All Entries Tagged With: "MASERATI"

Welcome to LA

IN Brazil, a sign that you’ve “made it” is a helicopter that flies you safely above the fray- to and from your gated villa. In Washington, it’s a fleet of Secret Service driven Chrysler 300s that shadow your government tagged Lincoln or Cadillac.

In Los Angeles County, where the lofty image is every bit as vital as the achievement, social status starts and ends with the car. To this end, there exist far more Bentleys in Beverly Hills than drivers with the requisite wealth to own them outright.

That said, it’s a reasonable wager that Marky Mark was good for his black on black Azure.

Angelinos know their cars better than anyone.

That brilliant red 190SL that if housed in Connecticut would rust, smell of must, and might start on a warm day is in SoCal maintained as a more perfect everyday driver than it was when Max Hoffman imported it all those years ago.

And to paint an unreasonably broad picture, the same goes for pretty much any car – from vintage 80s Honda Accord to 2010 Audi R8.

Such is the dry climate that everything metallic just lasts. And lasts.

Which explains your sighting of that odd 70s Ford that you swore  the Dude drove in The Big Lebowski. As much as LA pays lip service to anyone whose fame is older than 15 minutes, the city’s highways are surprising showcases for cars that time would’ve forgotten anywhere else.

In this vein, LA makes for much more exciting car watching than, say, Miami. There might be higher concentrations of Italian exotica in SoBe, but Floridians are all about financing, leasing, or renting the latest and greatest. Angelinos pay as much respect to a mint 1988 560SEC as they do a new CL65 AMG.

But here’s the Catch 22.

There are in fact so many Audis, Astons, Bimmers, Bentleys, Caddys, Lexii, Jaguars, Mercedes, Porsches, Ferraris, and Maseratis that for all the portent of these fine autos being poster vehicles for their drivers’ implied status and importance, their impact registers as white noise in the cattle herd of plodding traffic that forever clogs the 405.

Where else could spying not one, but three Ferrari Californias be considered everyday but in the city that has its own dedicated Ferrari/Maserati Collision Center? There’s a reason that every auto mag has a presence here. And a reason why every major auto maker has a design studio here.

Such is SoCal’s love affair with the automobile.

Hooray for Hollywood. And LA’s auto aficionados.

This Week @ Coys: Maserati Ghibli 4.9 SS Spyder

By Gunnar Heinrich | IMG Coys

GIALLO. In Italian, giallo means yellow.

In Inglese, it refers to a dark but sultry genre of mystery novels. You know, the kind that mix murder and sex.

Coys (né Coys of Kensington) is the greater London based auctioneer exemplar that has – by listing this giallo over black, 1970 Maserati Ghibli 4.9 SS Spyder – tickled us with our own thrilling Italian daydream.

It’s right to call the Spyder’s lustrous paint giallo.

The pigment, like the car’s beautiful body, is so dynamic, us English speakers might call it “sun”. It’s as if Maserati’s paint shop mixed Sicilian blood orange juice with limoncello; giving an otherwise flat hue a veritable fire!

Naturally, everything in the 70s had either an orange or brown cast; the Ghibli hardtop looked particularly striking, if period, in cocoa brown.

Coys, in classically understated Britishese, describes the effect the Ghiblis had on the public imagination.

“Introduced to an enthusiastic public at the Turin Show of 1966, the Ghibli broke with the recent Maserati tradition for conservative designs, instead displaying dramatic, purposeful lines, drawn by none other than Giorgietto Giugiaro whilst still at Ghia’s design studio. Under the bonnet was Maserati’s magnificent all alloy 4.7 litre four camshaft V8 engine, derived from the company’s sports racing car power plants and mated to a five speed gearbox. Claimed top speed was a not inconsiderable 174mph!”

What a hair-raising thought.

One hundred and seventy four miles per hour in a topless exotic… forty years old…painted in blinding orange-yellow… long bonnet surging toward an unknown horizon…così fantastico e profondo!

Link: Coys

ADLX 00′s Reflections & 10′s Predictions

By Gunnar Heinrich | IMG Daimler, AG

RING out the old! Ring in the new!

As New Year’s approaches those of us on the East Coast, let’s reflect for a moment on the past ten and consider the next ten.

Geopolitically, it’s been a tumultous decade and indeed the same proved true for the auto industry.

