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if you want the fastest maserati sold in AUSTRALIA – you will need to move very quickly!

Its here, the fastest Maserati ever sold in Australia has arrived, but the Maserati GranTurismo MC Stradale is leaving showrooms as quickly as it appeared and with just a strictly limited number available, securing one means moving almost as quickly as the latest Maserati itself!

“From the moment it was announced we have had enthusiasts wanting to get behind the wheel of the first production Maserati to break the 300 kmh barrier,” says Glen Sealey, General Manager of Maserati Australia and New Zealand. “The Maserati GranTurismo has already been praised for its performance, driving experience, style, features and equipment. With the GranTurismo MC Stradale not only has the sound of its fabulous engine reached a new crescendo, so has the praise for this unique and exclusive Maserati Coupe from those already lucky enough to have slipped into its carbon fibre racing seats, grasped its leather coated steering wheel, engaged gears with its carbon fibre paddles and pressed its aluminium racing accelerator pedal.”

“Existing Maserati owners have been attracted to the MC Stradale by how it has taken all the things that they adore about the GranTurismo to a new level, while prospective owners have discovered it provides what is almost an automotive holy grail – a car that has the power, handling and ability to cut the mustard as a track day car but also the refinement, comfort and luxury of a performance coupe. In the past it has been a case of either/or, with the Maserati GranTurismo MC Stradale it’s a definitive ‘and’ to produce a uniquely capable performance car on and off the race track,” explains Mr Sealey.

Powered by a new variant of the Maserati 4.7 litre V8 engine that pumps out 331 kW and 510 Nm of torque, the Maserati GranTurismo MC Stradale demolishes the dash to 100 kmh in 4.6 seconds before hitting, where legally permitted, a top speed of 301 kmh. Yet, at the same time, it is 13 per cent more economical than the normal Maserati GranTurismo S above which it sits in the Maserati line-up.

Changes have been made throughout the Maserati GranTurismo S to transform it into the MC Stadale. Its race-bred heritage is highlighted by a 110kg weight reduction from the GranTurismo S, with its dry weightdown to 1670kg. It mirrors the advantages Maserati has in racing by retaining the optimal 48%/52% weightdistribution to ensure handling balance and even tyre wear.

The Maserati GranTurismo MC Stadale uses advanced electronics to slash gear-shift times from the upgraded MC Race Shift electro-actuatedtransaxle gearbox to just 60 milliseconds. It is also the first Maserati in history to have a dedicated Racemode to add to its upgraded Automatic and Sport modes in a simplified dash layout. It produces moreaerodynamic down force without producing more aerodynamic drag, it produces more power without usingmore fuel and it is more agile.

The GranTurismo has long been praised for its refinement and while extensive changes have been made to the suspension, which is lower and fitted with larger anti-roll bars; this has been done without sacrificing the GranTurismo S’s highly praised ride quality.

With the removal of the rear seats, it is the first two-seat Maserati since the MC12 and has also benefitedfrom new Brembo carbon-ceramic brakes, custom-developed Pirelli tyres, a unique suspension layout andcarbon-fibre, race-inspired seats.

Visually, the GranTurismo MC Stradale has changes made to the front and rear bumpers, the front guards, the bonnet and the boot lid, aimed at boosting down force and aiding engine and brake cooling. Inside materials derived from the racing variants, in the shape of carbon fibre and Alcantara, are used extensively. Carbon fibre racing seats are standard and the instrument pack has been changed to allow for the changes to the car’s dynamic systems.

The result of these changes is to produce a car with three distinct characters. In race mode, the MC Stradale is poised and ready for track days or the most demanding roads with every response and element of the car finessed to the highest level for instant response. In Sport mode the epic performance is fully available but delivered in a more subtle manner, making it suitable for everyday use, with the responses of a thoroughbred sports car and the comfort of a continent-swallowing grand touring car. Auto mode is, to all extents and purposes, stealth mode, with the performance and ability available but hiding behind a veil of relaxed comfort, quietness and refinement.

