The first day of the Maserati Centennial International Gathering ended with a guided tour and dinner at the company’s historic factory in Viale Ciro Menotti, Modena. After a lengthy parade through the city’s streets, involving more than 200 classic and modern Maseratis and Modena’s entire population, Gathering participants enjoyed a guided tour of the complex that Maserati has occupied since it moved from Bologna to Modena in 1939, and where the Maserati GranTurismo, GranCabrio and Alfa Romeo 4 C are now produced.
These same production lines provided the striking location for a very unusual dinner during which guests were entertained by singers from the Luciano Pavarotti Foundation – Tenor Jenish Ysmanov, Soprano Jessica Cambio, Mezzo Soprano Martina Belli and Baritone Daniele Terenzi. The bond between Maserati and Luciano Pavarotti was always very strong on both sides – the great Tenor’s first Maserati was a bright blue Sebring, which he purchased in 1963 – and it still continues today thanks to his widow Nicoletta Mantovani, present at the dinner. In the afternoon, guests visited the “Maserati 100 – A Century of Pure Italian Luxury Sports Cars” exhibition at the Museo Casa Enzo Ferrari, near the Maserati headquarters and curated by Adolfo Orsi, grandson of the Adolfo Orsi who bought the Maserati business from its founder brothers in 1937.
The Maserati Centennial celebrations continued in Turin. The second day of the Maserati Centennial International Gathering concluded with the Gala dinner in the Reggia di Venaria Reale palace, just outside Turin. Together with Maserati collectors, clients and guests, the dinner was also attended by Fiat Chrysler Group Chairman John Elkann and Fiat Chrysler Group CEO and Maserati Chairman Sergio Marchionne, who declared that “Maserati will never be a giant. It will never be the biggest producer of automobiles in the world but it will be, simply, the best”. The event was hosted by Maserati CEO Harald Wester. Also amongst the guests was Giovanni Soldini, the skipper who is setting ocean- going world records on board the VOR 70 Maserati under the aegis of the Trident badge.
Before the dinner, Turin received a celebratory invasion by the more than 200 classic and modern Maseratis taking part in the Gathering, which paraded along its streets. This morning all the participants will complete the regularity competition with the climb to the Basilica of Superga. Followed by a guided tour of the second Maserati production site, the “Avv. Giovanni Agnelli” plant at Grugliasco, where the Maserati Quattroporte and Ghibli are built today.
Maserati was later showcased Maseratis in the heart of Turin at the elegant Piazza San Carlo for the Concours d’Elegance, the final act of the three-day Maserati Centennial Gathering. The judges of the Concours included Lorenzo Ramaciotti, head of the Style Centre of Fiat Chrysler Group and thus also of Maserati. Winners of the regularity race included the Maserati Spyder 90th Anniversary Cambiocorsa and the “Best of show” was awarded to a Maserati Mexico Prototipo Frua.
