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Maserati returns to Indianapolis to commemorate historic win

This past weekend was Memorial Day weekend, folks, and you know what that means: racing. There was the Monaco Grand Prix for Formula One fans, and back Stateside there was the Indianapolis 500. You might expect to see a name like Maserati pop up at the former more than the latter, but that wasn't always the case.
These days its all about Dallara chassis powered by Chevy or Honda, but over the course of a century there have been plenty of foreign automakers that have won the Greatest Spectacle in Racing. McLaren won it twice in the 1970s, Mercedes and Peugoet won during the race's pre-WWI infancy, and in between them Boyle Racing won it two years in a row with a Maserati chassis and engine.
The car was the Maserati 8CTF "Boyle Special," and its first win came 75 years ago. So to mark the occasion (as well as Maserati's 100th anniversary), the car was brought back to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for a revival lap. Unfortunately Wilbur Shaw, who won the Indy 500 three times (twice in the Maserati) and went on to be president of the speedway, died in a plane crash the day before his 52nd birthday in 1954. So in his place fellow three-time winner Johnny Rutherford took the wheel of the 8CTF in front of the gathered crowds.

2014 Maserati Ghibli prototype spied for the first time

Looking to better compete with mainstream luxury automakers, Maserati has already announced its plans for expanding its model lineup. Now, these spy shots give us our first look at a new, smaller sedan that resurrects the Maserati Ghibli nameplate. Seen for the first time as a prototype rather than a Quattroporte-based test-mule, this is the closest-to-production view of the upcoming Ghibli thus far.
Aside from its name, we don't know much about the 2014 Ghibli, but we do hear that this Maserati, like the upcoming Maserati Levante SUV, will have a direct lineage to a Chrysler product. While the Levante will be based on the Jeep Grand Cherokee, it sounds like the Ghibli could use the Chrysler 300 as its starting point. This means that the standard version of the car could get Chrysler's 3.6-liter Pentastar V6 - rumored to produce around 400 horsepower - paired with the latest eight-speed automatic transmission; sportier trim levels would almost certainly get a V8 from Ferrari rather than using the 300C's Hemi.
As for some of the details apparent in the spy photos, we can obviously see the size difference between these two cars when comparing previous spy shots of the newly released 2014 Quattroporte, which we drove last week. We also see that this car gets some performance-oriented, cross-drilled brake rotors, and based on the depth of the snow in which this car was caught testing, we also wouldn't rule out the use of all-wheel-drive on the Ghibli.

Autocar compares new Maserati Quattroporte to Jaguar XJ

Autocar's Steve Sutcliffe took the 2014 Maserati Quattroporte on a spin along snowy mountain roads to test it for a specific brief: as a limousine for the chauffeured class. It's sporting credentials are impressive: Twin-turbocharged 3.8-liter V8, 532 horsepower, 475 pound-feet of torque in casual circumstances that rises to 532 lb-ft in overboost, a 0-to-60 mile-per-hour sprint of 4.7 seconds and a top speed of 191 mph.
However, citing Maserati's desire to not just increase its sales to 50,000-per-annum by 2015, but to sell many more of its cars in China, Sutcliffe wanted to find out if the livery side of the Quattroporte could match its sport sedan side. So after taking the pilot's seat and trying out the sport settings, Sutcliffe hops in back to test out the CEO's seat.
Then he compares the Quattroporte against the long-wheelbase Jaguar XJ with its supercharged V8, a sedan that's 15,000 pounds less expensive than the Maserati. It doesn't take long for him to find that one of them is a clear winner when it comes to transporting VIPs. To find out which one, enjoy the video below.