My dream is always to have more car brands in the United States, so I was excited when the merger of Fiat and Chrysler brought us a bevy of Italian badges not seen since people were bumpin’ Scatman John from the speakers in their 164L. In retrospect, I’m not sure it made the brands any better.
The Morning Dump today is devoted to brands and what happens when you don’t pay attention to them. Brands are not your friends, but neither is beloved character actress Margo Martindale, and I kinda care what happens to her. Up first is Maserati, which has a gorgeous new ad campaign out that’s just a sad reminder of how ignored the brand has become.
Nissan created an EV brand with the Leaf, only to watch Tesla suck up all the oxygen in the room. The Leaf is turning over a… new chapter, but production issues are apparently already hampering its return. Ford’s brand has survived numerous downturns, but now it’s losing one of its most recognizable buildings.
And it wouldn’t be a Morning Dump without celebrating a specific beloved (by me) brand, which celebrates 100 years of being a merged carmaker.
Maybe Stellantis Should Just Sell Maserati
Am I being unfair? It’s possible I’m being unfair. I woke up to run, and it was too dark, so I picked a yoga routine to do, but it turned out to be the wrong one. I didn’t realize this until I was halfway through, so I just finished it. Perhaps that’s coloring my views this morning.
I was out looking for news, eating cereal, when I noticed a few stunning photos in a release from Maserati. It’s about a tie-up with Acqua di Parma, the Italian “art of living” company that makes fragrances, soaps, and other things that smell nice.
Here’s the description:
The Acqua di Parma x Maserati collection includes a bespoke Andiamo Car Diffuser, finished in Acqua di Parma’s signature yellow and embossed with the Maison’s emblem alongside Maserati’s iconic Trident – an elevated companion for every drive. The Passepartout Leather Charm rendered in genuine leather with yellow stitching and the Maserati logo on the charm, complete with a 12ml Colonia Eau de Cologne. Completing the Acqua di Parma x Maserati collection is the Art of Travel Coffret, presented in Acqua di Parma’s iconic hat box. Inside, the special edition Andiamo Car Diffuser is paired with a Luce di Colonia refill and a set of driving gloves in Maserati blue nappa leather, trimmed with yellow piping. The gloves, designed for comfort and grip, are fingerless, perforated at the knuckles, and fastened with tone-on-tone laser-etched buttons.
Contemporary and innovative, the bespoke Acqua di Parma x Maserati Andiamo Car Diffuser sets the car interiors with a pleasurable and comfortable atmosphere to match the modern driving experience where technology reigns. Its circular shape is inspired by the iconic boxes of Acqua di Parma and is a perfect fit for any interior with its simple and intuitive mounting system that allows for easy magnetic attachment to the car’s ventilation grill. The fragrance is then diffused via the vehicle’s air circulation by activating the car’s ventilation system and the diffuser’s simple cursor. The fragrances come in special refills that can be replaced anytime, allowing to choose your favourite scent for every journey.
If I’m in Milan or Saint-Tropez, perhaps I will pick up a car diffuser. What’s immediately noticeable, however, is what’s missing. Do you see it? Here’s another one.
Ok, one more. Can you notice the theme in all of these photos?
The photographers and producers of this shoot did an excellent job. Everything is staged in a lovely way. The lighting is just right. It’s pleasing to the eye. Now that I know that Acqua di Parma is not some sort of cheese drink, I am inclined to try some of it.
What’s missing is a new Maserati. There is no Maserati you could even use that would fit here, and that’s sad. The current lineup is a relatively nice but expensive supercar tucked in with some electric cars no one wants and some mediocre rebadged crossovers.
The current inventory for Maserati of Long Island–the one place a Maserati dealer should do well–is just 16 Grecales. Imagine the above with a Grecale, and it doesn’t work. I’m not sure it even works with an MCPura or whatever.
If you look at a sales chart for Stellantis, the company now breaks out regions and then singles out Maserati as its own quasi-seperate entity, which means you can see just how poorly the brand is doing globally. In the first half of the year, only 2,500 vehicles were sold, down 22% from an abysmal 2024.
