According to Stuart Robinson, the president of Ferrari and Maserati North America, most people weren't sure what a Maserati was exactly, but there was ''a residual feel of excitement to the name.''
That may not mirror the feelings of the few folks who actually bought Maseratis when they were on sale here more than a decade ago, but even old customers have to be reconsidering the brand in its new state.
Ferrari owns the brand now, and the famous Italian sportscar firm is determined to bring the Maserati badge back to health and (for them) wealth. To that end, they put more than US$400 million into re-doing the Maserati factory in Modena, Italy.
They also expanded the factory that builds Ferrari's engines, setting up a separate line to build engines for the trident-badged brand.
Right now Maseratis come off the Ferrari paint shop, but later this fall a dedicated paint shop for Maserati will go online, along with a separate machine shop.
The point of all this, says Robinson, is design and production quality that matches today's world standards in all regards.
Furthermore, Robinson says that the Maserati Spyder and Coupe models now arriving at Canada's three Ferrari dealerships should not require any extraordinary service time or effort. There are plans to keep enough parts in store to make dealership stays as short as they'd be for a regular car.