Available in limited numbers, deliveries of the Maserati GranTurismo MC Stradale have now begun with a recommended retail price of $364,900, excluding statutory charges, on road costs and dealer delivery charges.

Changes to the Maserati GranTurismo to transform it into the MC Stradale

  • Exterior Changes
  • Air intakes on the bonnet
  • New side skirts
  • New front bumper with new aerodynamic splitter
  • Integrated boot lid lip spoiler
  • Revised rear bumper with Splitter
  • Exhaust pipes reposition to allow larger rear splitter
  • New front guards with trailing edge vertical air vents
  • 20 inch wheels with new Pirelli P-zero Corse tyres
  • Interior Changes
  • Front carbon fibre seats
  • Alcantara and leather upholstery
  • Redesigned main instrument cluster
  • Weight reduced by 110 kg
  • Flow formed 20 inch alloy wheels: - 5 kg
  • Wiring optimisation: - 2 kg
  • Sound insulation reduction: - 25 kg
  • Two seat configuration: - 16 kg
  • Carbon Fibre front seats: - 26 kg
  • Sealing and body optimisation: - 12 kg
  • Carbon Ceramic Brembo brakes: - 18 kg
  • Exhaust System: - 6 kg
  • Aerodynamic improvements
  • Front: 25% more down force at 200 kmh
  • Rear: 50% more down force at 200 kmh
  • No change in the drag co-efficient, despite extra down force
  • New Driving modes
  • Race
  • Gearchanges in 60 milliseconds
  • Gearchange mode: Manual shift
  • Exhaust silencer by pass: Open at all engine speeds
  • Sequential Downshifting
  • Sharper response from the accelerator
  • Sport
  • Gearchanges in 100 milliseconds
  • Gearchange mode: Manual shift
  • Exhaust silencer by pass: Open over 4000 rpm
  • Auto
  • Gearchanges in 140 milliseconds
  • Gearchange mode: Automatic shift
  • Exhaust silencer by pass: Closed
  • Engine, compared to GranTurismo S
  • Up 7 kW to 331 kW
  • Up 20 Nm to 510 Nm
  • Fuel consumption: down 13% to 14.4 l/100 km
  • 80% of torque available from 2500 rpm
  • Diamond Like Coating (DLC) cuts internal engine friction
  • Suspension/Chassis
  • 8% stiffer springs
  • Front roll bar increased from 20 to 25 mm
  • Ride height lowered
  • 10 mm at the front
  • 12 mm at the rear
  • Tyres – new Pirelli P-Zero Corsa
  • Front: Up from 245/35 to 255/35
  • Rear: Up from 285/35 to 295/35
  • Brakes – New Brembo Carbon Ceramic
  • First production Maserati with Carbon Ceramic brakes
  • New brake cooling system and heat extraction vents
  • Front: 380 mmx 34 mm with six piston callipers
  • Rear: 360 mm x 32 mm with four piston callipers
  • Braking distance, down 6% for 100 kmh to Zero, now 33 metres

THE MASERATI GRANTURISMO MC STRADALE IN DETAIL

POSITIONING

The push for the GranTurismo MC Stradale came from existing GranTurismo and GranTurismo S customerswho wanted a car that looked and felt like the GT4 and Trofeo race cars, but was road legal and just ascomfortable as their existing models.

With the removal of the rear seats, the GranTurismo MC Stradale is the only two-seat Maserati in the currentline-up. It has been designed to give a deeply engaging, racing-car driving experience, regardless of whatkind of road its drivers are on. To achieve that and still maintain Maserati’s traditional values, it had to look,sound and feel like a racing car without sacrificing its road comfort.

This dual personality encouraged Maserati to fit the car with a Race mode which, at the touch of a button, gives the GranTurismo MC Stradale super-fast gear shifting, a louder exhaust note and more freedom from the Maserati Stability Programme. Yet, it was also designed to be easy to drive quickly and as comfortableas possible, so it retains all of the inherent handling, ride and stability benefits of the GranTurismo S.

