Maserati News

There's rich, and then there's completely over-indulged. Undergraduate students at a university in Dubai stuff the carpark with a fleet of supercars that are their daily drivers. The American University of Dubai students turn up for classes in a range of exotic and expensive metal that looks like a convoy from a Top Gear episode.  Ferraris, Rolls-Royces, Aston Martins, Bentleys, Porsches and Maseratis have all been photographed in the carpark by one of the students, Meeka Nasser, who has posted them on Reddit.Nasser has told media he was astounded by the high-end level of vehicles in the carpark. "Because $200,000 Cayennes and Range Rovers are a dime a dozen here, I only included a few of them in the album. Keep in mind, almost all of the students are between 18 and 24 years old, as the graduate programe is pretty tiny here. The students that drive the insanely expensive cars (Rolls Royces and Bentleys etc.) are usually local (Emirati) for those wonderin," he wrote.The American University in Dubai is a private university that has been operating in the United Arab Emirates capital for nearly 20 years, and aims to offer an American-style education to both Emirates residents and expatriates. Tuition starts at a base level of around $12,000 per semester.

Ferrari and Maserati will re-enter Adelaide's new car market early next year on the back of a boom in luxury car sales across the country. Solitaire Automotive Group will unveil a new state-of-the-art Maserati showroom in the first quarter of next year after winning exclusive dealership rights for the Trident brand, while Adelaide Motors is finalising designs for its Ferrari showroom which is due to open on Hindley St soon after.The Fiat stablemates have been absent from Adelaide's new car market since November 2011, when previous dealer Prestige Formula was downgraded. Strict guidelines from their Italian headquarters have meant a lengthy design process for the new boutique showrooms.Solitaire Maserati will be located at the former Lexus site at Parkside - part of a plan to deliver an eightfold increase in SA sales by 2016. Solitaire managing director David Smoker said Maserati was a good fit with the dealer's other luxury brands which included Aston Martin, Bentley, Jaguar and Land Rover.'We've had a fair bit of success with our luxury sports brands - the people of Adelaide have an appreciation for luxury sports cars," he said. Sales of supercars in Australia are up 72 per cent since the lows of the global financial crisis with enthusiasts snapping up more than 190 exotic cars per month this year.In the first 10 months of this year a total of 85 new cars were sold across the Aston Martin, Bentley, Ferrari, Lotus, Maserati, McLaren and Porsche brands in South Australia - up 12 per cent from last year. Maserati's ambitious three-year plan to reach annual Australian sales of 1350 vehicles will be led by two new four door models - the Quattroporte and the Ghibli which will both be on show at the new Solitaire showroom.The sedans will be followed by the 2015 launch of the Levante, a high performance SUV. However, according to Ferrari Australasia chief executive Herbert Appleroth, the prancing horse is taking a slightly different approach, keeping a close eye on volumes as it seeks greater exclusivity.'While we have reduced our global production down from 7500 cars to 7000 in 2013, the Australasian deliveries will be similar in 2013 as compared to 2012," he said. 'We expect South Australia to see high levels of growth as we have not been represented in Adelaide for a number of years." Maserati owner Pam Russo expects the new four-door range to strike a chord with Adelaide buyers.I'm a believer that everyone deserves a little luxury and in my family's case it's a Maserati," she said. 

