Maserati has named its forthcoming new sports car MC20. Like the MC12 of 16 years earlier, MC stands for Maserati Corse (or racing) and the new machine is destined to take Maserati back into motorsport. But, again like the MC12 before it, a homologation road-legal version has to be on the cards.
The MC20 will be Maserati’s next mid‑engined sportscar
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That would give Maserati a new contender in the supercar stakes as well as its first new model for five years. Maserati is not confirming mechanical layout but all bets are on a mid-engined two-seater.
Maserati has confirmed it will have an “advanced electric powertrain”, however. In the past the company has said the new car’s engine will be “entirely developed and built in Maserati and will be the forefather of a new family of engines integrated exclusively on the vehicles of the brand”. An electrified petrol six-cylinder hybrid seems likely.
The company confirmed that the MC20 (the 20 stands for the year) will be built in the Viale Ciro Menotti plant in Modena, now recently refurbished since the last car to have been made there, the Alfa Romeo 4C, ended production. Mule MC20s wearing 4C bodywork have been photographed at the plant, seemingly confirming the mid-engined layout – and disappointing all those who were expecting any new Maserati sports car to be based on the front-engined Alfieri concept.
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With the road car story yet to come out, today’s announcement concentrates on the new model’s motorsport aspirations. Just as the Ferrari Enzo-based MC12 took Maserati back racing after a hiatus of 37 years – successfully too, winning 22 GT races and 14 championship titles – the MC20 “celebrates the brand’s return to racing” in 2020 with what it says is the first model of a new Maserati era. The Italian brand first went racing with the Tipo 26 in 1926 but hasn’t been represented in GT racing since 2010.
We will know more soon but at this stage it appears the MC20 will not be making a Geneva Show debut on 3rd March, Maserati preferring instead to premiere the car at the end of May. Then we should know more about MC20, its motorsport schedule… and whether homologation road cars will be limited to a run of just 50 super-expensive machines, as was the case with the MC12, or whether a version will enter the Maserati range as a series-production mid-engined model. The last time Maserati had one of those in its range was in the 1980s.
Either way, Maserati is back on track… where it belongs!
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