Maserati is an Italian luxury and sports car brand that doesn't have the recognition that big names like BMW,
Mercedes, Porsche or even Ferrari have, but it could become the crown jewel of one of the world's largest
automakers. Maserati has a long history, a strong racing legacy, and once had a well-known crosstown rivalry
with Ferrari, a company that later became a key partner.
For decades it was owned by Fiat Group, which later became Fiat Chrysler.
Maserati gave it a presence in premium and luxury segments, but they struggled in recent years with falling sales and concerns
among analysts that Fiat Chrysler did not make needed investments to update Maserati's product lineup.
Now that Fiat Chrysler has merged with France's Group PSA to form
Stellantis, there is speculation over which brands in the stable will survive and succeed.
Maserati was founded by three of the six Maserati brothers, Alfieri,Ettore, and Ernesto in 1914 in Bologna,
Italy. The three other brothers, Carlo, Bindo, and Mario also played roles.
Carlo was an automotive engineer who made advancements that served Maserati after his untimely death in 1910.
Bindo joined the company after it was founded.
Mario, an artist, designed the trident logo that is still used today.
Maserati's early cars were designed primarily for racing, and the Maserati brothers often drove their own cars in the events.
The cars had some success in their early years.
Maserati was the first Italian manufacturer to win the Indianapolis 500 in 1939 with the 8CTF.
It won the race again the following year.
By the time World War Two broke out, Maserati had moved from Bologna to its current home, the city of Modena, as the war
intensified. The company suspended car production to make sparkplugs and other supplies for Italy's war effort.
Maserati's first true road going car came out in 1946, the A6, A for Alfieri and six for
the engines, a number of cylinders.
Formula One began in the 1950s, and Maserati was an early contender and later developed a deep rivalry with Ferrari.
Maserati would give the world several legendary vehicles throughout the next several decades.
There was the Scia di Persia or Shah of Persia, which was tailored specifically to the tastes of the Persian Shah.
The Quattroporte in 1963, which was at the time the fastest sedan in the world, and starting in 1981, the
Biturbo, which became one of the brand's most produced vehicles of all time.
They have this incredible history.
But then somewhere in the 1960s, early 70s, Maserati started to fade.
They never went away entirely.
But they, you know, a lot of other brands started to overtake themin a lot of ways.
Maserati became part of the Fiat Group in 1993, which made it a stablemate of its long time rival, Ferrari.
The president and CEO of Ferrari took over managing Maserati, and the two began a deep partnership.
Ferrari began producing engines for Maserati, beginning with the Maserati Spyder.
Maserati returned to the U.S.
with the Spyder in 2001 after a 12 year absence.
A new Quattroporte released in 2003 became the official state car of the Italian president in 2004.
The company also began an impressive string of racing victories thanks to its MC12.
The car racked up 14 FIA GT titles and 19 victories between 2004 and 2010.
Coming out of the recession sparked by the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009, Maserati started to look like a powerhouse.
The company doubled global sales from 2013 to 2014, selling nearly 33,000 cars worldwide.
That is a roughly five fold increase over 2012.
Sales also tripled in North America, its biggest market, and rose considerably in China, its second biggest.
But in recent years, Maserati has struggled.
It's not real clear what Maserati in 2021 is really supposed to representanymore.
Maserati had a loss of 199 million euros in 2019, about 26,000 units sold at retail in 2019,
a decline of 26 percent over the previous year due to reductions in the U.S., China and other markets and partially due to lower
overall industry sales in the segments where Maserati competes.
In 2019, about 31 percent of sales were in the U.S., 24 percent in China and 17 percent in the top four European markets
the UK, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy.
Another five percent went to Japan and the other twenty three percent in other markets.
Shipments went from 35,000 in 2018 to 19,000 in 2019, due primarily to lower sales and dealer
stock reductions. One challenge executives have pointed to in the past is visibility.
Consumers in the market for high end luxury cars are often not even considering Maserati.
Unless you're an enthusiast or you've had one in the past, it probably isn't going to be top of mind.
Even if you have that 100k to spend, you know, you're going to look at other vehicles, you're going to cross shop against it.
Really. It's like unless you prefer the styling of Maserati and you must have an Italian brand, there's no one thing that's going
to excel at better than its competitors.
There were also some decisions at Fiat Chrysler that executives said contributed to some of Maserati's challenges over the years.
