Officine Alfieri Maserati was founded on 1 December 1914 in Bologna, Italy. Since then, Maserati has played a consistently important role in the history of sports car culture and its development. Over a century of activity has brought with it glorious achievements, both on the road and the track, as well as more challenging times, which have helped forge the company’s character and personality.
However, Maserati’s history involves more than its glorious sporting achievements and the launch of great road cars. The company has also developed industrially over the years. Its relocation from Bologna to the current site in Viale Ciro Menotti, Modena, in 1940 is one of the main relevant step in its history.
Still today its world-wide reach emanates from its historic Maserati headquarters.
Maserati is now a global brand operating in over 70 markets. Unlike any other manufacturer, Maserati has succeeded in instilling within its cars both heritage and innovation, past and future, memory and vision. Its heart may be rooted in its Italian heritage, but its eyes are firmly focused on the future.
Today Maserati pride is reflected in the values that define the brand. In this section, you can relive Maserati’s enthralling history and get to know the people, achievements and cars which have made the brand famous.
The Trident, the symbol of a myth. The badge used on all racing cars in Maserati’s history, has remained constant throughout the evolution of the brand and its style, technology and performance, accompanying all the victories and successes of Maserati cars.
A figure of iconic importance in Maserati’s history has dominated Piazza Maggiore in Bologna since the sixteenth century. It was the city’s Fountain of Neptune that inspired the Maserati Trident logo, symbolising both Bologna itself and the automotive brand.
In about 1920 Maserati needed a logo that would ensure that its new car would stand out from the crowd. So it was decided that Mario Maserati, the only Maserati brother not to be obsessed by engines and a talented artist, should be commissioned to design the company logo. Mario drew inspiration from Neptune’s statue in Piazza Maggiore, its trident symbolising strength and vigour. The red and blue that accompany the design are the colours of the banner of the city of Bologna, where Officine Maserati was located at that time.
Inseparably linked to the brand, the Trident underlines the exclusive status of the firm’s cars and their identity as masterpieces of elegance, luxury and sports car performance.
Since the dawn of time the Trident is the symbol of courage and strength. Its origin is lost in the memory of time and its power remains untouched
Every Maserati car has always had an elegant, distinctive radiator grille with a very special meaning.
From the mid-thirties onwards, radiator grilles started to become even more distinctive. The Maserati 6CM saw the first use of a new grille featuring chromed fillets with a rounded, extremely sinuous form. Similar shapes, with fillet grilles, also appeared on the Maserati 8CTF and the 4CLT, both cars which were to become part of the Brand’s racing history.
The Maserati Tipo 26 had chromed trims on its grille, bringing prestige to the front end of the car and underlining its sporty elegance. As the years passed, new combinations were tried: the Maserati 8CM introduced a black grille with chrome edging that created a break between the colours of the grille and the bodywork, generating depth and giving the car an even more original look.
As the radiator grilles of its racing cars evolved, the Brand also paid great attention to styling the grilles of its road cars. One example is the Maserati A6 from the late forties, with its distinctive chromed grille that emphasised the car’s impressive front end. On some versions, such as the A6G/2000, the grille also included the Trident logo, placed in the centre and highlighted by its chromed finish.
As the years passed, the cars’ power increased and engineers needed better cooling solutions.
In the Sixties and Seventies, as the design of the cars became more streamlined, radiator grilles varied a great deal from model to model. The radiator grille on the Ghibli had a chromed surround and a Trident badge in the middle, while the Indi did not have a grille as such, since the engine was cooled by a number of air inlets in the underside of the nose.
Radiator grilles continued to evolve in the 1980s, with angular car features combined with simple but striking grilles, as in the case of the Maserati Biturbo.
The trend has continued through to the current design of the Maserati GranTurismo, with the chromed Trident badge proudly displayed on a black background, just as on the new Maserati Ghibli and Maserati Quattroporte, with their expressive grilles that underline their elegant, sporty personalities.
Through the evolution of its designs, Maserati has led the way in automotive fashion, with unique cars, elegant yet sporty, always with highly personal, distinctive lines. From the rounded, curvy, sinuous details of the brand’s early years, its cars gradually evolved to become larger, longer and more streamlined.
Then in the sixties design evolved further, making Maserati’s cars a perfect symbiosis of clean lines and sinuous surfaces, with a unique style recognisable all over the world. The shapes of the seventies were more angular, as technological development led to new aerodynamic solutions, flat lines and sharp edges, and evolved into the right-angled shapes of the eighties and nineties, which themselves opened the way for the sleek lines of today, more rounded but just as streamlined and eye-catching.
Over the years, Maserati has worked with several established engineers and designers such as Giugiaro, Zagato, Ramaciotti and Pininfarina. Having worked together on several projects, Maserati and Pininfarina have created some of the most popular designs and concept cars of all time, including the Birdcage 75th, heralded as one of the most iconic Maserati models in recent history.
Following the Quattroporte, Pininfarina designed a new coupé which will have a profound impact on the history of Maserati and the motoring world. Stunningly beautiful, the GranTurismo took the Geneva Motor Show by storm in 2007.
In 2014, Maserati's homage to its own sports heritage, the Alfieri Concept Sports Car, is revealed. This thoroughbred racing machine and masterpiece of automotive design is by no means a nostalgic, retrospective study, but a beautiful, visionary sculpture on wheels.
Meanwhile, following huge investment in new production facilities, the company launched a four door sports saloon and reintroduced the Ghibli name to a brand new and highly appreciative audience. Massively popular right from the start, the Ghibli has helped Maserati achieve its highest ever sales volume – the prefect celebration in its centenary year.
As sales continue to hit new heights, Maserati has expanded its model line-up with its first-ever SUV, the Levante. Alongside the Quattroporte, Ghibli, GranTurismo and GranCabrio, for the first time, the Maserati range covers the whole of the global luxury automotive market.
The greatest road is the one that lies ahead of you. Watch the story of the first woman to drive a Formula 1 racecar by Maserati
