TPT March 2012

G lobal M arketplace

and steering will be Maserati-engineered. Assembly of the Kubang will commence next year, but the cars leaving the plant will not bear that name. According to Jeffrey Ehoodin, a spokesman for Maserati, they will carry an Italian name that is “more beautiful”. › Ms Warren observed that the theme extended to the personnel at the Kubang exhibit. She wrote, “A group of bespectacled Italian engineers, designers and executives – including Sergio Marchionne, the Fiat chairman, dressed in his customary black sweater and brown leather shoes – constantly milled about” the display vehicle. (“Maserati Kubang: Made in America, but Mum’s the Word,” 10 January.) Although the new SUV enters production in 2013, a showroom timetable was not announced. Nor were Maserati representatives keen to discuss pricing. In the matter of design, the tactful Ms Warren first noted that the Quattroporte and the Gran Turismo are “salient modern-day reminders” that Maserati knows how to do high style. As to the Kubang, she wrote, “[Its] bulbous proportions… suggest a new form language at work in Modena.” To counter currency-related losses in Japan, Honda is set to produce its $100,000 supercar in Ohio Another attention magnet at the Detroit Auto Show was the high- performance hybrid Acura NSX from Honda: the company calls it “a racing-oriented supercar” and betrays none of the Maserati

The Detroit Auto Show The Maserati Kubang will be made in America – but not so you’d notice Fittingly enough, Maserati’s entry in the sport-luxury SUV segment – the Kubang – made its US debut in the city in which it will be built: Detroit. The car unveiled 10 January at the 2012 North American International Auto Show shares a platform with Chrysler Group products Dodge Durango and Jeep Grand Cherokee, this last a corporate cousin in the Fiat Group. The production version of the Kubang will come out of Chrysler’s Jefferson North assembly plant, for export all over the world. But it is the Italian strain in the car’s lineage that Modena-based Maserati is at pains to emphasise. The Kubang, which originated as a concept of the Italian designer Giorgetto Giugiaro and was tried out on attendees at the Detroit Auto Show of 2003, features a body designed at the Maserati Style Center headed by Lorenzo Ramaciotti. It will have its own hardware, including a new V-8 engine built in Maranello, Italy, by engineers from Ferrari (another Fiat relative) and Maserati. Its electronic systems will be developed in Italy by Maserati engineers. In Detroit for the show, Tamara Warren reported in the New York Times that the powertrain of the Kubang will be shipped to Michigan and mated to an 8-speed automatic transmission to be produced in Germany. The suspension, brakes

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