Maserati GranTurismo MC Stradale
in the mould of the Aston Martin V8 Vantage or Jaguar F-Type. That sounds like fun, doesn't it? Maserati agrees, which is why it's showing this Alfieri concept at Geneva with "proportions that might well be archetypal for a future true sport [sic] car."
Like a GranTurismo but smaller and harder
Those proportions are currently based on a chopped down GranTurismo chassis with a whacking 240mm taken out of the wheelbase to bring it down to 2,700mm. That's a little longer than the 2,595mm of the related Alfa Romeo 8C, this also using the same basic set-up of a cross-plane 4.7-litre version of Ferrari's V8, a transaxle mounted six-speed automated manual and torque tube to link the two.
In the Alfieri, named after the "most prominent of the Maserati brothers", it has 460hp and 383lb ft of torque but we're still really in the realms of fantasy here and were it to make production you'd likely expect a more up to date powertrain. Luckily Maserati has just that in the latest generation of modular twin-turbo V6 and V8 engines from the Ghibli and new Quattroporte, built by Ferrari and in the latter form able to deliver well over 500hp. Which would be adequate. We're guessing they're not considering the diesel.
For now though we have a styling exercise and a very nice one at that. Maserati says "the Alfieri is obviously much more than a futuristic interpretation of the A6 GCS-53; Maserati has a diversified design history that encourages designers to look forward rather than back" before then going on in some considerable detail about what a beautiful and influential car the A6 GCS-53 was. There are worse inspirations on which to base your new coupe, it has to be said, but the most interesting thing will be to see whether the newly assertive Maserati will be going after the F-Type, V8 Vantage and 911 sub-£100K price bracket or mixing it with a more expensive crowd. Given Fiat's volume aspirations for the brand we'd expect the former, to which we say bravissimo.
