If you were to google “Maserati Gran Turismo”, you would find a couple of editorials on the first page expressing disappointment over the striking similarity between Centro Stile’s latest Gran Turismo and its previous iteration. Our contention, given our love of design and legacy is that when it comes to brand icons, especially a brand defining car like the Maserati Gran Turismo, there’s an aesthetic tradition that needs to be handled in evolutive steps.

Hence, Klauss Busse, the brand’s Head of Design has a duty of care not to simply discard the design and be radical but rather to perfect it. While a cynic may hand wave and say, it’s mere marketing spiel, think about how iterative icons like the Cartier Tank or the Rolex Submariner have been; or closer to the segment, the Jeep Wrangler – has been been very much changed?

Side by side, Busse highlights the evolution of design and the growing sophistication in the new model compared to its predecessor. Even using elements from 20 years ago, the iconic sports car is much more refined, much more balanced. “We will continue to push design for our next generation cars but for a brand defining car like the Gran Turismo, you simply don’t mess with an icon,” says Busse.

Designing a Maserati Gran Turismo

There are three categories of cars on the market. Category One is home to vehicles that are simply a piece of utility. It takes you from A to B. There’s Category Two: where the brand is all about perfection, but it has no soul. According to Busse, Maserati sits in Category Three, “When I say Maserati, I want you to see yourself on a beautiful drive through the Tuscany. And how do we design a vehicle that captures this and that follows this responsibility? The belief is that a Maserati Gran Turismo eventually finds itself on show at a Concours d’elegance in 40 years, long after I’m gone and people will judge the work of my team. That’s what in our head.”

Indeed, many brands have a very linear design approach but Italian designers think about the zeitgeist of each generation, it’s almost like the rock album of Queen where every 10 years they were able to reinvent themselves. The 1950s were about the Maserati A6GCS, the 60s were about the 3500 GT – the company’s first successful attempt at the Gran Turismo market and series production – and by the time we hit the 70s, angular mid-engine cars from Italy were all the rage, ushering gin the era of the Bora – the first Maserati with four wheel independent suspension. During the 80s oil crisis, cars became more pragmatic with the like the Maserati Shamal and then the reemergence of sculpture in the 2000s with a 3200 GT.

“When I was young, it took us eight hours to draw a sketch rendering. Then we had the age of Photoshop. Today, we have AI. That said, AI is not a main tool for Maserati. AI is a tool for mass product design. Maserati cars are really special and are designed by human beings. As a society, we are once again at a juncture in time where there’s another door to open,” explains Busse. “We want you to fall in love with a beautiful shape of the car first rather than agonise over an ICE or electric platform. We give you the choice without having to change the design of the car.”

That said, Busse still points out that the differences, however slight, are aesthetic choices born of each platform’s technological advantages: the Trofeo is combustion, so air intakes are still required. On a Folgore electric edition, you still need air but less of it for motors but not to the level of an intercooler required on a Trofeo. In short, Maserati makes every effort to further purify the design.

Many brands are going for “Look at me” design with exaggerated grills but it looks like Maserati is going more subtle, more sophisticated. What is your rationale behind that?

That’s a very good observation. It’s true, we’re living in a world where some brands think they need to accelerate to break through. we don’t design cars for Instagram or TikTok. We don’t design cars for 0.4 second attention spans because that’s not who we are. We design cars to be beautiful addition to the world around us.

Maserati has always been there to amplify the driver. What I mean is that if you drive a Maserati, I want people still to see you. I don’t want people to take a photo of the car for Instagram while ignoring the person who drove it. I want to give the car that will amplify your personality and not overpower your personality. It’s like a fine Italian suit: an Armani or Brioni, a suit that will amplify you as a person. It is all about visual longevity and creating rolling sculptures.

There’s another segment in luxury which looks at its history while bringing heritage designs back into popular culture – watchmaking. Is this your approach as well when it comes to a brand like Maserati?

The watch market is a really interesting comparison. We have brands Patek Phillippe and Audemars Piguet and they do celebrate their legacy in a way that seems like they are not progressing. But the reality is they are advancing in the same way like we do, analogous to how a manual gearbox is still advancing in some cars. But for Maserati, history has a different role. When I look at the historic Maserati, I’m not there to say: “Oh my God, we should never change.”