It keeps getting reported by various entities that Stellantis is at least pondering selling Maserati, though the company also keeps denying it’s actively for sale. Obviously, both things can be true simultaneously.
The company, in theory, was supposed to transition from Hoboken Fancy to EV-Only, but does that even work in 2026? Who is going out of their way to buy an electric Maserati? The most recent pivot has been towards racing, but Maserati was dropped and replaced by Citroën in Formula E.
It’s a brand that has no meaning anymore, unfortunately, and the search for meaning only highlights the clear lack of a mission. Maserati has been swapped between too many entities for too much of its life. It made beautiful cars. It made winning sports cars. It made luxurious touring cars.
When Fiat grouped Maserati and Ferrari together, there was a brief moment where it seemed like Maserati had a clear market, even if that market was: cars for people who couldn’t afford a Ferrari or didn’t want to wait for one.
Being lost in the massive Stellantis empire, Maserati hasn’t gotten enough attention and has therefore wandered away from even that mission. It’s too luxurious to be mainstream, too mainstream to be real luxury, too caught up in EV hype to be motorsports, but too motorsports to make sense as an EV brand.
I cannot say whether or not Maserati will ever be sold, but I can say that I wish it would be. Or folded. Anything but what’s going on at the present.
Nissan Leaf Reportedly Delayed By Battery Shortages
I wanted the new Nissan Leaf to be good. Nissan arguably got there first, and it’s a bummer the Leaf just wasn’t quite right, because the company was the first major OEM to push wholeheartedly into the space and deserves credit for it.
So I was delighted to read that Sam–as good a judge as anyone–thought the new Nissan Leaf was finally good. “Leaf” is a brand worth saving.
Sadly, it’s not enough to build a good vehicle; you also have to be able to build enough of them to meet market demand. That might be a problem for Nissan, according to this Reuters report:
Nissan Motor has reduced its production plan for the new model of its Leaf electric vehicle by more than half for September-November owing to delays in battery procurement, the Nikkei business daily said on Tuesday.
Lower than expected battery yields at a Nissan affiliate had caused the revision, the Nikkei said, adding that the Japanese automaker planned to release the new EV model by the end of the year.
The newspaper did not specify the original or revised production targets but said that the output plan has been cut by up to several thousand vehicles a month at its Tochigi plant in eastern Japan, where the new version of the Leaf is made for the U.S. and Japanese markets.
Half? Half?!?! That’s bad.
Ford Will Demolish The Glass House
Ford’s longtime HQ is the “Glass House,” which was probably modern at the time but looks very 1950s now. will soon be gone. Ford is trying to be a new company, so it’ll be replacing it with a new HQ in Dearborn.
Here’s what Ford has to say:
For nearly 70 years, the iconic Glass House served as the nerve center of our global operations and we honor its incredible legacy. But the future of our industry demands a different kind of space – one that is more connected, more flexible, and built for the speed of a technology – and software-driven company.
As we continue to adapt our campus for the future, the Glass House will itself be transformed. Once our teams have vacated the building, it will be sustainably decommissioned and ultimately demolished over the course of roughly 18 months as we prepare to repurpose the site as an asset to our teams and our community.
We are working with the City of Dearborn on a plan for how the site can best serve our employees and neighbors, and we will have more to share about those plans later.
Ford also sent out a helpful infographic about the transition. I think the building was iconic, even if not obviously impressive. Before it gets torn down, I hope they’ll engage in some sort of killer Gymkhana-like sequel.
Happy 100th Anniversary Of The Škoda-Laurin & Klement Merger
The big news this week, the huge anniversary that everyone is waiting for, is, of course, the 100th anniversary of that day in 1925 when Czech automaker Laurin & Klement teamed up with the industrial and arms company Škoda to make a new, much larger automaker just called Škoda.
