Three-spoke wheels killed Saab and they're coming for Maserati next

Earlier this year Maserati’s overlords at Stellantis wrote off a big chunk of already-spent development money, somehow widely misreported as future cash being withheld. To get specific, Doug Ostermann, Stellantis’s chief financial officer, said there was 1.8 billion euros ‘in write downs of capitalised platforms and goodwill intangibles for Maserati’. 

In other words, hey, we spent this dough but we ain’t ever seeing it back, and you can tell that to your buddies at the tax office, capeesh? Assuming Doug Ostermann speaks like a New Yorker in an ’80s movie, which, I’m pretty certain, he does not. 

The most obvious fallout from this announcement is the cancellation of the all-electric MC20 Folgore, which, though almost ready to go, faced sales projections so dismal it was cheaper simply to throw it in the bin than let it become welded to showroom floors. 

As Maserati is now discovering, EVs can be great as smooth and brisk everyday transport, but when it comes to second or third cars saved for weekends and fun times, customers still prefer something that goes WAAUUUM! when you start it.

You might think it a great shame, and rather humiliating, that such a storied name took a cash-stuffed opportunity and wasted it. You may recall the company’s past glories and think it deserves a lot better than this. Fangio drove for Maserati, for God’s sake. So did Ascari and Moss. 

Think of those brilliant Maserati grand tourers of the 1960s and ’70s; remember how good the 3200GT looked with its distinctive rear lamps; reflect on how often you still browse last-gen Quattroportes for sale. You might wistfully think that Maserati is a brilliant company and hope that it can find a way back to the love and respect it deserves. 

Well, sod that. A pox on the house of Maserati. I hope it rots like a neglected Khamsin. I have no interest in seeing it survive or thrive and all because of three-spoke wheels. I don’t know how this has happened, but Maserati has gone mad for these kind of alloys recently. 

There was a dangerous whiff of them on some versions of the old GranTurismo, but each wheel had 12 spokes in total, giving plausible deniability even though from a distance your eye saw the wheel divided thrice. Now, however, there’s no denying it at all. 

The Folgore version of the stoutly sales-resistant Grecale is available, for £1705, with an absolutely bog-awful three-spoker like something from a Lancia fever dream. Worse still, the GranTurismo and GranCabrio Folgores and the MC20 come with some shockingly toss triple-spokers as standard. 

This is sad to see because, and I cannot overstate this enough, three- spoke wheels are absolutely terrible. There are no exceptions to this rule. Remember the ’90s Fiesta XR2i, a mediocre car rather brilliantly hidden behind an unusual blue stripe around its middle, a fabulous quad-foglight set-up in its front bumper and, crucially, a very handsome and distinctive set of alloys within its arches? 

Then a more powerful model arrived, the RS Turbo, which somehow managed to be worse, mainly because it had the most godawful set of three- spoke rims. The same is true of the sweet little Smart Roadster, a car rendered infinitely less appealing when fitted with factory wheels that make it look like you’re driving away in a reel-to-reel tape player. 

It’s also the case with the Vauxhall Nova, Ford Ka and Dodge Viper. And don’t get me started on those abysmal swirly three-spokers seen on Toyota RAV4s and Suzuki Vitaras and the very worst Ford Mustangs, all designs so achingly ’90s they might as well be made of Melinda Messenger. 

Three-spoke wheels are terrible because inevitably they look like one of the attachments from a food processor or the metal bit beneath the mesh on a cafetière. And that’s before we get to the visual crime committed by one of the most lauded of three-spoke designs, that of the 1980s Range Rover. 

Three spokes – urgh – but then five visible studs in the middle, just to cement a visual clusterfrig that not enough people get angry about. People have been tried at the Hague for less. But wait, you say, what about Saab? Yes, I know, Saab sold a lot of cars with three-spoke wheels. 

But this doesn’t make them good. Just find some pictures of Saabs without three-spokers and see how nice they look (the early 99 Turbo is a particular high spot). The company got stuck in a three-spoke rut and convinced everyone these looked good. They didn’t. They never do. And now Saab is dead. Because of three-spoke wheels.

Think on, Maserati. I know you’ve somehow spaffed billions up a wall, but it’s not too late for you. You just need to drop the infatuation with the worst kind of wheels in the world.