new sports car in 2015 to challenge the likes of the Jaguar F-Type and Porsche 911; a car that could end up reviving the GranSport name. Unfortunately, apart from its 2015 launch, few details are known about it. A previous report suggested it will feature a mid-engine layout, possibly using a stretched version of the platform developed for the upcoming Alfa Romeo 4C, which, incidentally, will be produced in one of Maserati’s plants. Autocar is now reporting that the new Maserati sports car will offer the choice of V-6 and V-8 powerplants. Those engines are the same units produced by Ferrari for Maserati’s other models. In the latest 2014 Maserati Quattroporte, the V-6, a twin-turbocharged and direct-injected 3.0-liter mill, produces 410 horsepower, while the V-8 displaces 3.8-liters and develops 530 horsepower, also with the aid of turbocharging and direct-injection technologies. It’s likely that the new sports car will offer slightly higher outputs, reportedly up to 450 horsepower in V-6 trim and 550 horsepower with the V-8. It’s claimed that all-wheel drive may also be offered as an option to help boost the car’s popularity. An official document showed that the new sports car won’t be the flagship of the Maserati range. That role will remain with the GranTurismo, whose successor will also be launched in 2015. This means that we could see the new sports car launch with a pricetag of around $100k, which should make it competitive with its aforementioned rivals. With its Ferrari engine, mid-engine layout and expected $100k pricetag, the new Maserati sports car is starting to sound like a cut-priced 458 Italia. www.motorauthority.com  

It is accelerating development of an open-air conversion on its two-door GranTurismo coupe to create a car capable of going nose-to-nose with rivals including the Aston Martin DBS, Porsche 911 Cabrio and even the Bentley Continental. The new Maserati Spider was spotted at Europe's favourite test location, the Nurburgring racetrack in Germany, earlier this week. The beautiful sister to the hardtop GT already looks good, despite a breadvan-style disguise on the tail end to protect details of the folding roof conversion. The Spider comes less than a year after Ferrari went topless with its California, a car that Italian sources insist was begun as a Maserati and then snitched to lead a revitalised red-car push into the USA. The difference is that the GT convertible has a folding hardtop roof and not a conventional canvas top like the California, a major change from earlier Maserati convertibles. The newcomer also looks likely to be built as a 2+2 open-top coupe, and not just a two-seat roadster, which moves it away from any potential rivalry with Ferrari as well as opening more sales opportunites. The Spider is expected to have the same engine and mechanical package as the GT coupe, which starts with a 4.2-litre V8 in Australia at $298,800 and is likely to be previewed at the 2009 Geneva Motor show next February.

It's hard for me to believe this is real. The scenery, the language, the weather, the open raceway and especially the car. Down the straight, where the bitumen opens from a winding trail to stretch its width and give the driver some respite from intense concentration, I can glimpse the mountains. But only briefly. Every upchange in the Maserati GranTurismo also signals time for the engine to briefly draw breath, but only to pick up the next gear and pull harder towards the horizon. The end of the straight quickly comes into sight. Time for one more jab with the right fingers. Fifth. The corner is coming up fast on the left. Pull quickly on the broad, cold metal paddle on the left-side of the steering wheel and push the right foot deep within the illusionary depth of the brake pedal. Fourth gear comes up — I know that by the illuminated “4” between the gauges. The compression braking of the 4.7-litre V8 engine produces explosive barks from the exhaust. The noise, the assault of the senses as the car moves with the flow of the track and the location in northern Italy beside a wide, stone-bottomed river, are almost surreal. This is the privately owned track at Varano, 25km outside Parma, in mid-summer with the hills still bright green from the long winter. Last year, 15 Australian owners of new Maseratis travelled to Varano to do what I did: get up close and personal with one of Italy's icons. They weren't alone. Varano may be privately owned, but it is well known to the Fiat Group — Maserati, Ferrari, Alfa Romeo, Lancia and Fiat — for testing each new model. More importantly, it is also known for customer driver training. Maserati alone sold 8000 vehicles last year and a portion of those owners, from California to Russia to China and New Zealand, came to learn to drive at the Parma track. At $5500 a person for the two-day course, it isn't cheap. Andrea Piccini heads the driving instructors. Despite his youth, he has raced at Le Mans and was an F1 test driver for Minardi. The other instructors have a similar background and have no trouble sitting beside the amateurs to involve themselves — occasionally loudly — in your driving. Later, when the computers in the pits plug into the car and extract electronic bytes that have been created from your three laps, there is another, more brutal assessment. “Neil, look here. What is this?” asks touring car racer Sandro Montani. I have no answer for something that, to me, is little more than diverging lines (blue of the ideal graph line of the instructor) and me (the more wriggled line in red ink) on a computer screen. “You are in understeer. Look! You have come into this corner at 69km/h and here, you see, the instructor is at 62km/h. So the car is going too fast to make it turn correctly and you have lost a lot of time.” I feel like a naughty schoolboy. I thought I did pretty well. “Now, go out and take it more slowly,” Sandro smiles. So I go out and slide into another Maserati, this time the luxury Quattroporte. I pull the automatic gearbox's trident-emblazoned gear lever back into its sequential mode, pull the right paddle back to ensure first gear, release the handbrake and, with the track clear, send myself out like a pardoned criminal on to a better path.  

One of the exotic Italian supercars to be seen when the Australian International Motor Show begins on 11 October, this stunning super car spent a short time basking in Sydney sunlight for the first time so that it could be photographed for the Australian media. According to Edward Butler, Maserati Australia and New Zealand’s general manager, the company is holding 130 Australian orders for the GranTurismo. "For those people lucky enough to be taking delivery of their own Maserati GranTurismo in coming months, the fleeting first visit to Darling Harbour is proof, as if proof was needed, that the GranTurismo is just as beautiful in Australia as it is in Italy!” Mr Butler said. The GranTurismo packs a 4.2L V8 generating 405bhp at 7,100rpm. 345Nm of its 460Nm maximum torque is available at 2,500rpm, which along with a standard automatic transmission and relatively useable rear seats, makes this a more practical high-speed tourer than many Italian thoroughbreds.