01
A century-old brand that has been played badly by Douyin and Micro-Business
Maserati is a reputable racing/sports car brand in the minds of our fans and we like to joke that it is a "low-end Ferrari".
How far away is Ferrari? In the past 2021, Ferrari delivered 11,000 new cars, a record high. Among them, the delivery volume in China is 900 vehicles. That is, in the context of the epidemic situation in which the channels of the rich spend money have shrunk greatly, Ferrari's delivery volume has soared by 22.3%, and the delivery of only a thousand vehicles in China.
After being acquired by Fiat Group in 1993, the luxury brand became a sports car company managed by Ferrari. With this aura of divine unattainable to ordinary people and some of the ferrari-made engines, Martha's business is gradually improving. By 2007, Maserati was profitable for the first time in 17 years.
However, in the Chinese market, Maserati has exported some brand racing culture, which has been recognized by a part of the high consumer group, but it has been blackened into a local tycoon brand (a pejorative term) by Guo Meimei's strangeness, followed by the sitcom output of Maserati by various online short video platforms.
A lot of short videos up the owner rents and rents are those few P2P Martha, a cat a dog takes turns as the "owner" to output the unnourished chicken soup plot, reverse the dog blood to burst, BGM soil to no edge.
Also suffering from this kind of low-IQ network video junk maker is the Porsche brand, Maserati and it are half a level higher than the BBA, half a level lower than the Ferrari Bentley Rolls-Royce million product positioning, the topic is sufficient, and the cat and dog that do short videos can also afford to rent.
BBA？ People have long since stopped watching, 3/A4/C and 5/A6/E have been sold for more than 10,000 years a month, and they can't brush out the sense of existence on the short video platform.
Another way to play is the script of Micro Business X Total Kiti Maserati, which is read by millions of people in a weibo turn. To put it bluntly, it is to rent a car to do micro-business advertising to pull people into the partnership, let you understand that spending hundreds of thousands of dollars into their goods, selling is four or five times the profit, a few months can be "people on people" to achieve class jump ...
The most speechless is the Maserati dealer came up with the idea of actually welcoming micro-businessmen to take photos, 200 yuan at a time.
If you are a Maserati owner/potential customer and you enter the store and see a bunch of micro-merchants posing with specially customized red cloth and white banners, will you still think that Maserati is a racing brand with an attitude and a foundation?
Maserati does not work very the operation of the Chinese region, but it is undeniable that the Chinese market is huge. North America is Maserati's largest market, and the second largest market is China, accounting for about 30% of annual sales, which is about the same as Porsche's China.
02
What does the real Maserati look like?
I remember passing by the back door of the Maserati headquarters (pictured below, next to the road) when I went to Modena last time, but because I was in a hurry to see the F40 at the Ferrari Museum, I gave up the Masha tour.
In fact, their main entrance is pictured like this.
Here, you can see how a 107-year-old car company makes modern cars. The Modena factory lasts 1.5 hours and offers five European languages, English, Italian, German, French and Spanish, and if you want to hear the Chinese/Japanese "foreign language" tour, you have to drive to the Great Northwest to the Turin factory.
We could learn about Maserati from the tour. Founded in Bologna in 1914, the headquarters are now headquartered in Moldena, a factory visit. By 2021, Maserati will deliver 24,000 new cars (Chinese mainland 0.77 million) throughout the year, which is still in the ranks of small car companies, but it is much larger than the "workshop" of Lotus.
At that time, maserati's five brothers, Alfieri, Bindo, Carlo, Ettore and Ernesto, decided to get involved in the automotive industry, after they had learned to design aircraft engines and produce spark plugs with special functions on the front line of industry. At the beginning of the 20th century, building cars was not such a great thing. A hundred years later, today, to "get involved in the automobile manufacturing industry" must have at least two or three billion venture capital funds, and in that era, only the cost of building a few cars and an empty land was needed.
Maserati's Trident logo was designed by Mario Maserati and is based on the Poseidon Fountain sculpture in Piazza Maggiore in Bologna. The red and blue colour scheme in the brand identity, derived from the colour of the City Flag of Bologna, is still the emblematic colour of the Maserati brand today.