The history of the Pilsen-based engineering company dates back to 1859, and ten years later it was acquired by engineer Emil Škoda. Under his leadership, and carrying his name, the company grew into the largest industrial enterprise in Austria-Hungary and even collaborated with the carmaker Laurin & Klement. In the 1920s, both companies faced economic difficulties in the wake of the First World War and the collapse of traditional markets. In 1924, a devastating fire further damaged the L&K factory in Mladá Boleslav. Václav Laurin and Václav Klement therefore decided to seek a strong strategic partner.
At that time, L&K employed 1,125 people, while Škoda Plzeň had more than 30,000 employees. However, its automotive output was limited, focusing mainly on the licensed production of British Sentinel steam lorries and Hispano-Suiza luxury cars. Unlike other options considered, the merger with Škoda Plzeň guaranteed the continuation of independent automotive development and production in Mladá Boleslav.
On 20 July 1925, the general meetings of both companies approved the merger, with shares exchanged at a ratio of 2:1 (L&K/Škoda). The decisive date came on 12 September 1925, when the Ministry of the Interior granted its approval. Laurin & Klement was formally removed from the Commercial Register on 29 December, but its traditional logo continued to appear alongside the Škoda name on models introduced up to August 1925. The Mladá Boleslav carmaker emerged from the merger significantly stronger – a resilience soon put to the test by the looming global economic crisis. The link with the Pilsen headquarters was forcibly severed by nationalisation in 1945.
Compare the stewardship of Škoda under VW to what happened with Maserati, and you’ll see that it’s possible to platform-share with other brands and still make them successful. It probably helps that Škoda is a mainstream brand, whereas Maserati is not.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
I had to do it. It’s “Scatman (ski-ba-bop-ba-dop-bop)” by Scatman John. In the ’90s, the longer the parenthetical in the title of a song, the better the song was sure to be.
The Big Question
How would you save Maserati?
Top photo: Maserati
As someone who has been driving a Maserati for the last three weeks, I’m astonished at how many people recognize and respect the brand. I can drive either of my Alfas and maybe get some knowing nods from other car people, but with the Maserati I get strangers making comments and coming over to talk. So weird.
That said, I looked up what buying a new one would cost and speced like a car I’d actually want, came in at $300k. There are A LOT of other things I’d want to buy for $300k…
I’m not as sad about Ford’s move from the Glass House as I am about GM’s move out of the Renaissance Center.
As far as Maserati goes, I think I’d start with a somewhat wilder Miata-sized car. Or something just a bit bigger, as I don’t comfortably fit in a Miata.
Competing against the brands they’ve been up against for decades is obviously not working.
How would you save Maserati?
Get a modern popular music artist to reference it in a song. Maybe they get caught going 185 and lose their license.
I wonder if outside stewardship has only partially to do with the final outcomes. Since you mentioned Skoda (and another bright success story is Dacia) and we’re keeping it Eastern block, let’s scale it up to culture and country size: it’s worth remembering that the communism brought vastly different outcomes in the Eastern Block countries: Former proud and powerful kingdoms such as the Czechs shaped the rotten rule differently than Bulgarians or Moldavians. Maybe Maserati was not as strong as Skoda; yes, stellantis is and always was a basket case by their own DNA, but VW is not a walk in the park either.
“Ford’s longtime HQ is the “Glass House,” which was probably modern at the time but looks very 1950s now. will soon be gone”
Why do they need to tear it down a perfectly good and iconic building? Why can’t they build their new building at one of the many derelict areas around Detroit?
“How would you save Maserati?”
Current product doesn’t look beautiful or special enough. And I think some models are too low end for the brand.
I would get some new ground-breaking iconic-looking product with a sumptuous Italian leather interior… no leatherette allowed.
And velour would be an option.
There would be no low end versions. Just comfort-focused Gran Turismo variants and Sport variants.
There would be switches with great tactile feel and it would buck the trend of ‘touch screens everywhere’.
The dashboard and other interior bits would be as much as an art piece as it would be functional. There would be wood. And there would be chrome.
There would be a wide variety of colour options for both the exterior and interior.
And there would be options like starlight headliners.
