Maserati Grecale

Maserati, the Modena brand that is now part of Stellantis, developed the Grecale at its Innovation Lab in Modena. Design was led by Klaus Busse, Maserati's head of design, with Rosella Guasco as head of colors and materials. Federico De Medio, head of vehicle validation, worked on its development, and Bill Peffer, CEO of Maserati Americas, launched it in North America.

It was designed and developed in Modena, Italy, and is built at the Cassino plant in Italy, where Maserati announced a planned investment of about 800 million euros for the new production line in 2020. It shares the plant and the Giorgio platform with the Alfa Romeo Stelvio. The Grecales sold in the U.S. today still come from Cassino.

Maserati announced the name in September 2020. The debut was planned for November 2021, but the chip shortage pushed it back, and the global premiere took place on March 22, 2022, at a digital event. It reached the U.S. as a 2023 model, with dealer deliveries planned from fall 2022.

Grecale is the strong north-east wind of the Mediterranean Sea. Maserati has named cars after winds since the 1963 Mistral, followed by the Ghibli, Bora, Khamsin and Levante; Merak, by contrast, is named after a star in the Great Bear constellation.

Sedan sales were falling, especially in the U.S., and Maserati needed a wider SUV lineup. Its first SUV, the 2016 Levante, was large; the Grecale was placed one step below it to take on the Porsche Macan head-on. Maserati said it was destined to play a leading role for the brand, and the automotive press estimated it could eventually make up nearly half of its sales. Motor1’s original analysis of public market data reported that it accounted for 53% of the brand’s global volume in 2023.