How is Maserati going to build sales?
This past year, we built just over 4800 cars and sold 4600 directly to customers, 63 percent better than in ’03. I know it’s a bit of a clich, but it’s literally one car at a time, because Maserati’s point of differentiation is that we have a personal involvement with the customer. When Porsche is chasing 100,000 units, we’re there looking at 5000, which is an entirely different style of business. We have found people want one-on-one service. The Quattroporte is a better demonstration of what Maserati is about, we feel, than the original Coupe and Spider. Where do you think Maserati needs to go with its products in the future? I think that product excellence is critical for Maserati, and there’s no doubt that the more recent launches-MC12, Quattroporte, and Gran Sport-are a lot farther ahead than some of the older cars were, if you look at it from the standpoint of trying to produce the perfect car in its class. We have to know what we stand for and have to put in place the processes t
