New factory will build Maserati SUV.

Maserati has inadvertently confirmed that its new SUV will go into production sooner than anticipated.

The Italian sportscar brand is desperately trying to reinvent itself by transitioning away from its core product heritage. Maserati’s management are keenly aware that luxury SUVs and crossovers are rapidly eroding its traditional premiumsportscar business.

In response, Maserati is radically overhauling its product strategy, by committing to electricpowertrains and more SUVs.

As market forces threaten to overwhelm legacy automakers, Maserati is especially vulnerable. It is a specialist manufacturer, trading in very low volumes, which means that reducedsportscardemand has hurt it badly.

Maserati is now taking the radical step of investing heavily in its Italian production facility, to prepare for the arrival of a new luxury SUV, sooner than the market had anticipated.

The original timeline for Maserati’s new SUV was scheduled for 2022. But details in the company’s latest trading update, indicate that we’ll see a pre-production SUV within the year and customers can expect deliveries by early in 2021.

This information has come via confirmation of Maserati’s new production facility in Cassino, Italy. The company is spending R1.2bn to commission an assembly plant for its new SUV, which is expected to be smaller than the current Levante.

Exact specification details concerning this new sub-Levante SUV aren’t known, but it will ride on the rear-wheel drive Giorgio platform. This vehicle architecture has been FCA’s most significant engineering investment in a decade and is set to underpin 12 models.

The Giorgio platform has already been proven as a dynamic all-wheel drive SUV package, by Alfa Romeo’s Stelvio. Expect Maserati’s new SUV to share the Alfa's 2.9-litre turbocharged V6 engine, too.

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