If you aren't that familiar with car brands then you won't understand what I mean by Maserati "is back". You're probably thinking, when did they ever even leave? Well, that's fair, they didn't really leave. However they've mentally checked out a couple of years ago and have done the bare minimum to stay afloat.
The best way to put it for everyone to understand is, Maserati is that one kid in high school that got good grades freshman year and then thought that was enough to coast through the remainder of high school. Maserati's have always been plagued with reliability issues. However over the last few years reliability and quality control have been a horror story, a story even worse than before. They have become a long standing joke in the automotive community. Add to the fact that they are owned by FCA (Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles), which in and of itself a joke just makes matters worse. Maserati only has 3 cars in its lineup and the newest one is the Levante SUV which was unveiled a whopping 5 years ago. The other 2 are sedans that are both 7 years old and with no successors on the horizon.
Maserati back in the day was known for it's sports cars and they've made some really awesome vehicles over the years. Even right now their lineup has beautifully designed and sounding cars. Sadly, beyond that they don't have anything else to boast about. They had 1 sports car in their lineup, the Maserati GranTurismo, which was released back in 2007 and stayed in production until 2019. In 2019 without being replaced it was silently killed off and sent to its grave. It was an absolute shame because the GranTurismo was a really good car. Maserati just kind of got lazy with it and never gave it the updates and TLC it deserved. If they continued to improve it, this could have been a top seller.
In all honesty, I'd written Maserati off a long time ago. While the brand was cool and they had really good looking designs, the fact that they are not reliable and built cheaply just put me off. Not to mention the fact that they were years behind with technology and were always very lazy and slow with their updates and refreshes of their models. Nothing solidified this more than Daddy Doug's (Doug DeMuro) scathing review of the Maserati Ghibli that came out back in 2017. That video is still shared around till-date because of how hilariously bad the Ghibli was at it's price point. It was littered with issues and cheap plastics from the FCA parts bin. All-in-all it was a masterclass in how not to make a luxury sports sedan.
It's safe to say that Maserati has purely survived through all these years because the brand still had some value in the eyes of people. Non-car people still think that the Maserati is an expensive and exotic car. For all it's faults the Maserati brand name is still revered by most. So when I woke up this morning, I was pleasantly surprised to hear that after YEARS, Maserati out of the blue finally unveiled a new car. Not just any random SUV or sedan either, they unveiled a new sports car called the MC20. This is a 2 door sports car that has a twin-turbo V6 and pushes 620HP. It's a good looking car too. It's got that Italian flair, that Maserati's are so well known for.
The biggest improvement in my opinion though has to be the interior. This car looks so much more in tune with modern times. It doesn't look like the dash was borrowed from a Dodge Durango or Jeep Grand Cherokee. It's a new design and looks to be have much better build quality as well. We really won't know about quality of the materials and QC until this car is actually in the hands of customers, but this is a good step in the right direction.
I am very happy to see that Maserati is working it's way back to it's glory days. They definitely lost their way in the last decade. Hopefully this new decade could hold a lot of positive changes if they continue on this path.
What do you guys think of the design? I think it looks neat, and definitely doesn't look like another generic mid-engine sports car! -Ankit