Video 13 Black Turbocharged 5 Speed Manual Convertible Have Red One Also! on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Maserati Levante production starting next year, Alfieri could come within 28 months

Maserati is on a roll. The new Ghibli and Quattroporte have been huge successes, and it unveiled the gorgeous Alfieri concept (pictured above) at the 2014 Geneva Motor Show. The next step for the brand is getting the Levante crossover into production.
"We are getting Mirafiori ready for production [of the Levante]. The first bodies are expected for 2015," said Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne to Reuters in Geneva. He also said that there isn't much keeping the Alfieri off the streets. "The platforms and motors are there. Technically, production could start in 24-28 months," he said. However, Marchionne refused to say whether the company would actually give the concept a green light to be built.
Fiat hopes to be profitable again by 2016, and while its acquisition of Chrysler is certainly going to help, rejuvenating Alfa Romeo and Maserati are also a major part of the plan. In 2013, the Italian luxury brand saw sales more than double to 15,400 vehicles. Maser is still far away from its goal of selling 50,000 units by 2015, but it's quite a start. Fiat bought Maserati in 1993, but business went through a decade or more of doldrums and falling sales. It appears that the century-old brand is finally finding a path forward with some gorgeous new cars.

2013 Fiat 500e

A Juice Box With Style And Substance
It happens nearly every day, and as often as not, I'm the guilty party: someone slips an eBay Motors or Craigslist link into the fetid automotive stew that is the Autoblog editors' online chatroom. Typically, it's enough to momentarily derail an otherwise productive dialog about editing a breaking news item or researching an arcane bit of automotive history. Predictably, we've all got our favorites. Once dubbed "Mr. Other Makes" by a former coworker and friend who noticed my penchant for four-wheeled eBay esoterica, I can't help but spend at least a few minutes trawling the online classifieds every night before I go to bed, staring glassy-eyed at some basketcase Bitter SC, Inca-wheeled Saab 99 Turbo, a moonshot Plymouth Road Runner Superbird or resuming my quest to seek out the world's last remaining unmolested first-gen Nissan Sentra SE-R.
Every Autoblog staffer has their peccadilloes, Editor-in-Chief John Neff among them. His classified quests skew toward larger sport sedans that discreetly package big performance. As the former owner of a first-gen Ford Taurus SHO Plus, Neff is a serial viewer of Pontiac G8, Audi S6, Lincoln LS V8 and BMW M5 listings. Yet the current apple of his eye is the 500E. No, not the bubbly electric Fiat shown here that shares its name, but rather the imposing 1991-1994 Mercedes-Benz E-Class, a hand-built V8 monster developed and assembled with Porsche acting as Daimler's skunkworks. A rare car, its values are starting to escalate, a reality that has Neff closer than ever to pulling the trigger.

Fiat mulling purchase of MV Agusta?

Apparently to be a cool automaker in Europe, you have to build motorcycles. Volkswagen Group bought Ducati in 2012, and BMW has made bikes longer than it's made cars (until recently, it also owned Husqvarna). Fiat might be the next automaker to get into the two-wheel business, with rumors flying that it is considering buying cash-strapped Italian sportbike brand MV Agusta.
At the moment, it's all still very much a rumor, but the purchase would certainly seem to help the motorcycle company. However, according to Asphalt and Rubber, the business would need a lot of cash to grow and sustain itself. Fiat might not want to invest so much into a brand that may never be a huge moneymaker.
MV Agusta is best known for its racing success in the '50s and '60s. Until Japanese manufacturers took over the sport, the Italian company was one of the fastest things on two wheels, with a long list of championships in various classes. Recently, it was briefly owned by Harley-Davidson.