Maserati Off the Track

Spinning around the great circuits of the world, one whining, bright red racer topped them all last year: Italy's Maserati, the car that whisked Juan Manuel Fangio to a world championship and many another driver to fame in the last 30 years. To Maserati's makers, Adolfo Orsi and his son Omar, the fame was expected to pave the way for quantity production of a new richly appointed sports-touring car rivaling Mercedes-Benz and Ferrari. When tighter new rules outmoded their biggest racers last fall, the Orsis were ready to quit racing and plunge completely into the luxury market with an $11,000 Maserati Gran Turismo 3500 (143 m.p.h.).

Last week Maserati skidded off the track. The government-owned bank Credito Italiano asked that Adolfo Orsi be declared bankrupt, impounded Maserati's assets, sent the shamed Orsis into hiding. Adolfo owed the bank $15,600 and had written a check with no funds to cover it. But that was only part of the reason. For the Orsis, the bright fame of Maserati had been gradually turned by many fine Latin hands from a blessing into a curse.

In 1937 Adolfo bought the Alfieri Maserati firm, then financially foundering, as an addition to his scrap-iron and farm-implement businesses, later used the plant as the base of a new machine-tool business. Racing cars were only the frosting on the cake to give the tools a famous name. By last year the combination was bringing in $3,000,000 annually. But along with the cash came trouble.

Argentine Dictator Juan Peron, a racing bug and sponsor of Driver Fangio, got so enthusiastic about Maserati racers in 1954 that he handed Adolfo Orsi a $3,000,000 machine-tool order to help speed Argentine industrialization. In turn, Adolfo enthusiastically allowed Peron three years to pay. A year later, when Peron was ousted, Argentina had paid only a fraction of its bill, all in wheat to the Italian government, which has yet to convert it into cash for Maserati. To top it off, Adolfo took on another $437,500 machine-tool order from the Spanish government--which has also failed to pay. Result: the Orsis owe subcontractors some $300,000.

To save Maserati without wrecking their remaining businesses, which are independently solvent (annual sales: $2,000,000), the Orsis offered Driver Fangio a 50% share in Maserati for $625,000. Fangio, who has a thriving G.M. distributorship in Buenos Aires, could raise only half the necessary funds. That left Maserati at the mercy of the state-owned Credito Italiano, which had the right to turn the firm over to the government. Last week the plant was still running--but for the government and without the Orsis.

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