Why Is Maserati?

The Morning Dump is, ostensibly, an industry news roundup. Unlike some other industry digests, this one is written with a clear enthusiast’s bent. I may have a logical understanding of why a business decision is made but, as a gearhead, I also reserve the right to critique it for not fitting within my specific worldview. Maserati is the rare exception where the company and I are on the same side emotionally, united in the face of reason.

I want to talk about what the Stellantis CEO told Italian legislators about the company, what’s maybe going to happen next, and why it sounds fun to me even if I can’t entirely make sense of it. At the same time, Stellantis is also allegedly trying to elevate Ram over Jeep, which is strange! Volkswagen is another company that seems incapable of presenting a logical mix of brands, and that leaves that company’s CEO facing heat from inside and outside.

Building cars is hard, as is running the union that represents the people who build the cars. Will UAW President Fain’s administration come tumbling down, or will his success at the bargaining table help union members overlook the toxic environment that seems to persist within UAW leadership? You know it’s a rough week when talking about Maserati is the easy thing to do.

Maserati Is In Talks With ‘Two Important Partners’

There were a bunch of newly revised Maseratis revealed today, and I thank Thomas for getting into the minutia of what all changed in a way that I wasn’t emotionally prepared to do this morning. I like Maserati as a brand. I like that it exists. I want it to continue to exist in a way that I want all car brands to continue exist, just more so because of its incredible history. A world without Maserati is a worse place for us, even if it’s maybe holistically better for Stellantis.

The brand is in a tough position. It basically exists to sell a mix of hand-me-down platforms (the Grecale is related to both the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Alfa Giulia) and one low volume sports car (MCPura) that people theoretically buy. When Maserati got its motors handed down from Ferrari you could sort of see it as the sedan/SUV partner to that brand. With Ferrari being excised from the rest of the company like Beyoncé from Destiny’s Child, Maserati had a larger role to fill and fewer resources to do it with.

I’ve written before that I thought the current iteration of the brand is kinda sad, and Thomas made the point well that bringing in McKinsey to try to fix it isn’t likely to help, and he nailed it with this line:

[I]nstead of getting Ferrari DNA for nearly Mercedes-Benz money, you’re getting Alfa Romeo DNA for Porsche money. No wonder global sales aren’t living up to expectations.

It doesn’t seem like the new faces are going to help this, and there’s been rumor after rumor of the company being sold. That doesn’t seem to be happening, as Bloomberg reports:

“We are in talks with two important partners that can bring technologies and a series of excellent ideas, we’re deciding with which one to work in the future,” Filosa told Italian lawmakers at a parliamentary hearing in Rome Wednesday, in response to several questions on the future of Maserati and of the Cassino site that assembles both Maserati and Alfa Romeo cars. He didn’t identify the potential partners.

[…]

Filosa said there’s no plan to sell Maserati or the under-used Cassino plant near Rome. He said Cassino’s future will be “closely tied” to that of Maserati and, the brand will remain “an icon of Italian style.”

The new Maserati plan, to be presented in December, is “ambitious” and will include two new key models, Filosa said.

So, Maserati is not “for sale.” Why not? I can think of a few reasons. Maybe no one wants the brand badly enough to pay for it. Maybe no one wants to be the CEO that loses Maserati. Or maybe, given the fact that the last Stellantis CEO (not pictured) made the Italian government mad at the company all the time, it’s not worth getting into another series of fights when there are bigger fish to fry.

What will this partnership be? No one knows, though Stellantis has already partnered with Dongfeng and Leapmotor, so a joint venture with a new or existing Chinese partner makes sense. Who else really has the capital to bring on more brands?

The MCPura is fun to drive, and there are not enough fun-to-drive sports cars out there. While I’m concerned that we’ll mostly get warmed up crossovers, Maserati has the capability to surprise everyone and the brand name to back up the effort. For that reason alone I’ll continue to want Maserati to get a chance.

Is Ram Being Put Ahead Of Jeep?

Jeep always feels like the most important brand for Stellantis — the one name that stands above the rest. I just bought my daughter a Jeep trunk for camp, which she was excited about. Would she be as excited about a Dodge trunk? Probably not. Jeep has also been a profit center, historically, for whatever parent company. Going forward though, maybe it’ll be Ram?

That’s the plan, at least, according to Automotive News:

In a major landscape shift for Stellantis, the automaker projects that the truck brand carved out of Dodge in 2009 will surpass Jeep as its North American volume leader by the end of the decade. It’s targeting 2030 sales of 825,000 for Ram — 60 percent more than last year — versus 740,000 for Jeep.