In just 11 months a Maserati Quattroporte was hit eight times by different vehicles, causing more than $260,000 of damage. Each time the accident was the fault of the other driver, if you believe the owner, and led to payouts from six insurance companies.Police allege the prestige car is one of three at the centre of an insurance rort in which the owners claimed for damage done in staged bingles in Burwood - if they happened at all. Another Maserati, a Granturismo, and a Mercedes SLK were also used in the alleged scam, which made a total of 18 claims totalling more than $500,000 from 11 insurance companies over a similar 12-month period.NSW Police and insurance investigators joined forces in a six-month operation which resulted in the arrest of two men and a woman last week. "We believe the three are principals involved in the staging of these accidents which we will allege are fraudulent or never happened,'' Detective Inspector Ian Pryde said.The alleged scheme involves a driver running into one of the three cars, which is then towed to a smash repair business. A claim is then submitted to the company which insures the at-fault car. The drivers of the at-fault vehicles were also said to be involved in the scam.In each instance the repair work was allegedly carried out at B and T Collisions, Burwood, owned by Chris Kmet, one of the men charged. The three cars were also registered to him. Kmet was charged with 18 counts of fraud and was bailed to appear at court on January 14. A 51-year-old woman and a 44-year-old man were also arrested. Both were granted conditional bail to appear at Burwood Local Court later this month."The investigation is still ongonig and there may be further arrests,'' Insp Pryde said yesterday. "It's a fairly complex investigation and we are being assisted by the individual companies affected by the alleged fraud.''Industry sources say staged or non-existent accidents are costing insurance companies millions of dollars, driving up the policies of innocent motorists. "It is organised crime and being carried out every day in Sydney,'' a source said. "This is just one case which has possibly been uncovered."The NSW Government last month announced a parliamentary inquiry into the relationship between vehicle repairers and insurance companies. Most of the terms of reference will centre around protecting consumers and a code of conduct in respect to the work carried out by panel beaters for the insurance companies."It's a start but really there needs to be an inquiry into the links between the industry and organised crime," the source said. "Ultimately it's the customer who is paying the price through increased premiums.''Read full story at dailytelegraph.com.au 

Melbourne crime families are behind a fake road smash racket costing millions of dollars. The scam, known as "claim farming", is now a daily occurrence in Victoria, industry experts say. Claim farming, which is driving up premiums for honest drivers, is hitting the insurance industry so hard it is increasing forensic testing of accident vehicles.Firms are "red-flagging" certain surnames for closer scrutiny when they lodge claims. They are names associated with what one investigator called an inordinately high number of smashes. Prangs involving high-end makes such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Ferrari and Maserati are popular with the fraudsters. Some fraudsters are deeply involved in other branches of organised crime like car theft and drug trafficking. "Absolutely, it's organised," an insurance fraud investigator said. "It's a business."The Herald Sun has been told:A Ferrari insured for $150,000 was wrecked in a staged smash;There were threats of violence and bikie intervention after a rort cooked up between a driver and panel shop operator turned sour;Scammers have deliberately deployed airbags to ­back their accident stories; andMost of the crashes are in the north-western suburbs.Many of the accidents are staged late at night in quiet industrial areas to eliminate the risk of witnesses and allow maximum planning.A typical sting involves scammers buying a damaged prestige vehicle of low value at auction, repairing it to the point where it is roadworthy then insuring it at a greater worth. It is crashed with the aim of writing it off and getting the full value of the policy.Some of the drivers were raking in even more money by making bogus accident injury claims. The investigator said smash repairers looking for a slice of the action were frequently involved in orchestrating the smashes. A panel shop operator will face court soon after becoming one of the few people charged in connection with claim ­farming.The forensic checks are regularly finding damage inconsistent with the drivers' accounts of what happened. In some cases, there is evidence of multiple impacts to maximise the damage. Telephone records, which can be demanded by insurers as a policy condition, have brought some shysters undone. A check after one smash found the two drivers had been in phone contact before the bingle occurred.Insurance Council of Australia special risks manager Laurie Ratz said the same businesses and people continually cropped up in fake smash scams. Mr Ratz, a former Victoria Police and National Crime Authority officer, said the industry had more and better forensic staff to help but it remained a challenging area. "It's like most frauds. It can be easily identified but problematic to prove it," he said.Claims faked: Insurance scams riseThere's big money at stake in the fake car-smashing game and plenty of people are ready to cash in. The insurance industry has become increasingly keen to take on the shysters, as it did with a man trying to make a $60,000 claim on his ­Mercedes-Benz. Assessors wondered, as they made an inspection, why a set of wire-cutters was sitting on the front passenger seat of the otherwise pristine Merc.Luxury cars, like this Maserati, are being used in claim farming schemes. They assessed it as reparable but the driver disagreed, presenting a questionable quote, which stated the car should be written off and he be given a fat cheque. Because the car would not start, a mechanic pulled away its dashboard and found evidence that wires had been tampered with. This led to suspicion that attempts had been made to deploy the car's airbags, backing the crash claim.A tow truck was dispatched to get the car back. At one stage, the man even turned up with the police, ­saying the insurer had stolen his car. Investigators began to look at the four-wheel-drive vehicle that had collided with the Mercedes-Benz. Within days, it had been stolen, as the driver enjoyed a meal alone at an ­inner-suburban restaurant.Further checks revealed all of the Mercedes claimant's brothers had also been ­involved in vehicle insurance claims for written-off cars, and the man's father had tried to make a $30,000 claim on a small performance car a few years earlier. When investigators arrived to interview the owner at his home in Melbourne's north, they were told to leave. 

