Maserati CEO Talks Alfieri Sports Car, Plug-in Hybrid Ghibli

The new Ghibli and Quattroporte are the cars that have helped Maserati triple its sales in the first 9 months of the year, to 26,428 units, and the Levante SUV will increase its weapons in the race to a 2018 target of 75,000 sales.

It is low-volume products like the Alfieri, which was introduced last March at the Geneva Motor Show as a concept, though that act like halo cars for the brand and its image. Named after the one of the five Maserati brothers who founded the automaker (the other four being Bindo, Carlo, Ettore and Ernesto), the Alfieri will make it almost unchanged into production, company CEO Harald Wester told CAR magazine.

Styled by Lorenzo Ramacciotti, it is intended as a rival to the Jaguar F-Type, Mercedes-Benz GT and, of course, the perennial Porsche 911. The 2+2 rear-wheel drive coupe will be launched in 2016, with a soft-top convertible coming one year later.

“The future of Maserati has already began with the Ghibli and the Quattroporte”, Wester said. “Everything else that is in the pipeline between now and 2008 will tap this DNA”.

The Alfieri is based on a shortened version of the Quattrroporte/Ghibli platform and the base version will be powered by a turbocharged V8 with at least 400hp. The big news, however, is that Maserati is engineering a plug-in hybrid system for its models.

“Maserati is also preparing an auxiliary 48V electrical system and, eventually, a plug-in application”, Wester revealed. “While the 48V approach provides a kick-in-the-butt E-boost as well as enough E-power to feed the AC and the active suspension, the Ghibli PHEV must meet a tough 70g/km CO2 target.”