For the exterior style, a new more distinctive direction is needed. I would use the old Maserati 5000 GT “Scia di Persia” as inspiration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maserati_5000_GT
I would go for something that looks beautifully jewel-like for both the interior and exterior.
I would turn Maserati into Stellantis’ Italian Rolls Royce/Bentley.
And ‘executive cars’/’mass luxury’ like the last Ghilbi or the current Grecale? I would use the Lancia for cars like that in the EU and the Chrysler brand in North America.
For other markets, it would be either Chrysler OR Lancia.
As for the chassis that the new vehicles would be on, it would have to be the STLA Large BEV platform. I would do one large SUV (new Levante), one large sedan (Quattroporte VII) and a beautiful GT coupe/convertible like that Maserati 5000 GT Scia di Persia I mentioned… but I think I’d give it the Mistral name.
And that’s it… 3 basic high end models… high end SUV/Sedan/Coupe. And from there, maybe make special higher end variants for special customers.
And going forward, I see Stellantis as having only two global brands… Maserati and Jeep. All other brands are regional so overlap is kept down.
Even in its hey day, Maserati never really had any iconic sports cars. Ferrari had a string of iconic cars. Lamborghini too. Alfa had a string of them. Lancia had a few. Even De Tommaso had the great Pantera. Maserati somehow was always the bridesmaid lurking in the back.
I think Stellantis needs to take the if you love something let it go approach to Maserati. The Chinese have done a good job resurrecting various Italian motorcycle brands. Selling at least half of Maserati would give them breathing room and they can focus their efforts on something else. I see something like the polestar 1 maybe the mg cyberster as where Maserati should be. Some kind of Bev sports roadster or convertible. Along with a something like the su7 a fast sleek sedan and maybe a SUV varrient like yu7.
Mmm, MG and Lotus would beg to differ: they are tariff-busting badge engineering brands. Volvo yes but they seem the exception.
Maserati has been and always should be non-sports car Ferrari. Ferrari sedan? Maserati. Ferrari SUV? Maserati. Ferrari Sport Wagon? Maserati.
Amortize Ferrari engineering and development costs and create a desirable brand and lineup in the process.
So you want Ferrari to buy Maserati, or Stellantis to buy Ferrari?
Both seem like the script to an epic disaster movie.
The first one. Stellantis gets money and Maserati gets a raison d’être with Ferrari
Maserati? They should come out with a new Biturb….oh, just close the doors, shut off the lights and call it a day.
I have a hunch that Jim Farley won’t ever get the opportunity to sit his arse down in that new building.
I liked the “I can’t afford or wait for a Ferrari” idea, but they used too many Chrysler parts and just gave up on it before the pandemic. Like, they didn’t do worse, they just didn’t do anything. The Levante? The Grecale? I’ve never bought a Maserati (and probably never will), but I’d imagine you don’t get a Maserati thinking “this is a responsible vehicle I can drive my children in”. I’d save Maserati by stop trying to go for a market and just build something sick and see what happens. You gotta shut it down, shut it down. You still got Ferrari, right? Or I guess the Elkann’s do but not Stellantis
“What’s missing is a new Maserati. There is no Maserati you could even use that would fit here, and that’s sad. “
May I introduce you to the Maserati GranCabrio?
https://www.maserati.com/us/en/models/grancabrio
Free cheese gloves included with every new vehicle purchase.
Hardigree mentioned Margot Martindale… and my first thought was “Is she related to the late, great Wink Martindale of Tic Tac Dough fame?” One can only hope. The ol’ Winkster was one of the greatest humans of modern time.
Very fond and formative memories of ye olde Glass House. My dad worked for Ford for 20 years and spent the front and back end of that tenure there. I remember going to work with him when I was grade school age on Saturday mornings and just running around the office floors and riding the interior escalators for hours snooping in various offices. My favorite part was all the new cars on display in the lobby. I think I may have overstayed my welcome running the stick shift patterns in various Mustangs and Thunderbird SCs and Taurus SHOs and the occasional Mustang Cobra.