It should change, just not radically so. What inspires me is the creativity of the engineering and the audacity that lies in the product, Maserati is a very innovative brand. The reason for that is simple: We were born from racing. You cannot win a race if you are sentimental about last year, that will lose you the race. And so that informs our approach:  That’s why we explore different materials. That’s why we embrace technology, but in the Maserati way, in a way that is still giving you this unique product that combines performance and comfort.

I read a really interesting perspective on GQ. John Mayer wrote about the new Apple Watch Ultra, and I thought it was really interesting that he considered that this digital watch could become a collector’s watch. I thought this was interesting because digital watches were typically not considered a collector’s watch. For the first time, someone is embracing this idea that watches are actually moving on, I too have an Apple Watch Ultra, but I also have mechanical watches at home that I wear for special moments however I do appreciate the fact that the Apple Ultra can do so much more. This car can do so much more than a car that only has a manual gearbox. The electric car will also be able to do so much more than the combustion car.

What would you want that element to be the first thing they notice about Maserati?

The first thing I want you to notice is that there is beautiful sculpture entering the piazza and you just have to look at it, not because it’s flashy, but because it’s the most attractive thing you have seen. Eight years ago, when I started my job here at Maserati, we were already playing with this idea – what if we went electric?

My role as a Head of Design is to plan for the future. So we took a video of the infamous 1954 A6GCS, driving through the streets of Brescia, the town where the iconic Mille Miglia race ends every year. So, there was this beautiful video of the car going through the streets very loudly. It was super loud, Then I said, “Kill the sound. Let’s allow the car to drive in silence. In fact, play classical music.” Oh my God, this moment we knew that the future is silent because the silence will now allow you to amplify the perception of a rolling sculpture. In the past, your eyes were fighting with your ears but honestly when the car suddenly became silent, it became even more beautiful. So this idea of of a rolling sculpture is what I would like people to take away.

Do your designs have to take into account what is possible for the car engineers or do you just create the best design and then the car engineers have to just figure out how to fit all the moving parts in?

Allow me to make a bold statement: Design is not the most important thing about the Maserati. It’s the second most important thing. The most important thing about the Maserati is the performance and so when we develop a car, we don’t wait for the engineers to give out the package and then wrap it like a Christmas gift. Instead, we work with them hand in hand, from from the very start the project. Our engineers at Maserati have a very great sense for aesthetics, and our designers in  Centro Stile have a great understanding of what is necessary to make a high performance vehicle. That’s why we were able to do beautiful cars like this and the MC 20.

So when we it comes to electrification, the core is also performance, and my job as a designer is give engineers working on the platform the proportions that allow us to make the best performing Maserati.

The fantastic thing with new technologies like batteries is that we have much more flexibility today than we did with an ICE powertrain. V6, V8 or V12, the ICE engine was essentially one big block of steel or aluminium. Now with electric motors, they’re much smaller so we can we can package them in a more intelligent way. And then the batteries are small components which you can also distribute them in the way you desire.

In the past, the engine was either in the front or in the back. And then you had a transmission tunnel in the gearbox, depending where the engine is, so there wasn’t really a choice. Now there’s going to be a lot of choices.

I’m super excited about the industry today because there are many different ideas coming out but in terms of design, they all seem to be using the same sandwich platform and the cars are becoming taller and I’m so happy that we have a real alternative on the market. Our cars will continue to be low with great performance.

What is it like to be a German and design for an Italian brand?

Eight years ago, when I came here, I was asking myself that question. I wondered how I could contribute. I finally came to a conclusion but I want to share some context.

Before I came to Italy, I worked in the United States for 10 years and before that I worked in Germany for Mercedes Benz where I learned my craft. When I was in the US I was able to give my American colleagues the perspective of their product as an outsider.

This was one of the benefits I brought to Italy. I’m not suggesting that they don’t know how to design beautiful cars but I can give them a global perspective of what Maserati means for people outside of Italy.

There’s no more powerful brand than the world than Italy or Italia. If I say Italy to you, you will think of food, fashion and beautiful landscapes. No other country has the power. And Maserati represents that culture for me.

Our cars beautiful rather than aggressive because we want to connect people. There’s another more beautiful thing than a Maserati parked somewhere and people who didn’t know each other come together to admire it. They were strangers, sharing a beautiful moment. Beauty connects people.