For the luxury marques, apart from 2008-2009,  it’s been mostly a boon – with the Germans going from strength to strength financially (despite loss in build quality for Mercedes and styling for BMW); the restoration of forgotten marques Bugatti and Maybach; the rebirth of the deluxe hatch in MINI; new heights in Italian performance with Ferrari and Lamborghini; and the rebirth of Maserati and Rolls-Royce.

Cadillac has restored some of its soul. And the 00′s will also likely be considered Aston Martin’s golden decade thanks to Dr. Bez’s leadership.

Looking forward: by 2020, automobiles will likely become roboticized – at least for highway travel in certain metro areas.

(In)famous Westcoast style car chases, for instance, will become more of a thing of the past as law enforcement will seek legislation empowering them to deactivate runaway vehicles remotely.

And, sadly, some of the great marques will fall to the wayside while upstart Korean companies like Hyundai grow stronger; forging entry into the luxury market just like Toyota, Honda, and Nissan managed 20 years ago.

Exciting times ahead, friends!

On Maserati’s Latest

Autumn in NY by Maserati

By Gunnar Heinrich | IMG Maserati of North America

ACCEPTING that the drive behind parting with $120K on the lovely new Maserati GranTurismo Convertible boils down to more than buying into sheer performance figures, let’s nonetheless do a quick ‘n dirty comparo of what Maserati North America’s billing as supporting statistics.

• A hand-built 4.7 liter V8 , 433hp engine | They might’ve said: “righteous & sonorous Ferrari-sourced 4.7 liter V8″. Avanti!
• Top speed 176 mph | Will see off ze Germans. But not an Aston V8 Vantage Roadster.
• 0-60 in 5.3 seconds | BMW’s M6 (con) obliterates this figure with typical M Power Sturm und Drang!
• The longest wheelbase in its segment | Hooray, the useful topless GT lives!
• The same trunk volume with the soft top either up or down | This might be a good thing. Or not.
• A racing-style aluminum undertray producing an aerodynamic coefficient of 0.35 Cd | An old Volvo 850 wagon = 0.34 Cd.
• Monocoque body stiffness with benchmark Torsional dynamic rigidity of 27.2 Hertz | Sounds good. But what’s “27.2 Hertz?”
• The roof is opened automatically in only 24 seconds | An SL does the same job in less than fifteen.

Too bad style can’t be qualified. Judging by tantalizing imagery alone, the GT decappottabile trumps every rival save for Aston Martin’s fairest.

Your Maserati’s Next Garage

Feeling at home.

By Gunnar Heinrich | IMG DesignDriven.us | YouTube

PARKED smartly in the sweet intersection of automotive design and home architecture, Maserati placed an advertisement recently (10/09) issue of Architectural Digest that was pretty slick.

The Italians sponsored what they called a “Design Driven” competition which asked architectural firms to submit their cutting edge designs for a garage where “a Maserati might feel at home.”

The winning bid for an existing garage was awarded architect Holger Schubert for his rectangular, minimalist, glass-fronted masterpiece set in the arid hills outside of Los Angeles – where else? It’s not clear what Mr. Schubert won other than the spread in AD.

Featuring an entrance that’s reached via a car-length-long, glass-sided bridge, the garage is an open space – like a small modern art gallery – that includes a sitting area with fireplace, bare walls, well placed lighting,  a solar paneled roof which provides 100% electricity to the property (good for Cali’s rolling blackouts), and a six-inch hydraulically lifted ramp that, “allows the car to roll out without starting the ignition.”

Delicious. But, one thought: you’ve got to wonder what kind of car actually lives there.

It’d be sweet if the poetry of  the ad followed reality, but my money’s on a silver Boxster.

_

[Linked: DesignDriven.us]

Jaguar’s Future Rests On The Next XJ

The marque’s fate lies just ’round the bend.

By Gunnar Heinrich

JAGUAR.  Say the name: “Jag-u-ar” if you’re a Brit, “Jag-whar” if you’re Americano. Either way you say it, the name means sex on wheels. Even if the cars themselves are falling short of that sultry promise these days.

Jaguar’s heritage was born of the swinging sixties; its past and present seemingly in lock step with the baby boomer generation. And like the few baby boomers who seem to be Jag’s last paying customers, it may sadly be that the marque’s best days are well and truly behind them.

And then again, maybe not.

So much will depend on the next M.Y. 2010 Jaguar XJ flagship. Jag seems to be feeding media reports that their next top-of-the-line model will be a four door coupe in Mercedes-Benz CLS fashion. Critics of the marque almost universally agree that the current XJ sedan with its conservatively retro design is so far past its aesthetic sell-by-date that it threatens to spoil the neighboring models in the lineup. 