Honestly, the coolest part (to me) was the midcentury architecture. All the light, terrazzo floors, steel, and glass. You definitely could have just filmed Mad Men in there and nobody would have blinked an eye. I loved the International Style MCM architecture in that building … it just felt emblematic of post-war American innovation.
Sadly, it was meant for a 50s office culture, too … big offices with actual doors to shut when the pipe smoke got too thick. Secretaries positioned right outside the offices. Floors sectioned based on who you reported to. Making it open office was probably a nightmare.
I got to work there as a temp in college, on an upper floor (10 maybe? Not the exec office floor, but right before it) is a huge walk-in vault that stored all the board meeting minutes in paper format until the mid 90s. I scanned those docs into a digital database, including all sorts of pictures of old prototypes and design studies. All the “this is what the Mustang could have been” photos were in the vault. Including to the present day at the time, so I saw a few designs before they were ever released (the “all new” Jag XJ and XK come to mind). For a car nut, that was the coolest job ever.
Neat! Thanks for sharing. Wish we could see some of those Mustang concepts
Here’s how I’d save Maserati (and Alfa), if I was Stellantis.
3 new powertrains for corporate “high performance” models:
I4T – Straight 4 with a high revving (8-10k rpm), high cam profile, low displacement, turbo engine, tuned for max hp, but not much torque – mainly suited for Alfa
V6T (based off of nettuno) – Same story as above, high horsepower, high rpm (8-10k rpm)
V8T – Flagship engine, Same story as above, high horsepower, high rpm (8-10k rpm) with relatively low torque, low displacement
Hybridize all the powertrains above to allow torque fill for low rpm to get that flat torque curve.
Then have permutations of the combinations, hybridized, plug in hybrid, or naturally aspirated V6 and V8 variant.
The identity is in the powertrain. There’s too many 2.0L I4’s, 3.0L V6’s, too many 4.0L V8’s that only rev to 6500. Snooze…
Just 2 things about that plan:
high revving = normally aspirated, turbo = lower revsjust ONE brand new engine development requires a budget more than the entirety of Maserati is worth (not to mention the i4T already exists in Alfas, and the v6T in the Nettuno, and unless you really want a v8 for its sound – and high revs – so not turbo, it’s kinda pointless considering how much HP you could get out of the v6T)
Anyway, I really loved my old 4-door Biturbo back in the day (probably because it was a fuel-injected later model so it didn’t give me any issues).
I think making fast GT cars is (as it always was) Maserati’s niche, but the problem was they tried to veer from sporty towards ‘luxury’, because the (wrong) bet was wealthy customers are better to chase than enthusiasts .
Ending Maserati is one of those things that is honestly painful if I look at it too much with my Italian automotive history eyes, but realistically, it needs to happen. Yes, there’s glittering trophies, but they’ve collected a whole lot of dust in the cabinet and the people who remember or care about those trophies are rapidly falling victim to attrition, shall we say. Modern Maseratis don’t come close to stirring the soul like the older ones, I literally watched an MC20 come off a transport yesterday evening and it pained me with its meh-ness. I think part of the pain is it’s been a minute since an Italian car brand bit the dust; lately it’s been more about reviving them as ultra-niche supercars (looking at you, DeTomaso and ATS.) Plan a tasteful funeral, then let someone buy the name in a decade and give it a shot.
Does the same sentiment apply to Alfa, too? Maybe it feels too similar from North American eyes. Maybe Alfa is more mainstream and less near-Ferrari than Maserati is … sentiment fels much the same though.
Not quite. I mean, Alfa leaving the U.S. is certainly a possibility given that they’re probably not much better off than Maserati in terms of sales, but the Italian government has a stake in Stellantis and likely would strongly oppose Alfa disappearing altogether. Plus, I’m under the impression Alfa does well (or at least acceptably) overseas.
That sentiment *almost* applies to Alfa, but not quite as strongly as Maserati. Like if one of them gets to live, I’d rather it be Alfa and I think it makes more sense to roll whatever remnants of Maserati are available into Alfa rather than vice versa.
