Moneyweb Drive: From the Editor
Unexpected Good News
This month’s cover-story on Maserati comes as
welcome news in our market, as we discover
that the brand appears to be in good hands, following a change in distributorship from Viglietti
Motors – now known as Scuderia Ferrari – to an
Australian-based company known as European
Automotive Imports. You can read all the details
in the story, as well as a review on the very competent Quattroporte saloon, but what prompts this
reiteration here is that when the announcement
was made that Ferrari was “going it alone” some
two months ago, there were many rumblings that
Maserati was on its way out.
This would have been a pity, because Maserati as a
brand has made tremendous strides in the last two
decades. Indeed, I remember being impressed with
the very first one I drove back in 1984, the Biturbo, although, much as I revelled in the car’s comparatively
excellent power outputs in those days and the high
levels of grip, reports soon came filtering through that
reliability was a terrible issue.
Since the late 1990s, when Maserati was reintroduced here under the Viglietti banner, each ensu-
ing Maser I drove was proof that the manufacturer
had made exceptional progress, in the areas of dynamics and quality.
But, like the AMG GT we previewed last month – and
review in this issue – these are cars at the stratospheric end of the market. For most of us they're, great to
dream about. It was interesting to learn that in our
first edition, one of the most popular “reads” was the
piece on the forthcoming Ford Ranger Wildtrak–a
very attainable bakkie, that in fact has captured
the imagination like no other in our market.
In this edition, along with other choice reads, we review a people-mover in the form of Kia’s latest Sorento, and one of our all-time favourite cars the VW Golf
GTi in its latest “wild-child” guise. Rest assured we’ll
be charting the up-coming Ranger-Hilux battle to
come, very carefully in future editions.
So there's, something for everyone, we hope.
Stuart Johnston
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