Strong customer demand for Maserati's->ke51 new range of models has the company eyeing expanding its offerings. The word out on the street is that the Alfieri sports car->ke506 that we saw at the Geneva Motor Show->ke228 may have a production future down the road. Don't look now, folks, but Maserati has been on a roll lately, which should be cause for concern for a lot of its competitors.
According to Automotive News, the sharp increase in sales the company is receiving could pave the way for the arrival of the Alfieri in the next two years, following the launch of the Levante SUV sometime next year. Since the beginning of the year, the Italian automaker has been receiving roughly 3,500 orders per month, and if that figure holds steady until the end of the year, Maserati's sales would reach over 40,000. That's an incredible rise in demand compared to the 15,400 models that were sold just last year.
Maserati is a hot name these days, especially in the U.S., where first quarter sales shot up 331 percent compared to last year. These robust returns wasn't lost on Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne and his strategy of shifting the parent company's focus to its luxury->ke505 holdings, like Maserati, is paying off handsomely. "We are equipped to go on the attack against the giants in our industry," Marchionne said last month at Fiat's annual shareholders' meeting.
"Our strategy to expand into the more profitable premium segments has clearly begun to generate results."
And with results dramatically shooting Maserati's stock among the public, Fiat is looking into striking while the iron is hot. That's where the Alfieri could come in and become Maserati's answer to industry stalwarts like the Porsche 911 Turbo and upstarts like the Jaguar F-Type->ke1224.
Click past the jump to read more about the Maserati Alfieri
First introduced at the Geneva Motor Show last month, the Maserati Alfieri may have been designed with the 'concept' label in mind, but make no mistake, this supercar is being groomed to be a production model in the next few years.
But before you start salivating about the thought of the Alfieri hitting dealerships soon, the concept model in itself looks like a wallet-breaker in every sense of the word. The design project was led by Lorenzo Ramaciotti, and his description of the exterior as “forceful but understated” feels spot-on. The car features that traditional sports car profile of long hood, short overhangs and strong shoulders over the rear wheels.
Power in the Alfieri Concept came in the form of the same 4.7-liter, V-8 engine as that of the GranTurismo MC Stradale. That being said, Maserati has yet to give any indication on what the production model is going to carry, but with the benefit of knowing that the car is targeting the likes of the 911 Turbo and the F-Type, it wouldn't behoove us to think that a V-8 could be put inside the production model.
Should that be the case, well, can we sign up to get one this early?