111-Year-Old Maserati Crashes 85% From Peak As Modena Plant Goes Dark—45 Sales In 6 Months
Somewhere between a modern peak of 51,500 cars in 2017 and a Modena factory that built just 45 vehicles in the first half of 2025, Maserati stopped being a serious player in the luxury market it helped create. The Trident hasn’t just fallen behind Ferrari and Lamborghini; it’s collapsed so far that Porsche now sells more cars in a couple of weeks than Maserati moves in an entire year.
The wild part isn’t that the numbers are ugly. It’s how they got this ugly, this fast, after a €1.5 billion EV bet, fire‑sale discounts on $200,000 grand tourers, and a home plant that’s barely producing anything at all.
Modena Builds 45 Cars In Six Months
Maserati’s historic Modena plant—the birthplace of the Quattroporte, home to 80 years of Italian high‑performance legend- built exactly 45 cars in the first half of 2025. The factory ran at full tilt for 11 days. The other 169 days, 130 workers sat idle on government solidarity contracts while Stellantis moved Fiat 500 hybrid work to other plants and issued press releases about “bringing production home.”
Union officials put the production drop at just under 72% compared to the same stretch in 2024. This isn’t a retooling. It’s life support for a factory that once defined what Italian performance meant.
From Billion‑Euro Brand To Losing Money On Every Car
Maserati’s revenue fell from roughly €1.04 billion in 2024 to about €726 million in 2025. The brand posted an operating loss of around €198 million, pushing its margin deep into the red. Stellantis’ own figures show Maserati sold fewer than 8,000 cars worldwide last year. Do the math: that’s roughly €25,000 lost on every vehicle that left a dealership.
This isn’t a luxury business running on thin margins. It’s a subsidized operation where the parent company is effectively paying people to drive Maseratis off the lot. The business model doesn’t work. It hasn’t worked in years.
The €1.5 Billion Electric Bet That Blew Up In Their Faces
Maserati went all‑in on electric. Leadership promised every model would offer a battery option and that combustion engines would phase out by the end of the decade. Stellantis invested roughly €1.5 billion to make it happen. Then 2025 arrived, and the company wrote down roughly $1.6 billion in planned EV investment, cancelling the MC20 Folgore and shelving future electric models while the existing Folgore lineup struggles to find buyers. The reason Maserati gave the press: not enough buyers wanted a battery‑powered exotic.
Ferrari kept its EV roadmap. Porsche kept the Taycan rolling. Maserati is the one left holding an empty bag and no credible plan for what comes next. A decade‑defining bet, torched.
China: From 14,000 Cars To A Rounding Error
China was supposed to be Maserati’s safety net. In 2017, the brand delivered around 14,000 cars there, close to a third of its global volume. By 2024, that number had dropped to just over 1,200 units, a 91% collapse from the peak. In the first five months of 2025, registration data show only 384 Maseratis sold nationwide, an even steeper decline. Maserati’s response?
Open a new “gallery” showroom in Shanghai’s Putuo District, designed like an art space with espresso service and customization pods, and line up a second location in Hangzhou. Boutique lighting and marble floors for a market that now buys a few hundred cars a year. That’s not a strategy, that’s denial with good interior design.
U.S. Slides While Germany Buys The One Sensible Maserati
The United States is still Maserati’s biggest single market, but 2025 showed how fragile that position has become. Early‑year data show deliveries across major markets down about a third, with the U.S. posting a high‑thirties percentage decline versus the prior year. Italy fell even harder. Japan, Switzerland, and the U.K. all logged steep double‑digit drops. Only Germany swam against the current, up around 17%.
Even that wasn’t a brand victory: the growth came almost entirely from the Grecale, a compact crossover that competes on practicality rather than passion. The car keeping Maserati’s lights on is the one that looks and drives like everything else in the premium SUV aisle.
$85,000 EV Discounts Turn “Luxury” Into A Fire Sale
Maserati’s inventory crisis is now documented in black and white. Internal dealer bulletins show the company authorizing up to $85,000 off the 2025 GranTurismo Folgore and GranCabrio Folgore EVs, discounts north of 40% on cars with stickers around $200,000. Separate incentive programs layered up to $40,000 off the Grecale Folgore, dragging the electric SUV well below its gasoline twin.
Independent depreciation trackers already rank Maserati among the worst performers in the luxury segment, with typical five‑year value loss above 50%. Now the brand is front‑loading the hit before the first owner even takes delivery.
Three CEOs In One Year, McKinsey Called In
CEO Davide Grasso was fired in October 2024 after a 60% sales collapse that then-Stellantis chief Carlos Tavares blamed squarely on marketing failures, not the product itself. Grasso was quietly moved to a newly created “Chief Heritage Officer” role at Stellantis. His replacement, Santo Ficili, took the dual Maserati-Alfa Romeo brief but lasted just eight months before being replaced in June 2025 to implement a 15,000-unit survival plan. Three leaders in under a year, each inheriting a worse set of numbers than the last.
Stellantis didn’t hire McKinsey to talk about paint samples. The consulting firm was brought in to study tariffs, margin realities, and what to do with Maserati—including whether to sell the brand outright. Publicly, Stellantis executives keep repeating that “Maserati is not for sale,” because that’s what you say when consultants are still building the deck. McKinsey doesn’t get hired to write affirmations. The firm gets hired to model hard options and run the numbers.
Shrinking The Brand To Save It
Maserati’s new CEO has abandoned the volume dream. Jean‑Philippe Imparato is targeting 15,000–20,000 annual sales, not the 50,000‑plus the brand chased in the mid‑2010s when it flooded the market and destroyed resale values. GranTurismo and GranCabrio production is moving back to Modena as part of a strategy to rebuild the brand as a low‑volume, high‑margin, bespoke brand.
The Fuoriserie customization program—Maserati’s in‑house atelier—is being positioned as a core revenue pillar, with more one‑offs and limited runs instead of dealer‑lot inventory. The message is blunt: fewer cars, higher prices, and no more chasing BMW and Mercedes in a game Maserati can’t win.
A 111‑Year‑Old Badge Down To One Last Call
Maserati has lived through worse: Citroën ownership, the De Tomaso years, the Biturbo disaster, the 2008 collapse, and the FCA merger mess. It came out the other side every time. What’s different now is the gap between the story and the spreadsheet. The factory that once built legends now produces 45 cars in six months. The €1.5 billion EV bet is written down. The electric flagship is cancelled. The brand loses tens of thousands of euros on every car sold while consultants model a future where someone else owns it.
Ferrari, Lamborghini, and Porsche are all winning in the same premium segment at the same time. The only real question left is whether Stellantis gives Maserati one more serious rebuild or sells the Trident to the highest bidder and moves on.
Sources
Maserati CEO’s Claim That The Brand Is Safe Isn’t That Reassuring – CarBuzz
Poor sales, firing the boss… uh oh, looks like Maserati’s in big trouble – Top Gear
Davide Grasso Appointed Stellantis Chief Heritage Officer – Stellantis Media
Stellantis asks McKinsey to help navigate tariffs for Alfa Romeo and Maserati – Consultancy.eu
Stellantis Taps McKinsey for Maserati, Alfa as Tariffs Hit – Bloomberg
Jeep maker Stellantis weighs sale among options for Maserati – Reuters
