Maserati U.S. Sales Rise With $136,000 GranTurismo Convertible [View All]

[EV_Ares]

As Haley Barbour says the old south was not so bad, life was good. As Wall Street, republican bankers, the rich say, what recession, what jobless economy, hey this is a great Xmas. and with old McConnell giving those bad dems hell, 2011 is going to be good too. How good things are certainly depends on what perspective you are coming from. Guess life today is good for the rich.
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Dec. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Maserati’s GranTurismo Convertible has given new life to the Fiat SpA brand in the U.S., driving sales up 48 percent this year through November.

Maserati sold a total of 1,717 vehicles in the U.S., including 558 of the four-seat convertibles since its introduction in March, according to Autodata Corp., a Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey-based researcher. The GranTurismo Convertible starts at $136,000, according to Edmunds.com, a website that tracks new car sales.

New models can “dramatically improve” exotic car sales, hurt last year by the economic downturn and the stigma of driving vehicles with six-figure price tags, said Rebecca Lindland, an analyst with IHS Automotive. U.S. Maserati sales plunged 49 percent to 1,275 in 2009, according to Autodata.

“Last year it was so socially incorrect to buy a vehicle like this,” Lindland, who is based in Lexington, Massachusetts, said in an interview last week. “Now you’ve got people saying it’s OK to buy something like a Maserati.”

entire article: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-12-21/maserati-u-s-sales-rise-with-136-000-granturismo-convertible.html