The fountain was completed in 1565, and the bronze statue of Poseidon, created in real scale, was fixed to the top of the fountain a year later, and finally appeared more than three centuries later on top of the first car designed by the Maserati brothers, the Tipo 26 racing car.
In 1926, after the introduction of the Tipo 26, Alfieri drove the car to win the group championship in the Sicily Targa Florio, and this "Targa" was the Targa of the Porsche 911.
During the Great Depression, the Maserati brothers sold the company to the Orsi family, and the company was relocated to ciro Menotti avenue in the Oss family's land in 1949, but during World War II the factory was requisitioned to produce spark plugs, car batteries, and military machinery parts.
With the end of World War II, Maserati racing won the 1946 Nice Grand Prix and the brand was back on track. This year, the first road GT sports car ( Gran Turismo ) , the Maserati A6 , was developed and unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show.
In the 1950s, Maserati brought in F1 driver Juan-Manuel Fangio from Ferrari, who drove the 250F and won his fifth F1 World Championship trophy (1951/1954/1955/1956/1957) in Nür north in 1957. It turns out that driving fast is indeed easy to lose hair...
Playing racing is very expensive, and for this, Ferrari and Porsche, which are on the verge of failure several times, are well aware, and Maserati, which is often in financial difficulties, is no exception. They can only downsize their own racing games and develop more civilian cars to oxygenate motorsport.
In 1957, the Maserati 3500 GT was born, Maserati's first "mass production" road car, with annual production from dozens to hundreds.
There was also a version of the 3500 GT called the White Lady, which had a beak name for the Persian King, because the Iranian king at the time customized one with a V8 engine for a 450S race car.
Following the success story of the 3500 GT, Maserati mass-produced the larger displacement 5000 GT in 1959.
After the economic revival of Europe in the 1960s, Maserati also made a series of technological breakthroughs, such as the lightweight and strong Maserati birdcage chassis, and classic models such as the Tipo 60/61/63/64 "Maserati Birdcage", which is welded together by about 200 chrome-molybdenum steel pipes and uses countless triangles to resist stress.
Another example is the Quattroporte President's Series, which was born at the 1963 Turin Motor Show, and actually installed the racing engine on the luxury executive car, which has been produced ever since.
The Ghibli car series sounds like it was born in a few years, but it was actually launched as early as 1967, and the design company is the famous Ghia. The first (1967-1973, below) and the second (1992-1998) Ghibli were coupe cars, and the third generation (2013-present) was revived later, when Maserati decided to produce a luxury medium and large car to compete with the Mercedes-Benz E-Class, which was positioned much higher in China than the E-Class.
In the 1970s, the Oss family exited the company and Citroën resold its stake in Maserati to the Italian state-owned gepi.
Maserati's representative model in the 1980s was the Biturbo, and various magic versions combined produced a total of 37,000 units, which belonged to Maserati's best-selling car. The British "Top Gear" program has filmed three old Biturbos, and the three untouchables directly destroyed these cars, and European audiences feel very sorry, because there are only 22 Biturbos left in the UK.
Maserati was acquired by Fiat Group in 1993 and led by Luca di Montezemolo, then President and CEO of Ferrari. Previously, the citizens of Modena liked to see the two sworn rivals of Lali and Maserati in the same city derby, and now the two racing companies have merged directly.
Maserati's first achievement after entering the big group was the birth of the 3200 GT, a coupe designed by Giorgio Giorgio Giorgio, equipped with a 3.2TT twin-turbo V8 gasoline engine, which was really powerful enough to burst.
The MC12 was launched in 2004 and shares a whole bunch of mechanical parts with Ferrari Enzo. Personally, I think that the blue and white color matching is more earthy, and the all-black MC12 is a god work.
That same year, MC12 returned to the field. From 2005 to 2010, Maserati won 14 awards and 19 victories at the World Supercar Championship.
In 2005, Maserati unveiled the Birdcage 75th Anniversary Concept to commemorate the 75th birthday of Sergio Pininfarina.
