The Maserati GranTurismo, which will make its Australian debut this week (11 October 2007) at the Australian International Motor Show, is setting up Maserati to have its best ever Australian sales year in 2008.

“The arrival of the automatic version of the Maserati Quattroporte earlier this year started rapid growth in Maserati sales,” explains Edward Butler the General Manager of Maserati Australia and New Zealand. “But the demand for the GranTurismo has been extraordinary. By the time the Australian public sees the GranTurismo at the Australian International Motor Show this week for the first time, we will have already taken more than 140 orders. To put that in perspective, that is more than the total Maserati sales last year and almost double Maserati’s 2005 sales total – and those years were record sales years in their own right!"

Although deliveries of the GranTurismo will start in December, the major of the already-ordered cars will be collected by their owners in 2008, which means that, when combined with growing Quattroporte sales, already the most successful Maserati model of all time, next year is set to be the most successful year Maserati has ever had in Australia.
 

“With demand running so strongly for Maserati products, we have asked for additional supplies in 2008,” explains Mr Butler. “But Maserati’s success is worldwide phenomenon, with the GranTurismo’s 2007 production sold out with in weeks of its European launch, so despite the growing sales, Maserati ownership will remain and a unique, exclusive experience.”

Edward Butler will reveal the Maserati GranTurismo on the Maserati stand at the Australian International Motor Show on Thursday 11 October. As a reminder of Maserati’s unique and legendary motorsport history, it will be joined on the stand by a Maserati 250F. This is the car that has been labelled as the most successful Formula One car of all time and which enabled Fangio to win what has been named as the greatest F1 race victory of all time in Germany, 50 years ago this year.