Maserati Ghibli: Baby Quattroporte
The Maserati Ghibli, already unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show, made its North American debut in Los Angeles.
The beautiful new Italian luxury car has a 3.0-litre V6 twin-turbo offered with either 345 or 404 horses. This allows for a 0-100 km/h time of 5 seconds. During the press conference, the president of the brand, Harald Wester, did not fail to note that this engine was manufactured by Ferrari in Maranello. That tidbit sure fits well in a conversation ...
The transmission is an eight-speed ZF automatic dispatching the horses to the rear wheels (Ghibli & Ghibli S) or AWD (Ghibli S Q4). Thanks to the Ghibli, Maserati intends to build 50,000 cars by 2015.
Maserati also took the opportunity to unveil for the first time in America, the Quattroporte Ermenegildo Zegna Edition also seen in Frankfurt. This model is purely cosmetic and rarely have I seen an unveiling with so little fanfare. It was almost embarrassing! I must say that all eyes were glued to the Maserati Ghibli.