After the change of presidents of Ghibli and Quattroporte in 2013, Maserati began to focus on crossovers and gradually entered the SUV era.
03
The case of SUV products saving luxury brands
The most reviled SUV built by sports car manufacturers must be Porsche. There's no reason why it was the first to do it, and the reason for doing so is that Porsche is often on the verge of closure.
Side Quests Always play the failed Porsche
Porsche was on the verge of failure for the first time in 1968 when it rushed to build 25 917 cars, and the wayward "deficit king" Ferdinand Pierch firmly believed that the 917 could win. Research and development director Pierch mobilized the executive white-collar workers in porsche offices to assemble the 917 together, but he did not tell the white-collar workers that the company's cash flow was only this batch of racing cars. Fortunately, the 917 won in the end, otherwise Porsche would have gone out of business.
The second time it was on the verge of collapse was in the early 80s, when Porsche couldn't make ends meet, the 924 and 928 weren't good enough to sell, the EA425 project failed, and Porsche decided to build a higher 944 front mid-engined rear-drive sports car based on the 924, a four-cylinder cheap car that saved Porsche. Why is it cheap? Because the 924 and 944 were both produced in the Volkswagen factory in Neckasulm, and the ancestor of the weak chicken masterpiece 924 was the volkswagen 914 with a mid-rear engine, the 718 could find the 914 if you want to trace the source...
The third time was in 1991, when the Porsche product line was single (14,000 units sold annually) and the quality was not good, so he ran to Japan to learn JIT lean production with Toyota, and finally paid a high price to invite the Japanese team to Germany to teach them. In 1996, Porsche produced a "cheap" sports car that shared a lot of parts with the 911 , the Boxster.
The fourth time on the verge of bankruptcy was in 2009, the prelude was Porsche in 2002 in 2002 to the scolding of the original Cayenne cayenne out, fans while scolding while buying, so that Porsche became one of the most profitable car companies at that time, Porsche drifted, secretly acquired the European industrial giant Volkswagen Group, a subprime mortgage crisis made it highly indebted, and finally Volkswagen bought Porsche.
This incident suddenly invigorated the circle of luxury brands - Porsche, which is essentially a 911, can rely on SUVs to survive, why can't we?
So we saw the following works (I chose the version that I thought was good to use as an example of the picture):
Bentley's Bentayga Bentayga, which was mass-produced in 2015 (somehow translated it as "Honda Accord"):
Jaguar mass-produced F-Pace (Land Rover's job) in 2016, and later E-Pace and I-Pace:
Maserati's Levante, which was mass-produced in 2016:
Alfa Romeo (in my mind is a high-pressure brand that does not accept rebuttals) in the 2016 mass-produced Stelvio Quadrifoglio:
Lamborghini's mass-produced Urus in 2018:
Rolls-Royce mass-produced Cullinan Cullinan in 2018:
Aston Martin's 2020 mass-produced DBX:
Ferrari is said to be unveiling its first SUV model on December 11 this year, which is also Ferrari's last car to carry a naturally aspirated V12.
Lotus is also going to release the Type 132 pure electric SUV this year:
The above story makes us understand a few truths:
1, play racing, play entry sports cars, make money is not long. As long as you focus on the coupe there must be only the possibility of dying poor, now Lotus is auspicious, Jaguar is Indian Tata, Bugatti and Lamborghini are Volkswagen, Aston Martin has turned seven or eight hands...
2, as long as you are willing to put down the body to sell SUVs, there is no luxury brand in the world that is easy to die. Sixty percent of Porsche sales come from the SUV product line, 60 percent of Lamborghini sales come from Urus, and the bleak Jaguar also relies on the SUV product line to make a slight improvement, and AMG has been upgrading the Mercedes-Benz SUV from beginning to end.
3, the two-door sports car product line and the five-door SUV product line are complementary: there is no brand tone without the sports car line, and it is impossible to provide a premium reason; there is no profit without the SUV line, and you can't even make up enough funds for the next generation of sports car research and development, wait for the closure or wait for the acquisition.