It combines specific track-derived chassis tuning with the inherent, fast-corner stability only found with arelatively long wheelbase. This unlocks the GranTurismo MC Stradale’s broad range of handling abilitiesacross a range of conditions, allowing it to be both a super-aggressive track car and a stable, high-speed citycommuter or autobahn express. It has the speed to be a road-legal racing car, yet it has the progressivehandling to be considered an extremely usable super-sports car. The GranTurismo MC Stradale also provides the latest step in the well-trodden path between Maserati’s racing programmes and its production road cars and, often, back again.

In the 1990s, the Ghibli Open Cup race car gave birth to the Ghibli Cup and a decade later the Trofeo GranSport gave birth to the GranSport MC Victory. At the pinnacle of recent Maserati’s road-to race story, the FIA GT-winning MC12 was developed directly from the MC12 Stradale. Like its predecessors, the

GranTurismo MC Stradale has borrowed heavily from its racing car twin, taking a unique body design that isheavily based around the requirements of the track. It is a body package that offers new designs for the frontsplitter, the bumper, the bonnet, the front guard panels, the sills and even the exhausts and the rear bumper.

While the GranTurismo MC Stradale has been stripped of 110 kg of weight to help sharpen its handling,acceleration and response, the GranTurismo S can also benefit from some of the MC Stradale’s key elements through the MC Sport Line option package. The MC Sport Line offers GranTurismo S buyers thechance to upgrade the exterior, interior and suspension to make a more race-like Maserati without sacrificingits four-seat capability.

WEIGHT REDUCTION

The relationship between weight and performance has been nurtured at Maserati for more than 90 years, but few production models before it have been as aggressively lightened as the GranTurismo MC Stradale.

The GranTurismo MC Stradale has benefited from new Brembo carbon-ceramic brakes, custom-developedwheels and tyres and rigid, light-weight, carbon-fibre race-inspired front seats.

While weight reduction was a key focus, maintaining the GranTurismo’s superior, rear-biased weight distribution was always a key factor. Maserati’s engineers have achieved this by balancing the weightreduction over the GranTurismo MC Stradale’s front and rear axles.

One of the biggest weight savings has come from redesigning the interior, with the addition of the stiff, supportive new front seats.

Drivers who want a race-style Maserati obviously want more of a race-style sound, so the GranTurismo MC Stradale has a specifically tuned exhaust and insulation to create a unique sound.

The new, carbon-ceramic Brembo brakes are lighter than the dual-cast alloy brakes on the GranTurismo S as well. The GranTurismo MC Stradale also has specific, lighter flow-formed 20-inch alloy wheels.

THE NEW MC-RACE MODE

The GranTurismo MC Stradale reflects its more-specific focus by using three driving modes: Auto, Sport and the new Race mode. The throttle pedal is more responsive in all modes and the Race mode introduces a higher level of driving intensity to the GranTurismo range.

The Race mode, at the push of a button, maximizes its performance in all of its adjustable parameters to become the fastest way to drive the GranTurismo MC Stradale.

The Sport mode allows drivers to change gears only manually via the steering column-mounted paddles, which are easy to reach regardless of the steering angle. On full throttle, it is capable of shifting in 100 milliseconds and it will also open the exhaust’s bypass valve above 4000rpm for a more intense exhaustnote. When cruising, the selection of Sport mode will automatically change down one gear for more-urgentacceleration.

The Race mode is all-new and operates only with manual shifting. The most aggressive of all theGranTurismo MC Stradale’s driving modes, the system is designed so that the driver can feel each shift as it changes up. It means the GranTurismo MC Stradale can shift gears in only 60 milliseconds (0.06 seconds) thanks to its computer control and optimizedgear selection. It is only available once the car and driver bothachieve certain parameters.