More the case is that the current XJ can be faulted not so much on looks (though, the new aero fascia is garrish) but rather on cheap execution. Despite the sophisticated aluminum (or aluminium, if you prefer) construction, the flagship flops on the luxury details – part of the main appeal in buying an historically less reliable and faster depreciating competitor to BMW or Lexus. 

The ’10 XJ cannot afford to be so cheap in execution. If Jaguar’s next top saloon / four door coupe / whatever fails to reach a Maserati-like allure in being the very essence of the everyday exotic in both look and feel, I’m afraid the cat’s seen off its ninth life.

Here’s hoping for the best. 

Alfa’s “Quiet Comeback” Is A Total Crock

Shhh! You never saw this. And neither did Jalopnik.

By Gunnar Heinrich

I’VE this funny habit of sending my friend into fits of uncontrolled laughter.

Each and every time I declare  – with the summary tone that only comes from the sober authority that someone who broadcasts opinion vests in himself – that something is a total crock of $#!%, my friend starts to howl.

Perhaps its the comic roundness of the word “crock” juxtaposed with the final sharpness of the concluding expletive that makes my observation somehow funny.

But since there are no solid answers to a world of oblique questions, I’ll chalk it up to one of nature’s cryptic occurrences, kind of like the media hype surrounding Barack Obama’s Blackberry usage, that I simply cannot explain.

Neither can I explain that which the New York Times‘ Richard Chang has softly dubbed, “Alfa’s Quiet Comeback.”

Buried in the Times‘ recent archives, the article focused on America’s ration of 84 Alfa Romeo 8C Competiziones following a better-than-a-decade-long glut of little Italian numbers with clover-leafed keys Stateside, and speaks in shocked, if strangely accepting terms of Alfa’s hush-hush return to America.

According to the Maserati man vested with the capacity to speak of such matters (Alfa Romeo hasn’t bothered setting up its own PR office here)  Alfa’s comeback isn’t getting the air time ‘cuz it’s meant to be an “intimate experience” between the buyer and the seller the Maserati man said.

Intimate?

This isn’t Rolls-Royce delivering a bespoke Phantom. This Alfa Romeo of GTV and Graduate Spider fame – the everyman’s exotic weekend trial, the set for this country’s Guiseppi Plumbers – that’s come home!

“But is it a good day for Alfistis in the U.S. and all over the world?” The Maserati man asked reflexively, “You bet.”

Now that is a crock of $#!%.

[Linked: NYT]

Waiting On Alfa (Insert Your Opinion Here)

By Gunnar Heinrich

ALFA ROMEO needs to return to the U.S. car market. Stat!

It’s been how many years of maybes and two-summers-from-now talk? Purportedly, the Alfa 8C is Stateside. Funny I’ve not seen it anywhere – and I’ve ventured into plenty of territories where I damn well should’ve.

I’m tempted to call the Alfa’s absence: ‘in search of the great red whale.’ Will we find it? Not on my or any other American’s watch, it would seem.

Call this what it is – a pure rant – but damn it if our market Stateside isn’t ripe for a more mainstream Italian comeback. Sure we love our Ferraris, Maseratis, and even Pagani Zondas, but we’ve not known the accessible Italianisti for too long and it’s too much to our country’s detriment.

Does anyone else feel the same?

Hey Alfa – USTo!

[Linked: Alfa Romeo]

ex. 4) Giugaro’s Boomerang

By Gunnar Heinrich

GIUGARO had a thing for edges in the early 70s.

And by any measure, Giorgetto was well ahead of the curve. Just as the world was looking forward to a replacement to the sultry curves of the 60s, the Italian designer filled the void with a space age glimpse into a hyper-realist future.

The Maserati Boomerang was one of three concepts that married the then-still-classified stealth fighter with the automobile.

Alongside the now famous Lotus Esprit (of The Spy Who Loved Me notoriety) and the DeLorean DMC-12 (of Back To The Future fame), the Boomerang featured the hardest edges of the three concepts and was meant to back up its supercar looks with mid mounted 310 horsepower V8 might.

Luckily, the folks behind the Trident only bought into certain elements of the Boomerang’s really hard-corners – a little bit of Boomerang can be seen in Maserati’s Merak.

The car pictured above is the only known Boomerang in the world.

- Tap the links for more Boomerang images -

[Linked: Maserati Crazy | AllSportAuto]

Supercar Forgotten: The De Tomaso Pantera