Maserati has teamed up with Sky lifestyle show 'The Face', as part of which the program's teams of would-be supermodels led by real ones -- Naomi Campbell, Caroline Winberg and Erin O’Connor -- competing to make an ad for the Quattroporte.Campbell's team won the challenge, with her fledgling models in a race to reach the car -- although their bigger triumph actually managing to maintain any sort of pace in skyscraper heels.Watch the models face off for Maserati Quattroporte video on the desktop site here. 

Demand for luxury cars has put Maserati on the curve of a wave that has swelled global orders to 22,500 cars, equivalent to four times its 2012 sales.Ghibli and a new Quattroporte are the catalysts but, without these models, it's not yet the case in Australia. Australia's upper large, $100,000-plus segment in which these new Maseratis will play is now up 12.8 per cent year-to-date - the only passenger-car segment aside from small cars to post a two-digit growth."We won't see Quattroporte - except for some of the very first order that are here before Christmas - in volume until the first quarter of 2014," says Maserati Australia general manager Glen Sealey."Ghibli will be here in the second quarter of next year." Mr Sealey says Australia is still waiting for the big wave because "we tend to be about 12 months behind Europe and the US in sales.""That's because we get new models some time after they're launched in Italy," he says. "The new Quattroporte has been in Europe for some months and the Ghibli is now on sale there."Mr Sealey says Maserati Australia is in a strong position despite not having stock. "We have the best year ever for GranTurismo but the problem is we are out of stock," he says. "We sell about 150 Maseratis a year in Australia and New Zealand with three models. The Quattroporte isn't available until the new model and GranCabrio stock is selling quickly."Mr Sealey says sales for Australia this year will be stable but he says 2014 - the marque's centenary - will be a record. "Ghibli will open up a new segment for us and new Quattroporte will rejuvenate the luxury car sector," he says. "The first few months of Ghibli stock has already been sold out. We are also holding strong orders for Quattroporte."It is in line with Maserati's plan to reach 50,000 sales a year by 2015, though the Mirafiori plant in Torino which will build the Levante SUV is yet to be finished." Mr Sealey expects Levante to add up to 50 per cent of Maserati's annual Australian sales. "It's a massive market segment," he says.Levante is expected in Australia by mid-2015. Maserati stated today that it is holding 17,000 orders for the Quattroporte and 7900 for Ghibli. It also has 5000 orders for the GranTurismo and GranCabrio. "Maserati is well on target to see sales for 2013 beating its best every year 9000 sales in 2008 and with such a full order book, that record is set to be broken again in 2014, when Maserati celebrates its 100th birthday," the company said in a statement."The demand for Maserati products worldwide is a spectacular vindication of the decision to invest 1.5 billion euros (about $2 billion) in the new range and a new state of the art factory to produce the Quattroporte and Ghibli so that the existing factory in Modena can concentrate on meeting the demand for Maserati sports cars."With yet another all-new Maserati model to come, the Maserati Levante, which will take the Italian car maker into the lucrative performance and luxury SUV market, Maserati is clearly on target to meet its goal of 50,000 sales worldwide by 2015."

