Brief History About Maserati
Maserati was founded in 1914 in Italy by Alfieri, Bindo, Carlo, Ettore, and Ernesto Maserati, all brothers, who were already involved in the automotive industry.
Maserati like many at the time, started off building racing cars and quickly became a recognised name in motorsport
In 1932 Alfieri Maserati died, however the other brothers decided to keep the business going by themselves. In 1937 the Adolfo Orsi family bought Maserati, moving it to Modena in 1940, with the renaming Maserati brothers still working within the company. Maserati were very competitive in motorsport and won many races.
When WW2 broke out, like many other car makers, Maserati built military components. After the war, they went back to building cars, especially racing cars.
In 1947 the Maserati brothers left to form another automotive company called O.S.C.A.
During the 50’s Juan-Manuel Fangio raced for Maserati, giving the make some great successful racing honours. However in 1957 after the tragic incident at the Mille Miglia, which killed race driver Alfonso de Portago, co-driver Edmund Nelson and 9 spectators, Maserati stopped racing. They did however carry on building race cars for others and also concentrate on building road cars.
In 1968 Citroen bought Maserati, and Maserati then built the engine for the 1970 Citroen SM. The production of road cars was increased until the 1973 oil crisis hit and for power hungry cars, it was bad news, with Maserati going bankrupt in 1974. Maserati was then given a life-line, when the GEPI holding company and De Tomaso took over in 1975.
During the 80’s there was a slight downsizing of the cars, to more compact sports cars running mostly front mounted V6 engines. Chrysler and Fiat also took shares in the company in the mid 80’s. With things looking a little brighter, in 1989 a V8 was added back to the line-up.
In 1993 Fiat bought Maserati and then in 1997 sold 50% of the share in the company to Ferrari, followed by the rest of the Maserati shares to Ferrari in 1999 (Ferrari was already part of the Fiat group). Ferrari built a new up to date factory and made Maserati their luxury brand.
During the new millennium Fiat created several groups of manufacturers and in 2005 Maserati was split from Ferrari and partnered with Alfa Romeo and then later in 2010 with Abarth.
4200 GT (Coupe & Spyder) 2001-2007
MC12 2004-2005 & MC12 Corsa 2006-2007
