Bargain basement Maser on the cards
Newswheel staff :: 15 February 2006 :: Filed under SUV, Maserati, Europe & UK, US
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Yup. But it might be an SUV…
Record sales in 2005 including 2,100 Quattroportes offloaded in the US
and a worldwide total of 5,600 cars. So, everything’s groovy at
Maserati, right? Not quite. CEO Karl-Heinz Kalbfell has just confessed
that Maser won’t hit its medium-term sales target of 10,000 units a
year for 2007 – 2008. The good news news is that the solution is the
insertion of a cheapo Maserati at the bottom of the range. The bad
news, for sports car enthusiasts at least, is that the new car could be
yet another premium SUV.
Talking to TheCarConnection, Kalbfell conceded that Maser’s current two horse product range will likely limit sales to 6,000 or 7,000 units for the next few years. But he still reckons the 10,000 target is achievable by the end of the decade. How so? Simple. A new entry-level offering. Problem is, since ownership of Maserati passed back to Fiat proper from Ferrari around a year ago, the prospects of a joint effort with Maranello have clearly shrunk. Which probably leaves two options: a clean-sheet, in-house design or a dodgy, re-badged Alf Romeo. Mercifully, Kalbfell says the latter is not an option. But don’t get too excited. The most likely candidate is a production version of the Kubang SUV. As Kalbfell himself says, the Kubang “is still on the table.”
The shape of things to come? Maserati’s me-too Kubang SUV concept
Linkage:
TheCarConnection