One was combining the brand with Alfa Romeo in the FCA organization in 2016, when FCA put Reid Bigland in charge of both
units, executives said combining the two led the company to mistakenly reduce the focus on the Maserati name and treat it as
more of a mass market brand rather than an exclusive high end one.
There have been complaints that Maserati's have shared too many parts with cheaper vehicles from the Fiat Chrysler portfolio and
don't have the same luxury feel that their competitors do.
Sharing parts is something all automakers do across their lines, and it can bring many benefits, reducing costs and keeping vehicle
prices down while giving mass market customers a taste of technologies previously only available on pricier vehicles.
Maserati sources its engines from Ferrari, which has added to the brand's prestige.
But that relationship is ending.
You were getting some of the old motor.
You're getting some of these trickle down parts that was seen as a positive.
But when you're telling me, hey, this is, you know, the same air ventfrom a Fiat 500 or whatever you know, it's always going to be
seen as a negative.
So it only works in one way when it comes to brand reputation, trickle down, fantastic.
Trickling up, not so much
Sharing parts has to be done carefully.
And some reviewers have said that the cheaper bits, especially on the interiors, seem to be more noticeable in Maserati's than in
premium vehicles from other large automakers.
If people found out how much part sharing actually happens in the industry.
It would shock them.
I mean, I think one of my favorite examples is my old 300ZX in the nineties had the same headlights as the Lamborghini
Diablo. It's one of those things that people talk about air vents, you can look at air vents on cars and look up and down the
price range and see that they'll share a part.
But this is nothing new in the industry, but it's always something that's seen as a knock.
There have also been some quality issues.
For example, the 2017 Ghibli was recalled five times by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Maserati told CNBC that all manufacturers face recall campaigns.
The brand said its future is bright and highlighted its recent and upcoming vehicle launches.
Finally, some industry analysts say the brand has not been as disciplined about freshening its lineup as others.
People want something new every year, two, three years at the most.
But if you look at a lot of these designs, they're stale.
Quattroporte has been around for god knows how long in that same basic format its had iterations that are different.
Ghibli I don't think has had any really major revisions ever since, but I think for the consumer base that can afford that
vehicle type, they don't want a five or six year old looking design.
In 2018, when Mike Manley took over for late former FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne, he split Maserati
off from Alfa Romeo and the company began taking steps to address some of its issues.
At the time, the company said it planned to introduce six new models by 2022 and double its global sales.
Back in 2018, the last time Fiat Chrysler had one of their capital markets days where they laid out a five year plan for the company.
And this was before the PSA merger.
They talked about Maserati at some length and they talked about adding these new products to, you know, these new vehicles to the
Maserati lineup. That's great to talk about that.
But, you know, it's 2021 now, and none of that has appeared yet.
We haven't seen any of those products.
You know, the MC20 is the first thing we've seen since that time three years ago.
Maserati's parent Fiat Chrysler, completed its merger with the French automaker PSA in January 2021.
Despite its rough year in 2019 and its troubles during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, Stellantis executives have said they
think Maserati could become a crown jewel of the new company.
If this is true, it bodes well for Maserati.
Neither Fiat Chrysler nor PSA group had much exposure in high end luxury.
To be sure, higher end brands can be quite successful for companies if they have the right products.
Porsche, Audi, Lamborghini, and Bentley are all high end brands within the larger Volkswagen portfolio and have been largely
successful in recent years.
Their association with a bigger automaker that also makes very cheap cars and shares parts among its vehicles has not seemed to
tarnish their images.
Maserati will have to compete with brands like Porsche, Audi, BMW, and Mercedes Benz.
Porsche which was once a relatively small sports car maker before it began making SUVs like the Cayenne and Macan sold
57,294 units in 2020 just in the U.S.
That outpaces sales of all Maserati models combined.
Maserati unveiled the MC20 mid engine sports car in September 2020.
The vehicle is said to be the brand's first true supercar in decades.
The MC20 is meant to signal a new era for Maserati, a return to the brand's heritage in racing luxury and Italian style.
Executives say technology now exclusive to the MC20 will trickle down into its other models.
In 2021, Maserati is scheduled to release the Grecale, a smaller crossover.
There is also expected to be a hybrid version of Maserati's LevanteSUV.
In 2022, a full product offensive is expected to kick off with several new models, including electric ones.
These are new products for a brand with a lot of history, heritage, and prestige that its massive new parent Stellantis sees
a great deal of potential value in during a fiercely competitive and very uncertain new world for cars.