On the Right Line at Last
October, 1998
The Maserati Pages

Maseratis will be Built just like Ferraris
Story by Richard Bremner, taken from Car Magazine, July 1998

The life of a Quattroporte starts not at Maserati but at a company nearby called Goldencar, which manufactures the bodies, to a considerably higher standard than was previously the case. The shells are then trucked to Maranello, where they are painted in the same shop that sprays Ferrari's own cars, before being sent to the new assembly line at Modena. You can tell the line is new, because the bright yellow cradles that carry the shells are unmarked, there's a smell of newness in the air, and the floor is surfaced with (rather attractive) ceramic tiles.

The painted shell is suspended from a cradle, stripped of its doors and introduced to its electrics, sound deadening, glass, facia and drive train as it passes through 13 separate work stations. Each car is accompanied, on its journey toward birth, by a rather finely fashioned multi-decked trolley upon which are carried all the components specific to it. This saves your Quattroporte V6 receiving the wiring loom of the V8, and is exactly the same system as employed at Ferrari. Later this year, it will ease the task of building the coup and the Quattroporte - very different cars - on the same assembly line.

Once it has passed the 13th station, the Quattroporte can roll on its own wheels, and travels in the opposite direction on a so-called rolling carpet, where its interior and a hundred other sundry parts are added, bringing it to like so that it can be passed to the vibration station, which is designed to settle the dampers, and chase out any squeaks and rattles before the car reaches the great outdoors.

The magnificent power trains are built up on site in an adjacent block, each unit specific to a car. The V8 cylinder block and the lower part of the V6 come from a foundry near Brescia, the V6's upper block and the V8's heads come from Maranello's foundry, and the V6 heads come from British firm Zeus. Machining is done on site at Maserati - though eventually it will be done by Ferrari - the engines built up by hand before being mated to their transmissions and exhausts.

The assembly process is modelled on the same lines as Ferrari's, and uses a multi-disciplinary approach to problem-solving of the sort that the Maranello factory adopted in 1993. The aim is to solve problems swiftly, which in Maserati terms constitutes something of a modern approach.

Of course, proof that the Quattroporte is a sorted car will only come when several hundred take to the road and actually stay there. But take a trip round this factory, and you'd conclude there is more than a fighting chance.