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The troubled Alfa Romeo Giulia needs serious help [UPDATE]

UPDATE: An Alfa Romeo US spokesman responded to this article with the following statement: The safety concerns expressed in the story are false. The all-new 2017 Alfa Romeo Giulia is designed and engineered to meet or exceed all federal safety regulations. The Alfa Romeo Giulia will begin production for the North American market in the late second-quarter of this year. Alfa Romeo will have a full product portfolio of premium vehicles that includes plans for (8) all-new Alfa Romeo vehicles by 2020. The product launches are prioritized by segment volumes starting this year with the Alfa Romeo Giulia production for North America starting in late Q2, followed by the Midsize-UV – the 2nd largest premium segment in North America. Even on the day you dragged them kicking and screaming and gesticulating wildly to a table full of concrete evidence, Alfa Romeo executives will never admit the Giulia program is going through a tough patch. But it is. Reports say the Giulia, on the eve of production, didn't just fail one internal crash test, but failed the front, side and rear impact tests. Alfa denies it. Automotive News published a report last week saying two suppliers had insisted the Giulia, on the eve of production, didn't just fail one internal crash test, but failed the front-, side-, and rear-impact tests. A third supplier source told us the same thing. Alfa is denying it. It was due on sale in Europe late last year and was supposed to be here in the next month or two. But it wasn't, and it won't. It was to be headlined by a twin-turbo V6 that reportedly howled its way around the Nurburgring 14 seconds faster than the BMW M3 could manage. That second part is only true if you believe it's fair to compare a full lap in a standard BMW M3 with a favorable accumulation of sector times to a development prototype Giulia with 220 pounds stripped out of it and rolling on hand-cut racing slicks. No, me neither. A Promising Start The Giulia's all-new architecture was developed in just two years by a skunkworks of young engineers headed by Fiat's engineering prince, Philippe Krief, and (bafflingly) sited inside Maserati's headquarters complex in Modena, about three hours from Alfa Romeo's own Turin HQ.

2024 Maserati GranTurismo reveals its evolutionary, still-sybaritic interior

After our own Ronan Glon visited Maserati HQ in Modena, Italy to view the 2024 GranTurismo, he wrote, "I can't tell you much about the interior; I saw it, but I'm sworn to automotive omerta until early 2023. What I can say is that Maserati went to significant lengths to make the GranTurismo a true four-seater, and a pair of average-sized adults should be relatively comfortable in the rear seats." The Italians have finally released images of the new GranTurismo interior, and while we're still waiting to have a proper seat in the coupe, we can't detect that any lies have been told.  For those who found the new car's exterior much more evolutionary than one would have expected from not just a rebooted car, but a rebooted brand, the interior also retains familiar cues. The steering wheel is the biggest departure from the past, the new helm looking more like something out of a Mercedes-AMG product. There's a new screen beneath the infotainment display in the center console that appears to be devoted to HVAC controls. And there's no shift lever anymore; paddle shifters do the work of changing cogs in the eight-speed automatic transmission fitted to the ICE-powered trims. Otherwise, the Maserati clock assumes its usual place atop the dash between vent registers, the instrument panel lines create a strong sense of dual cockpits, and the leather looks as sumptuous as ever. The automaker only provided galleries for two of the three trims to be released, the Modena and Trofeo. Both get the 3.0-liter Nettuno V6, which makes 490 horsepower and 443 pound-feet of torque in the Modena, 550 hp and 479 lb-ft in the Trofeo. The two variants are distinguished inside by details like different leather patterning on the instrument panel and seats, more vibrant cross-stitching in the Trofeo, and a black Start button in the Modena versus the blue Start button in the Trofeo. Outside, the Trofeo wears carbon fiber embellishments like the front intake surrounds, rocker panel extensions, and decklid spoiler. We don't have interior images of the battery-electric GranTurismo Folgore yet. It likely has other interior surprises for us. Maserati will begin delivering the new GranTurismo in the second quarter of 2023. Pricing will start at around $200,000.  Related video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

2015 Maserati Quattroporte gets the lightest possible updates

A week after its debut on the interwebs, Maserati has trotted out its freshened Quattroporte range at the LA Auto Show, giving us our first in-person look at the changes to the top-of-the-line GTS trim.
Maserati has tweaked the headlights across the range, while the GTS gains new body-color trim pieces on the lower bodywork. Red badging on the wheelcaps and and a freshened trident badge are some of the more obvious changes, while new lower bodywork is matched to the main exterior color. While these tweaks are nice, we aren't totally sure they deliver on the "sportier and aggressive appearance" that the Italian company is aiming for in model year 2015.
What do you think? Could Maserati have stood to go further for the 2015 Quattroporte, or is this sort of super-light freshening just what the doctor ordered? Let us know what you think in Comments.