4, selling SUVs also have skills, now there are two routines: one is to produce only the top SUV, the pricing is much cheaper than its own supercar; one is a high and low collocation, the main sale of millions of "entry goods", Maserati is learning Porsche to play the second scheme.
5, the luxury / luxury brand under the big group is cool, you can use the group's internal ready-made SUV platform to change the shell, install a high-horsepower engine into the new SUV. Cayenne ate Touareg's platform to share dividends and made a lot of money, before the Cayenne was specially arranged for production in Osnabrück (Osnabrück) in Germany, in 2017 after the third generation did not even want to install, directly placed in the Slovak capital Bratislava Volkswagen factory and Touareg Q7 collinear mass production.
6, it is estimated that the small factories that are about to collapse such as Morgan and Wiezmann do not produce SUVs. It's not that you don't want to produce, but you don't have money for research and development... Therefore, the small workshop brand is estimated to be powerless in the SUV/electrification era.
04
Independent Poseidon
The FCA Group, which announced in 2015 that it was about to spin Ferrari out of the group, rose 15.4% on the day of the NYSE IPO, but it grew colder, but that did not prevent the sports car factory, which produced less than 10,000 units a year (that year), from becoming a mudslide in the capital world.
After Ferrari became independent, FCA's supercar brand was pressed on Maserati. In fact, the tone of the Maserati brand is not inferior to Ferrari, when Ferrari was born, compared to Maserati is a younger brother, and later won more anti-generals on the field.
Here comes the biggest problem: in 2019, Ferrari publicly revealed for the first time that it will no longer supply engines for Maserati and Alfa Romeo in the future.
That's a really head-scratcher. Maserati had to develop its own new engine, and this is the new Nettuno "Poseidon" engine on display in 2020! "Just" a 3.0T V6 twin-turbo gasoline engine, the first version released has a full 630PS/730Nm output capacity, completely inferior to the previous large-displacement V8 model, and even data can be compared with the standard power Ferrari V12 bucket.
Looking at the Maserati new car plan released that year, on the left is the European model classification system, and the D class is equivalent to medium size, which is the Gregale that will be born next week.
With this M&SUV that can land properly within a million, brand sales are likely to double in three years, or even faster...
Look at a set of data: Maserati delivered a total of 24,200 new cars in 2021, up 41% year-on-year. Among them, the Chinese market delivered 0.77 million vehicles, an increase of 58% year-on-year.
At this rate, and the Chinese market's preference for SUVs, It is likely that China will become Maserati's largest single market in the world in 2023.
At this time, we will comb through Maserati's product line at the end of 2022:
1 five-door medium-sized SUV: Grecale
The opponent must be the Porsche Macan, but it should be impossible for Maserati to quote a similar Macan-like naked car in China (starting at 554,000). Maserati does not have Audi to provide it with a ready-made chassis, engine, transmission.
However, China really does not lack the luxury SUV consumer group at the Price Of Macan, and Grecale's entry-level model is likely to seize a lot of Macan's market share.
It is said that the weakest chicken version of the Gregare will be equipped with a 2.0T 48V light hybrid, that is, the Ghibli 2.0T set; the strongest version is equipped with a 3.0T V6 Poseidon engine; the electric version is temporarily unknown, but the jianghu legend is "there will be", do not wait for a long time, next week will be revealed.
2 five-door medium to large SUVs: Levante
In Maserati's global sales system, the Levante car series will account for 59% of the brand's sales in 2021. Do you remember the proportion of Porsche SUVs and Lamborghini SUVs that I said earlier? It's all 60%, very uniform.
In addition, the ceo accounted for only 7%, Ghibli was 33%, and MC20 was only 1%. Or in response to the author's previous sentence, only the luxury brand that builds two-door cars is still waiting for the closure, and the SUV is the way out.
3 four-door medium to large sedan: Ghibli
Pricing is a bit high entry Martha, 2.0T 48V mixed version to 772,800, fortunately the horsepower is strong enough, actually squeezed the four cylinders to 330PS; the higher level of 3.0T V6 twin turbo version is only the standard power 350PS, the asking price starts from 863,800.
