Description
Authors: Antonello Cucchi, Tests: Giancarlo Baghetti, Hardbound, 103 Pages, ISBN: 8885880126, 1st Edition, 1989, Italian - English - French text - Secondhand book in excellent order !
When speaking of cars, and the Maserati is compared with other marques, there is always someone who airs doubts about the accessories and the gadgets which Maseratis lack. How true! Maserati does not use all those accessories which are now standard equipment even on runabouts, and this is just where the difference lies. The design, the planning of a Maserati is an expression of the will of Alejandro De Tomaso.
Other cars are born in the marketing department's offices, where all kinds of gadgets are invented; on the basis of in—depth market surveys they fill their tin cans with a host of electronic devices, whose use and reliability is suspect, and worse, which cost the industry little and the customer a lot. L.J.K. Setright is right when he says that in the car industry the use of the word "technology" is commonly restricted to the realm of electronics in general, and digital electronics in particular.
The car industry must rid itself of this concept, which can only lead, not to intelligent cars, but to drivers reduced to being dull—witted operators, • typical of computers.
At the wheel of a Maserati one feels the presence of the man who designed it, with its merits and its defects, and especially with its wealth of personality; and in my opinion this is the maximum one can ask from an industrial product.
To drive, in control of the vehicle, to enjoy, exploiting the power and the roadholding to the maximum, to travel, relaxed but in unison with the car, to savour the comfort of the interior, these are pleasures worth far more than a host of electronically driven automatisms. If this is not appreciated, if the car is seen merely as a means of transport, then it is no use criticising and comparing, it would be better to look elsewhere.