Maserati has been making V8-powered cars since 1959 when the 5000GT debuted but that's about to end. The long-term agreement with engine supplier Ferrari will expire this year, so the twin-turbo 3.8-liter engine is approaching the end of its life. At the fifth edition of the Motor Valley Fest this week in Modena, the company with the trident logo will celebrate the 572-hp engine before unveiling the last cars to get eight-cylinder power in July.
Premiering at the 2023 Goodwood Festival of Speed, the Ghibli 334 Ultima and the Levante V8 Ultima will be the final models to get the large-displacement engine. Based on the range-topping Trofeo versions, the dynamic duo will serve as an epilogue to over 100,000 cars that have been assembled with a V8 engine in the last 64 years.
2021 Maserati Ghibli Trofeo First Drive
Maserati says the Levante, Ghibli, and Quattroporte in their Trofeo specification will go out of production beginning in late 2023 but will remain on sale into 2024. The Italian brand already has an indirect replacement in the Nettuno, a twin-turbo V6 engine fully developed in-house and built at home in Modena. The 3.0-liter is found in the mid-engined MC20 / MC20 Cielo supercar as well as the new Grecale and GranTurismo.
Its most potent ICE car is the track-only MC20 GT2 with an output surpassing the 621 horsepower and 538 pound-feet (730 Newton-meters) of torque found in the road-going model. Maserati has said it will keep the Nettuno engine all to itself while Ferrari has said its V6 engine used in the 296 GTB/GTS is completely unrelated.
But the future is inevitably electric as Maserati says all models will be offered as an EV by 2025 and the entire range will run exclusively on battery juice by the end of the decade.