4 four-door full-size sedan: Seventh-generation president Quattroporte
The sixth generation of presidents on sale is already a mass-produced aged product in 2013, and there is no more serious action except for the continuous release of limited editions. The product power of the current president (pictured below) simply cannot compete with the Porsche Panamera, and the starting price of the Panamera is much lower than that of the president...
Fortunately, the Maserati new car plan includes the seventh generation of presidents to be released this year, equipped with the Poseidon engine is also a matter of certainty, whether there is an electric version to provide is not easy to say, anyway, Jaguar XJ is determined to be fully electrified.
5 coupe GT hardtop/convertible sports cars: Alfieri
The Gran Turismo sports car, which combines road and track, is the soul of the Maserati brand.
Maserati released the Alfieri concept car as early as 2014 to celebrate the brand's centenary and to remember Alfieri Maserati (1887-1932), one of the founders of the brand and the most powerful helmsman of the Maserati brand's infancy.
Had it not been for his untimely death at the age of 44, Alfieri Maserati would have become a household name, but his early departure has gradually forgotten the automotive genius who ran Maserati for 18 years.
Alfieri's signature will appear on both the Alfieri's concept car and the production car. This signature was born on 1 December 1914, when Alfieri Maserati applied for a business license for the newly formed Maserati company.
Alfieri will launch a hardtop and convertible version, completely replacing the previous Maserati Coupe and Maserati GranTurismo, which sold for around 2 million.
engine? There are and only Poseidon is the best choice, as for the previously revealed hybrid version and electric version, first listen to a music.
6 coupe supercar: MC20
The MC20 is a reboot of Maserati's supercar lineup, priced at 2,111,130,000, with Ferrari Roma (starting at 2.38 million), McLaren GT (starting at 2.088 million), Porsche 911 Turbo S (2.343 million), AMG GT R (starting at 2.1288 million), Aston Martin DB11 (starting at 2.358 million) and Lamborghini Huracán (from 2.54 million).
Only the 911 and MC20 are six-cylinder cars here, and neither of them (plus AMG) is a luxury brand, half a level lower than the others. Generally speaking, buying an entry-level supercar with a budget of more than 3 million landing, buying a Ferrari is definitely not a wrong choice, and you don't care if it is fast or not (Roma's biggest problem is ugly).
Maserati's product line has been analyzed, Grecale's strategic position (similar to the cash cow Macan) has also been said, and the conclusions of various sizes have been said once, so I will not repeat them.
Let's put some nice pictures.
05
Maserati Classic Car Picture Award
1 Maserati 8C 2800/3000 (1932-1939)
Because the powertrain is constantly evolving, the farther back the car, the fewer cylinders there are. Maserati released the 8C (1931), then the 6C (1934) and finally the 4C (1939).
So now it makes sense for The Martha V8 to become v6. (Dog Head Life Preserver)
2 Maserati 6cm (1936-1938)
Maserati began building 6C cars in 1934 and evolved into a 6CM version in 1936, and this red one is really beautiful.
6CM is a relatively successful work in the history of racing, it was born because the German Fuehrer went around to prove that the Germans are the best people, spend money to support Mercedes-Benz and the Auto Union (Audi), Maserati 6CM is a work that was "rolled" out of the European circuit.
3 Maserati 4CL (1939-1947)
Single-seat F1 cars, equipped with a 1.5T four-cylinder supercharger, debuted in 1939, initially ahead of the Mayben W165 car, and as a result, all 4CL were withdrawn due to mechanical failure, and the Mayben Silver Arrow won.
4 Maserati 4CLT (1948-1950)
The improved version of the 4CL, the power is increased to 284PS, the weight loss is 10kg, but it is still a series of mechanical failures.
Good looking, is really good-looking.
5 Maserati 250 F (1954-60)
The F1 cars built by Maserati between 1954 and 1960 competed in 46 grand prix races, winning 8 pole positions and 8 victories.
6 Maserati 150 S (1955-1957)
Cute racing car, used to replace the old A6 GCS.
