History

The Maserati brothers — Alfieri, Bindo, Carlo, Ettore, and Ernesto — came from Voghera in Lombardy; Carlo had raced for Bianchi at the 1908 Coppa Florio, and the brothers had worked for the Isotta Fraschini racing team before founding their own firm. The founding product in 1914 was a racing car built around a twin-cam four-cylinder engine of Alfieri's design. Alfieri won the Targa Florio in 1926 in a Maserati 26 — the first significant international victory for an Italian car not named Fiat or Alfa Romeo. He died in 1932, aged 44, of complications from a racing injury; the brothers continued under the control of the Bolognese industrialist Adolfo Orsi, who bought the company in 1937 and moved production to Modena.

The Maserati 250F — the open-wheel Formula 1 car raced between 1954 and 1960 — is the machine on which Juan Manuel Fangio won his fifth world championship title in 1957, driving a memorably improvisational race at the Nürburgring in which he overcame a 50-second pit stop deficit to win by 3.5 seconds. The 250F is generally considered one of the most beautiful racing car designs ever made. After financial difficulties ended Maserati's factory racing programme in 1957, the company pivoted to road cars with the 3500 GT, the Mistral, the Ghibli, and the Quattroporte — establishing a character distinct from Ferrari: grand touring rather than pure sports, power combined with four-seat comfort.

Maserati passed through Citroën ownership (1968–75), near-liquidation, Alejandro De Tomaso's ownership (1975–93), and then through Fiat, Ferrari, and finally Stellantis. Production returned to Modena in 2021 with the MC20 supercar, assembled in the historic factory on Viale Ciro Menotti. The Museo Panini at the Hombre farm holds 70+ historic vehicles including the largest surviving collection of pre-war Maserati racing cars outside the company's own storage.