Innovation, many hybrids and all-electrics, some high-powered models and a couple of striking retro-inspired coupes are the highlights of this year's Frankfurt motor show. Throw in some staged antics and the world's biggest car show becomes even better.Volvo set the pace with an unveiling of its Concept Coupe, a technologically advanced number of exceptional grace reminiscent of its iconic P1800 of the 1960s. It embodies what Volvo calls its 'human centric experience' and apart from a host of safety electronics, has the new 2.0-litre four-cylinder motor that will soon replace the brand's five and six-cylinder engines.The engine has turbo and supercharging plus a plug-in electric motor, resulting in V8-like performance, but with minicar fuel consumption. However, the classy coupe is not scheduled for production in the near future. Instead, it marks the capability of Volvo's new architecture and elements of its design will feature on all future models, starting with the new XC90 in about a year.Frankfurt was also used to display a growing trend towards compact premium SUVs. Mercedes-Benz showed its cute new GLA-class SUV with new generation 4matic all-wheel drive, and Infiniti unveiled its Q30 concept, which it said was in a unique class, being a blend of coupe, hatch and crossover. A surprise was the appearance of F1 racing camp Sebastien Vettel, who said he helped sort the Q30's handling.Minutes later, Lexus trumped that by having a couple of giant animated creatures, seemingly from outer space, whip the covers of its new LF-NX, another smallish Crossover concept. It, too, had a hybrid powertrain and despite an enthusiastic description of how it's brushed metal finish made it look as if carved from a single billet of solid metal, it was just plain ugly.Then there were the glam cars: Ferrari, Maserati, Jaguar, BMW, Aston-Martin and lots of specially-bodied creations from Brabus and similar outfits, scores of Fiats and Smarts, Hyundais and Kias and about 50 more brands. Spread through about a dozen vast halls, they added up to sore feet and bewildered looks as people did their best to absorb the techno and visual overdose of tomorrow's dream machines. 

Earlier this year we told you Maserati was teaming up with fellow Italian luxury label Ermenegildo Zegna to help promote the design and manufacturing excellence of their homeland. The companies’ first combined product is to be a Maserati Quattroporte featuring materials and colours inspired by Zegna’s fine suits. It won’t go on sale until next year but we’ll get a taste of the car at next week’s 2013 Frankfurt Auto Show in the form of the Maserati Quattroporte Ermenegildo Zegna Limited Edition concept car. The car is the result of a close collaboration between the two companies and features a unique look in colour scheme, materials and finish. The exterior features a special effect paint finish whose ultra-fine aluminium pigments give the car a metallic lustre. A glossy black primer amplifies the effect and helps create a sense of depth. Inside is where the real Zegna touches come into play. Components such as the seats, door panels and roof lining are finished in genuine soft leather, in addition to a velvet-smooth, bright fabric similar to what Zegna uses in its clothing line. Colours such as Moka and Greige are used to add warmth and a sense of tradition. As mentioned, the production Maserati Quattroporte Ermenegildo Zegna Limited Edition will go on sale next year. By 2015, Maserati will start offering Zegna-inspired trim across its range, and in 2016 the automaker will launch a new personalisation department to help capitalise on the growing demand for tailor-made products. www.motorauthority.com  

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  

The recently revealed 2014 Maserati Ghibli has been spotted for the first time in public, and we’re glad to report that the upcoming Italian sports sedan looks even better on the road than it did under the auto show spotlights. This time the Ghibli sports a striking blue finish, which we suspect will be its new hero colour. This particular car was spotted during an official shoot, presumably for a new advertisement or promotional video, which is said to have taken place in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.   YouTube user TheMAXIMUMCARS also happened to film the car and was fortunate enough to upload this video for all to see. It gives us the chance to see the Ghibli in motion, with its daytime running lights and brake lights on. We also get to hear the growl of the car’s twin-turbocharged 3.0-litre V-6 for the first time. The car’s numberplate reveals that this is the more potent Ghibli S, which develops 548 Newton metres of torque and can accelerate from 0-100km/h in 5.0 seconds. The “301 KW” in the number plate represents the car’s 301-kilowatt power rating. The Ghibli will also be offered with a 242 kilowatt version of the turbo V-6 engine and overseas buyers will also have the option of a 202 kilowatt V-6 turbodiesel. All of the Ghibli's engines are built by Ferrari and all of them come matched to an eight-speed automatic transmission. www.motorauthority.com