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2014 Maserati Ghibli

Italy Passionately Returns To The Sport Sedan Game
In its 99-year history, Maserati has arguably never made a vehicle as important as this all-new Ghibli.
Of course, there have been countless styling breakthroughs, mechanical advances and technical innovations, but no single passenger car has been required to bear the weight of the Italian company like its brand-new sport sedan. If the Ghibli succeeds, Maserati will welcome tens of thousands of new customers and, most importantly, celebrate a rekindled relationship with demanding North American buyers. If the Ghibli fails - well, the truth is, nobody has written an option for failure.

Drive like a prince: Join us for a walk through Monaco's car collection

Small, crowded, and a royal pain in the trunk lid to drive into during rush hour, Monaco sounds like an improbable location for a huge car museum. And yet, this tiny city-state has been closely linked to car culture for over a century. It hosts two major racing events every year, many of its residents would qualify for a frequent shopper card if Rolls-Royce issued one, and Prince Rainier III began assembling a collection of cars in the late 1950s. He opened his collection to the public in 1993 and the museum quickly turned into a popular tourist attraction. The collection continued to grow after his death in April 2005; it moved to a new facility located right on Hercules Port in July 2022. Monaco being Monaco, you'd expect to walk into a room full of the latest, shiniest, and most powerful supercars ever to shred a tire. That's not the case: while there is no shortage of high-horsepower machines, the first cars you see after paying ˆ10 (approximately $11) to get in are pre-war models. In that era, the template for the car as we know it in 2023 hadn't been created, so an eclectic assortment of expensive and dauntingly experimental machines roamed whatever roads were available to them. One is the Leyat Helica, which was built in France in 1921 with a 1.2-liter air-cooled flat-twin sourced from the world of aviation. Fittingly, the two-cylinder spun a massive, plane-like propeller. Government vehicles get a special spot in the museum. They range from a Cadillac Series 6700 with an amusing blend of period-correct French-market yellow headlights and massive fins to a 2011 Lexus LS 600h with a custom-made transparent roof panel that was built by Belgian coachbuilder Carat Duchatelet for Prince Albert II's wedding. Here's where it all gets a little weird: you've got a 1952 Austin FX3, a Ghia-bodied 1959 Fiat 500 Jolly, a 1960 BMW Isetta, and a 1971 Lotus Seven. That has to be someone's idea of a perfect four-car garage.  One of the most significant cars in the collection lurks in the far corner of the main hall, which is located a level below the entrance. At first glance, it's a kitted-out Renault 4CV with auxiliary lights, a racing number on the front end, and a period-correct registration number issued in the Bouches-du-Rhone department of France. It doesn't look all that different than the later, unmodified 4CV parked right next to it. Here's what's special about it: this is one of the small handful of Type 1063 models built by Renault for competition.

Maserati orders explode, 22,500 through September

Last year when Maserati revealed a plan to sell 50,000 units globally by 2015, it seemed like a pretty steep goal for an automaker that had sold just 6,300 units for the entire year. It turns out that goal may be a little on the conservative side. Through September, Automotive News Europe says the Italian automaker has already racked up 22,500 orders mainly on the backs of the redesigned Quattroporte and the all-new Ghibli, and there are still more new products in the pipeline.
Back in August, we heard that demand in China was playing a strong role in Maserati's big numbers in 2013, and this doesn't even include the upcoming Levante SUV, which Maserati CEO Harald Wester expects to add as many as 25,000 units to the mix when it goes on sale in 2015. According to the ANE report, the Quattroporte is still the most popular model with almost 10,000 orders so far this year, while the smaller and more affordable Ghibli is performing quite well with almost 8,000 orders; the aging, but soon-to-be-replaced, GranTurismo models have about 5,000 orders.