In addition, in 1957, there was a Maserati 150 GT by Fantuzzi that was beautiful, this European sports car with a width of less than 1.5m and a length of 4m was absolutely pleasing, and its competitor was the Porsche 550 Spyder.
The designer of the 150 GT was Medardo Fantuzzi (1906–1986), who designed many racing and road cars for Ferrari and Maserati.
7 Maserati 200 S (1955-1956)
Along with the 150 GT, the Maserati 200 S was built at the same time, and the two cars looked very similar, and I personally thought the 200 S was more handsome.
8 Maserati 300 S (1956-1958)
The 3.0L engine, based on the 250 F straight six-cylinder expansion, reduced the compression ratio from 12:1 to 9.5:1 because the FIA stipulates that the fuel of the road car is used, not racing oil.
9 Maserati 450 S (1956-1962)
It is still the fantuzzi teacher who just mentioned that designed this 450 S car, using a 4.5L V8 engine, and after the cylinder reduction is the 420 M that will be mentioned below.
The Maserati 450 S is the brand's highlight model, competing 119 times between 1956 and 1962, winning 31 times, and some media called it "the fastest car of the 50s".
The picture below is a version of Coupé that Zagato has customized according to customer needs, which is ugly and ugly, showing that fat has always been the original sin.
10 Maserati 420 M/58 "Eldorado" (1958)
The Maserati 420 M/58 Eldorado (#4203) car that has survived is so beautiful that I want to put more pictures.
The car was built to run the second 500 Miles of Monza, and "Eldorado" was named after Eldorado Sud, an Italian sponsor's own ice cream brand at the time.
The 420 M uses a birdcage body and a 4.2L V8, weighs only 758kg and can reach a top speed of 350km/h, but it has not won any trophies.
Now the white of this car can also be selected on Maserati's models on sale, called "Eldorado White".
11 Maserati Tipo 61 Birdcage (1959-1961)
Top 61, mentioned above, is a Racing Series of Maserati, known as "Birdcage", the embodiment of Maserati's core technology.
12 Maserati Mistral (1963-1970)
The two-seater sports car called the Mistral is the successor to the 3500 GT, and when I first saw the small picture, I was confused, isn't this the Porsche 911? Appeared a year before the 911!
Don't worry, this is a front-facing rear-drive car, and the "eyes" are not as big as 911, which is not good enough for me to look good.
13 Maserati Bora (1971-1978)
You read that right, Bora (Adriatic Wind) is Bora, and Volkswagen has used this car name, but more than twenty years later than Maserati.
This is Maserati's first mid-engined road supercar, which is the ancestor of the MC20.
At first glance, it is a masterpiece, because Bora is really from the hands of Giorgio Giorgio Giorgiaro. Bora also has a twin brother named Merak, who also designed Italo.
The picture below is Merak, this layout is called "2 +0" in the Ferrari system, and the two rear seats of the mid-engine supercar can only be temporarily given to minors.
14 Maserati Boomerang Concept Cars (1972)
The georgian work with a wedge-shaped body, the 4.7L V8 rear mid-engine, the strange steering wheel design, and all the instruments are stuffed into the core.
15Chrysler TC (1988–1990)
The famous "Father of the Ford Mustang" Lee Lacocca asked Maserati to design a sports car.
However, this was a hapless loss-making project, and when it was finally settled, it was found that the cost of 7,300 TC sports cars produced was as high as 80,000 US dollars (1990 yuan value), and its price was 37,000 US dollars.
16 Maserati Barchetta Stradale (1992)
This is not a concept car, but Martha has produced just one mid-mounted racing car, a 2.0L V6 twin-turbo engine, 319PS output, a total weight of 775kg, and a top speed of 290km/h.
17Th Maserati Monster Zagato(2015)
To celebrate Maserati's centenary, Zagato and Maserati co-created the Mostro, which is a bit too much to watch.
18 Maserati MC20 Beckham Custom Edition (2021)
There is only one in the world, because there is only one David Beckham in the world.
There are some car series that are more important to Maserati, such as A6, Biturbo, etc., but because they are really sorry, they will not be released, after all, this section is an additional "car appreciation" link.
That concludes.