Also V8 on the kick chair
Maserati currently has two sedans in its range: the Ghibli and the Quattroporte. From 2024, however, that will change, Grant Barling, CEO of the Australian branch of Maserati, tells drive. The Ghibli will cease to exist that year and the next Quattroporte will take its place in 2025. In addition, Maserati stops production of the V8 in that year.
The sale of the sedans from Maserati is not going so well. In a market that increasingly revolves around SUVs, the popularity of the Ghibli and Quattroporte is on the decline. It also doesn’t help that the two models have been around since 2013 and have only received relatively mild updates since then. Maserati is therefore changing course. The Ghibli will go out of production in 2024 to make way for the new Quattroporte, which will be launched a year later. That will then be the only sedan in the range of the trident. “The Ghibli will be replaced by the Quattroporte,” said Barling. “So the new Quattroporte will have the size of the Ghibli.”
Arriverderci, Ghibli.
This step means that the Quattroporte will shrink approximately to the size of the previous generation, which came on the market in 2004. The current Quattroporte is 5.26 meters long, while the previous generation was 5.09 meters long. The current Ghibli measures 4.97 meters in length, so there is not much difference. The sales figures are also the reason for the decline of the Quattroporte. In the Quattroporte segment, according to Barling, Maserati will be hit harder than that of the Ghibli, so it pays for the brand to say goodbye to the top sedan segment. Why Maserati chooses the name Quattroporte instead of Ghibli is not clear, but it probably has something to do with its historical value.
An electric Quattroporte?
In addition to the news about the new Quattroporte and the disappearance of the Ghibli, Barling casually says that Maserati will also stop supplying the V8 in 2024. The brand currently uses that 530 hp power source in the Trofeo versions of the Ghibli, Levante and Quattroporte. That is a logical step, since Maserati wants to be fully electric from 2030. The new Maserati GranTurismo Folgore is the first step in that direction, in 2023 the brand will introduce an electric variant of the Grecale. It is very likely that the Quattroporte will be the third electric model from Maserati and will be placed on one of the new STLA platforms from parent company Stellantis. Then the Quattroporte would be a nice competitor for the Porsche Taycan and Tesla Model S.
It could also be that Maserati, as with the GranTurismo and Grecale, first takes an intermediate step and offers the new Quattroporte with both combustion engines and an electric powertrain. For now, however, that’s just coffee grounds. In the coming years, Maserati will first have to rely on the electric GranTurismo and Grecale, the current Ghibli and Quattroporte have a while to go until their retirement.
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– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl