Fork In The Road

With heritage to die for but sales in the doldrums, Maserati is about to hit the reset button. Peek inside a company about to go on the offensive once again

- Ben Barry

Great metaphor, terrible paint job. The mirror-finish bluey-purple on the Maserati GranTurismo Zeda’s shapely nose bleeds to near black and anthracite and silver before finally there appears to be no paint at all, just the scratchiness of bare metal. The unkind might liken it to watching a nasty bruise healing in stop-motion, but the GranTurismo Zeda – zeda meaning Z in the Modenese dialect – parked symbolically at the end of the Viale Ciro Menotti production line in Modena is a one-off to mark the end of the model’s epic 12-year run, and there’s something of the struggle of a space shuttle scorching back into Earth’s orbit to that paint, a transition between two worlds that’s not entirely painless.

Viewed in the context in which Maserati finds itself today, I can see what they’re driving at: the GranTurismo almost bridges the chasm between the simpler times of its launch in 2007 to an all-new era that will banish diesel, leave behind today’s Ferrari-made engines, embrace full electrification, and introduce more SUVs, hands-off Level 3 autonomy and – best ’til last – a new sportscar built on a new platform that we’re assured will pop petrol in its cylinders, even if electrification is inevitable.

That sportscar will be the long-awaited Alfieri, albeit significantly evolved from the concept first teased during Maserati’s centenary in 2014. So the Zeda’s rump is unfinished, much work still to be done, the results of which the GranTurismo won’t live to see. Apt.