Maserati wants to Break the Car Tattoo Taboo
Maserati’s Furioserie personalization program is set to take an unusual turn by offering owners the opportunity to apply a tattoo to their car’s bodywork.
Having perfected the use of lasers to turn recycled plastic into a luxury material for its Folgore electric cars, the Italians now plan to use them to etch bespoke designs into metal.
Maserati’s head of design Klaus Busse suggests the technique is “like getting a tattoo.” In the world of human body art lasers are usually used to reverse the inking process, but using them to cut designs into bare metal would definitely be permanent.
Maserati first demonstrated the technique on its GT Luce (top) shown at Monterey Car Week in 2023. That car featured a dynamically-etched pattern along its flanks and roof, enhanced through a mirror-like chrome finish.
Busse says that customers might like to adorn their cars with a family crest or other very personal design. He adds that the styling of Maserati cars is “extremely purified” to “create a design that serves as a canvas for our customers.”
Recent completely bespoke models include the Prisma which blends 14 different colors and the striking, hand-painted MC20 Cielo Opera d’Arte. Cars such as these and future “tattooed” examples would stay in collections for ever, believes Busse. “My approach is I’m less interested in recycleability but I’m very interested in using recycled material, because the idea is that hopefully it never gets thrown away to be recycled.”
That will not do much for resale if you are not anyone that anyone has heard of.
Not exactly like a LLBean badge.
Alfa and Maserati should focus more on reliable cars. My neighbors was on a flat bed the first week they had it.
Amen, brother; beautiful nightmares.
It’s going to be interesting to see what Maserati is going to do in the future as it platform shares EV’s with the other Stellantis (use only as directed) brands and tries to have it’s own personality with a half dozen other variants of toasters. Electronics have not been one of this brands strengths.
This will be a money maker for Maserati. It’s also a really bad idea. You’ll see the same ill conceived tattoos that appear on seemingly every body etched into metal. Are they giving out discount tattoo coupons in the delivery rooms now? Flash in the pan celebrities and athletes will buy them. Then find nobody wants to buy it after they’ve pillaged through all their doe, have joined the ‘used to be’ collection and are strapped for cash. You can remedy a bad someone else’s vision paint job, remove the what were they thinking? accessories from a car but these scars aint going away so easily. The only saving grace is that the Luce isn’t such a remarkable looking car anyway and Maserati values plummet like stones after they roll off the lot anyway.