For the car, that means all of its temperatures must have warmed sufficiently to give the gearbox maximumprotection and for the driver, it means the throttle must be open beyond 65 percent. When the car’s computer is satisfied that all the required conditions for the ultra-fast MC-Race shift have been met, the “MC-R” lightwill appear on the new instrument cluster.

The Race button also offers the option of Sequential Downshifting, which works by the driver simply holdingin the down-shift paddle on the left of the steering column while braking. The car will keep changing downgears at exactly the right moment as the speed lowers, until the driver releases the gear-shift paddle. This isvery useful when a section of road turns from a long, fast section into a tight turn, where the GranTurismo MC Stradale driver only needs to make one movement to select the correct gear, rather than a series ofgearshifts.

If drivers push the Race button while cruising in Auto, it will automatically change down two gears (from sixthto fourth, for example, which is useful for overtaking). If they choose it while cruising in Sport, it will changedown one gear.

THE ENGINE

The GranTurismo MC Stradale’s engine has 331kW of power at7000 rpm, which is a 7 kW (10 hp) improvement versus the GranTurismo S. There is also more torque, with a 20Nm jump from theGranTurismo’s strong 490Nm to 510Nm at 4750rpm, with a thicker torque curve at lower rpm.

Most of the improvements have come from the Friction Reduction Program, which involved the redesign ofthe oil sump’s fluid dynamics and Diamond-Like Coating of the tappets and the camshaft lobes.

The result is an engine that is both more powerful and fuel efficient, with correspondingly lower CO2 emissions.

EXHAUST

While the GranTurismo S has been praised widely for the sonorous beauty of its engine note, Maserati haschosen a more intense sound as the target for the GranTurismo MC Stradale. The lighter rear exhaust creates a richer, more-intense sound.

Closer to the spirit of Maserati’s racing heritage, the GranTurismo MC Stradale’s exhaust retains its exhaust bypass flap, which bypasses the silencer to create its sportiest identity. This flap is permanently open inRace mode and opens from 4000rpm in Sport. The exhausts have also been repositioned higher andtowards the centre of the car, which reflects their position in the GT4 and Trofeo racing cars.

BRAKING IMPROVEMENTS

Braking breakthroughs are something of a tradition at Maserati, and the GranTurismo MC Stradale continues the trend. Where the Quattroporte and GranTurismo both pioneered the use of dual-cast braking technology,the GranTurismo MC Stradale is the first volume production Maserati to use carbon-ceramic brakes asstandard equipment.

These brakes are both lighter and more-powerful than the brakes on the GranTurismoS, to reflect the higher demands of track-based work. They are also designed to operate effectively for lap after lap of the world’s most demanding race tracks, and the system has been extensively tested at theNürburgring, Fiorano, Le Castellet (Paul Ricard), Nardò and Balocco.

At the heart of the brake system is a larger (27mm in diameter, up from 25.4mm) brake master cylinder, fourfixed-piston callipers and carbon-ceramic Brembo brake discs. At the front, there are 380 mm x 34 mm ventilated discs that are lighter than the smaller 360mm x 32mm metal discs on the GranTurismo S.

The reardiscs are larger than the GranTurismo S units at 360mm x 32mm and it uses six-piston callipers for the frontbrakes and four-piston calliper for the rear brakes.

The further improvements to the braking system allow the MC Stradale to reduce the 100-0km/h stoppingdistance by two meters to 33 meters. These brakes have been engineered and calibrated so that GranTurismo MC Stradale drivers can use them aggressively in fast driving, yet have a progressive feel ineveryday on-road situations. The sporty pedal feeling with a shorter pedal stroke is kept even in a sustainedperiod of heavy braking. This is thanks to an efficient cooling system.

The aerodynamic upgrade on the GranTurismo MC Stradale involves each brake receiving an integral, twopiececooling system, with ducting taking cool air from the grille and directing it into the centre of the disc. A gate in the trailing edge of the front guard panel then generates a smoother air flow and extracts the hot airfrom the braking system.