Stellantis plans to more than double the size of Ram’s lineup over that period, expanding into several new segments after U.S. sales fell to a 12-year low in 2025.

Ram finally intends to punch back against Chevrolet, Ford and Toyota with compact and midsize pickups, and the brand will establish itself in the full-size SUV space with the beefy Ramcharger. It’s also working to single-handedly revive the small van segment with the Promaster City and catering to street truck enthusiasts with the muscular Rumble Bee lineup.

It makes a sort of sense, especially with the shifting regulatory landscape in the United States. While Jeep can play in some spaces we’re unlikely to see Ram (compact crossovers), Ram has a ton of opportunities with vans, larger SUVs, and especially compact and midsize pickups that wouldn’t apply to Jeep.

Volkswagen Drama Is Going To Get Worse Before It Gets Better

Very tall Volkswagen CEO Oliver Blume is not yet tall enough to rise above the concerns of shareholders, employees, or the old families that still rule the company. The combination of a shaky EV strategy, tariffs, and China mean that a bold strategy is needed. Blume says he has one, but he’s also got to sell it to a skeptical audience.

Per Bloomberg:

Volkswagen AG Chief Executive Officer Oliver Blume is coming under mounting pressure from shareholders to show his overhaul is moving fast enough, as BMW AG’s deep outlook cut adds to concerns over prospects for Germany’s auto industry.

At VW’s annual meeting Thursday, investors are asking if efforts over the past three years of Blume’s tenure are enough as China’s electric-vehicle champions reorder the industry. At stake is Europe’s biggest carmaker’s ability to finance its future and keep paying the dividends that help sustain its investor appeal.

“Without a decisive restructuring, Volkswagen risks a gradual decline,” said Tanja Bauer, a sustainability and corporate-governance specialist at Deka Investment, one of Germany’s largest fund companies. Shareholders need “a business model that reliably produces returns again.”

It’s not just the regular shareholders who have a concern, the OG Porsche and Piëch families are also interested as Manager Magazin explains in a thorough and typically cutting piece:

Alarmed by the danger, the Porsches and Piëchs are intervening more than is customary within the company. Blocking progress here, pushing frantically there – for a corporation fighting for survival, both are equally dangerous. A family master plan? Not apparent. Instead, mistrust reigns.

I can not attest to the accuracy of this report, though I can attest to it being quite the yarn. I usually don’t like to republish someone’s kicker, but the whole piece is so long and enjoyable that I think I can do it here and barely scratch the surface of all the reporting in the piece:

Patriarch Ferdinand K. Piëch once said – alluding to Thomas Mann’s “Buddenbrooks” – what he expected: “The first generation builds, the second maintains, my generation is the third. And it will ruin.”

His widow , Ursula Piëch (70), and her son, Gregor (32), no longer need to worry about this. They’ve already inherited. In 2017, the elder Piëch sold his shares to his brother, Hans Michel, for a reported 900 million euros. Their stance on the current situation is sometimes expressed more subtly. When Gregor recently invited his mother on a birthday drive through Tuscany, they didn’t go in a Porsche 911 or a luxury car from Ferdinand’s favorite brand, Bugatti. They took a Ferrari, more precisely: their GTC4 Lusso.

Yikes!

Get Ready For A UAW Election

It’s hard to comprehensively judge UAW President Shawn Fain’s leadership without being a little disappointed. If you’re a person who ascribes to the “they don’t ask, they ask how many” philosophy, then Fain’s rough-and-tumble tactics are justified by his success in getting historic contracts and finally securing a UAW deal in Tennessee. On the other hand, that caustic approach has been turned inward on his own union, drawing serious and credible complaints from a court-appointed overseer who has accused Fain of being an abrasive, loud-mouthed bully.

Given that the court-appointed overseer role exists because previous UAW leadership became toxic enough to see many involved go to jail, the ends may not justify the means for many of the UAW members voting to elect new leadership. According to the Detroit Free Press, here’s who is up against Fain:

Tricia Geiger
Rich Boyer (currently a vice president)
Greg Mooney
Brian Keller
Will Lehman

If I’d put my money on anyone, it might be Rich Boyer.

What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD

Fun fact about me: Whenever “Miss You” by The Rolling Stones comes on I have to listen to the whole thing.

The Big Question

What’s your favorite non-Ferrari Italian car?

Top photo: Maserati