With this financial commitment and serious approach to addressing buyer concerns, Robinson and the others at Maserati North America hope to build the franchise to some 6,000 vehicles a year by 2006.
That won't be possible without a third, four-door model, and that's what the firm plans to launch at the 2003 Frankfurt motor show. The company has revealed working sketches of the model, which the factory is calling ''quattro porte,'' or ''four-door.''
It's not known what the model will be called when it arrives in Canada sometime in 2004, but it's likely to bear the name of Pininfarina.
That's a particularly meaningful turn of events, since that's the Italian design firm that creates Ferraris, leaving Giugiaro to design Maseratis. By giving Pininfarina the job to create Maserati's volume model, Ferrari is said to be making a point about how serious it is with its plans for its second brand.
Article Gallery