2008 MASERATI GRANTURISMO; Throwback GT helps define future of Italian maker.(News)

Byline: GREG KABLE

Maserati hasn't had it easy lately. After repeatedly failing to hit rather optimistic profit targets, Maserati was wrenched from Ferrari's control in late 2005. It returned to the auspices of parent company Fiat and paired with Alfa Romeo in a bid to improve its bottom line. The past year has been one of the most turbulent since Maserati joined Fiat from De Tomaso ownership in 1993.

Though the Alfa Romeo-Maserati teaming makes sense for the future of both brands in the United States-Alfa and Maserati will share showrooms once Alfa returns to the States at the end of this decade-Fiat efforts to push Alfa engineering and hardware into Maserati cars have put the parent company at odds with managers of its high-end brand.

The situation came to a head last September, when Maserati boss Karl-Heinz Kalbfell-the man credited with resurrecting Rolls-Royce and who presided over some of the most successful BMW models of all time-quit the company in apparent despair over its future direction. Kalbfell, who many thought finally would set the illustrious Italian sports-car maker back on the road to recovery, clearly was against plans to water down Maserati's now world-class engineering prowess. Among the ideas Kalbfell was rumored to oppose was a plan to build a smaller Maserati based on Alfa's overweight transverse-engine premium-car chassis.

While seeking to maintain the technical sophistication endowed by Ferrari engineers, Kalbfell said, Maserati must be properly positioned above Alfa and below Ferrari to achieve sales success in the United States. Instead, buyers tend to equate Maserati with Juan Manuel Fangio's Formula One cars of the 1950s, leading to a perception of Maserati competing a full class higher than it is actually positioned.

"We've got a situation where prospective customers immediately associate the Maserati name with the likes of Aston ...