Maserati has been caught wandering around Modena in light camouflage, which is either reassuring or deeply awkward, depending on how generous you are feeling before the first gin.
Story by Cooper
The images show future updates for the GranTurismo, GranCabrio, and Grecale SUV near Maserati’s global headquarters. The camouflage is not heavy, so nobody is pretending this is a moon landing. These look like careful updates to the brand’s core models, and careful is not a dirty word when the patient is expensive, Italian, and breathing through a silk handkerchief.
The trouble is that Maserati does not need a new bumper and a slightly fussed-over light signature. It needs clarity. Visit Maserati Australia and you still see the bones of a fabulous brand, with gorgeous shapes, wonderful engines, and enough heritage to make a museum curator fan himself with a brochure. Yet the showroom story has become thin enough to read through.
The Ghibli and Quattroporte sedans left the stage in 2023. Levante followed in 2024. That leaves Grecale doing the SUV most of the work, while GranTurismo and GranCabrio carry the glamour end like two very attractive cousins trying to distract everyone from the catering bill. As the world moves even further from passenger styled cars, sedans, coupes, and convertibles, are on the endangered species list.
And what a bill.
Maserati sold 11,127 cars globally in 2025, down 30% from 2024 and 58% from 2023. Ferrari moved 13,640 cars in the same year and Lamborghini sold 10,747 pieces of stylish Italiana. When Ferrari is outselling your supposedly broader luxury brand, something has gone terribly pear-shaped. This is not just a wobble, it is a trident stuck in a deep and very expensive blancmange.
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ABOVE: Maserati GranTurismo, Grecale, and GranCabrio prototypes testing near Modena
Stellantis Has A Luxury Problem
Stellantis is not short of brands. It has fourteen of the badges, from Ram’s blue-collared hairy chest to Citroën’s French je-ne-sais-quoi, Maserati is meant to be the luxury crown jewel. Instead, it has spent too long looking trapped between premium ambition and exotic exclusivity, not quite common enough to chase volume, and not quite rare enough to feel untouchable. All the while bits fell off, or stopped working, disintegrated or otherwise became even more dysfunctional. Sadly it is a common thread throughout the Stellantis DNA.
The recent MCPura and GT2 Stradale show there is still heat in the furnace. MCPura uses the Nettuno V6 with 630hp, and claims 0 to 100km/h in 2.9 seconds. That is not a statistic from a brand with no engineering prowess. It is fast, dramatic, and exactly what Maserati should be doing when it remembers to stop apologising for itself.
Electric Plans Meet The Real World
Grecale Folgore is another sign of life. The 2026 update brings an all-wheel drive disconnection system that can physically disengage the front axle shafts in 500 milliseconds, helping range climb to a claimed 580km. That suitably clever, even if electrification has become a more complicated dinner guest than carmakers invited. One minute everyone was promising a battery-only future, the next they were quietly dusting off hybrid plans as the anti-EV lobby blusters ever on.
That hybrid rethink may be sensible. Buyers have been swayed by decades of propaganda from oil-powered overloads, and luxury buyers are particularly good at refusing homework. Maserati needs electric credibility, but it also needs engines with character while there are still customers willing to pay for them.
What Comes Next
GranTurismo, GranCabrio, and Grecale are the brand’s working wardrobe, and they need to look washing-day fresh before the next larger products arrive. A new Levante is expected in 2027, with, unbelievably, a new Quattroporte planned for 2028. If those cars land with the usual Italian charm, and a pricing story that does not require smelling salts, Maserati could yet recover some dignity.
There is history to lean on, too. Maserati celebrated its 111th birthday in December 2025, and 2026 marks 100 years since its motorsport debut and the Trident badge. The Italian Ministry of Enterprises is even issuing commemorative stamps. Lovely, I suppose, although stamps feel a little twee when the urgent business is stopping the brand from becoming little more than a coffee-table of history.
Still, I want Maserati to make it, there is something glorious about the Trident when it is on form. It is out, loud, and proud, but frightfully theatrical, vain, and unnecessary. The world has enough sensible luxury SUVs with the emotional range of a door hinge. Like Stellantis’ Alfa Romeo, Maserati should not be sensible, it should be beautiful, fast, slightly inappropriate and an object of deep desire.
These camouflaged prototypes are not the comeback. They are the first visible signs of a brand trying to get its shit together before the curtain rises again. Scepticism is deserved but hope, oddly enough, is not lost.
More Maserati Stories
- Meet the New Utterly Gorgeous Maserati GranCabrio
- New Maserati GranTurismo to Gain Electric Model
- Maserati Leaks Grecale SUV prototype Images
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Alan Zurvas is the founder and editor of Gay Car Boys, Australia's leading LGBTQI+ automotive publication. Before launching GCB in 2008, Alan's automotive writing was published in SameSame.com.au and the Star Observer. With over 16 years of hands-on car reviewing experience, Alan brings an honest, irreverent voice to every review — championing value and innovation over brand loyalty.
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