Maserati needs to go back to whatever brand they were with the Quattroporte.
Sell to Ferrari and aim for us middle management/ tech bro folks who like unique but reliable.
Reliable? Maserati? Oh, my sweet summer child…
Here’s my ususal question to folks talking about the perceived non-reliability of various brands: how many Maseratis have you owned/driven and what kind of ‘reliability’ issues have you personally encountered with them?
the words Reliable and Maserati cannot be used in the same sentence without adding the word Not in front of whatever word, you pick
If ever a day was a slice of heaven. One of my fondest memories, 1983, I was 19, a beautiful sunny 75 degree June early afternoon. Driving my 71 Karmann Ghia convertible (top down) with no particular place to go, when Holy Smokes! There’s a car show happening on the front lawn of Algar! I pulled a U turn as soon as I could, and rolled in and parked around back. It was an open house champagne and appetizers(no one carded me) and some of the finest mid 60’s to mid 70’s Italian cars I’d ever seen! There was a 71 Maserati Ghibli Spyder parked beside a 72 Ferrari Daytona Spyder on the front lawn, both in screaming yellow! I knew the Daytona was more highly prized, but in person, side by side, I liked the lines of the Maserati better. Just beautiful! and first time I’d seen either in person. Both had 200mph speedometers!
I’ve always thought the problem with Maserati was the close relationship with Ferrari.
If you’re buying a $1M+ super cars that go to 60 in less than 3 seconds you have a much different expectation than someone buying a luxury sport coupe/sedan/CUV that is more grand touring than track monster. So putting a finicky engine and transmission with ridiculous processes to put the thing in “track mode” or whatever always seemed like it was cool on paper but suck in real world use cases.
If you spend $85-150K (prices back when they were sharing drive trains with Ferrari) on a sport coupe or sedan you probably don’t have much appetite for a $12,000, engine-out service every 2-3 years.
Maserati has some of the prettiest designs for sport coupes and sedans out there. If they could simplify their drive trains and make them more reliable they could probably find their place in the market. Hell, it’s not like anyone expects a lot of reliability (historically speaking) from them anyway! Just make them easier for the average, wealthier person to operate with “middle-of-the-road” luxury appointments and drivetrains and they could get back on track to where they were in the past.
But that would be less premium and not where every damned brand on the planet wants to go these days so I am not holding out for that sort of change.
My immediate reaction is the same as most everybody else. Sell to Ferrari.
But, buy the name, hire the designers, and get rid of everything else. The price of Ferrari’s is about $280-600k dollars. There is no reason they couldn’t slot the Maserati’s into the $150-$300k market and succeed.
JHMO, but it’s weird that the usual “The Morning Dump” isn’t visible in the top photo, obscured as it is by the attractive brunette. I know you guys don’t have infinite time/resources, but I assume the brunette has been composited onto the background, so just flipping both the background and her on the vertical axis (but separately) would have put her on the right, the car on the left, and left room for the TMD text.
That’s a pretty car regardless.
I skimmed past this article on first glance thinking TMD was late.
Turns out, I don’t care about Maserati, good or bad. Which probably says a lot about the head story.
Whenever I heard of Maserati’s troubles, I think of Clarkson’s “oh no! Anyways.” It’s a brand without a real identity other than “Italian” for the past few decades. It really is a wonder they still exist.
As a former Blue Oval employee, I am kinda bummed I never made the trip up north to Dearborn to see the Glass House, such an iconic building.
How could you not choose “Life’s been good” by Joe Walsh as the song of the day???
“Maserati” is such a fun word for this native English speaker to say, and I’m guessing I’m not alone in this feeling, that I believe 50% of the company’s brand equity is wrapped up in the name alone. With FU money, who wouldn’t want to casually comment to their friends, “My Maserati is in the shop again.”
I believe another 25% of the company’s brand equity can be attributed to Joe Walsh’s “Life’s Been Good,” a near-novelty tune from 1978.
The other 25% of the company’s brand equity comes from building some of the most Italian (in every sense of the word) vehicles the motoring public has ever seen.