Classiche parts getting shape

[Nayf]

It's that hinterland period that always catches you out, Alfa 105 parts are relatively easy to source but until a few years ago it was impossible to find decent 116 Alfa parts but they are now coming on stream. 155 & 75s are showing signs off improvements but still not common yet and don't get me started on SZ parts (although if you know the right man and he deems to talk to you its amazing what you can find).

Just don’t ping the A-frame suspension on an SZ
:/

 

[zagatoes30]

Just don’t ping the A-frame suspension on an SZ
:/

I'll try to be careful

 

[Oneball]

It makes sense because Miuras are what are currently in Polo Storico being restored, and is where most of the work comes from in terms of parts.

It does. It’s also a lot cheaper. People dont often realise the cost of some things. There’s probably £1/4 million needed to make a set of lights for a Murci if they’ve no longer got the tooling.

 

[dt95aac]

How do you make a brake disc without a drawing? And nowadays all the suppliers will want CAD/CAM. Therefore they need digitising.

Here's the drawing, can we get moving please?


My point is that most of the consumables are already digitized and in possession with the various subcontractors.
Not having these available is a management decision, not a digitization issue.

 

[Oneball]

Here's the drawing, can we get moving please?
View attachment 114780

My point is that most of the consumables are already digitized and in possession with the various subcontractors.
Not having these available is a management decision, not a digitization issue.

Theres always going to be a management decision what they do first, with all manner of variables as well as is it digitised.

However that’s a drawing it’s not digitised, for that you need a file that can be loaded into a machine. That drawing is also the last stage. You need the drawing to digitise to make the pattern first. Then you need to make the mould, then cast it, then machine it.

A lot of Biturbo stuff will be from the 70s and 80s and the drawings will be bits of paper.

They could use your “paper” drawing but it’ll be labour intensive and you’ll probably end up with a pair of discs costing £1000. You might as well go and get a bell and off the shelf disc for that.

Don’t be too ******* them. Have some hope.

 

[dt95aac]

Theres always going to be a management decision what they do first, with all manner of variables as well as is it digitised.

However that’s a drawing it’s not digitised, for that you need a file that can be loaded into a machine. That drawing is also the last stage. You need the drawing to digitise to make the pattern first. Then you need to make the mould, then cast it, then machine it.

A lot of Biturbo stuff will be from the 70s and 80s and the drawings will be bits of paper.

They could use your “paper” drawing but it’ll be labour intensive and you’ll probably end up with a pair of discs costing £1000. You might as well go and get a bell and off the shelf disc for that.

Don’t be too ******* them. Have some hope.

This is a digitized drawing.

I've been working with cad and cam manufacturing for the past 20 years, so i'm very familiar with the process, but this is besides the point I was trying to make.

My argument was focused on consumables which were available up to a couple of years ago (so obviously digitized, moulds present and accounted for etc) and are not available any more, not on bespoke Maserati parts which are out of production since the 90s.

It's a management decision and not a very good one in fine Maserati tradition.

 

[general_piffle]

Calm down chaps. Ultimately, Maserati will do whatever they want to, however they want to do it. And those of us in need of parts will simply have to wait until they’re available, or try to find an alternative - as we have the past decade or more.

 

[spkennyuk]

Yes, ‘winging it’ on a brake disc would be disastrous and presumably litigious.
Tar-Ox can provide discs to order - not cheaply, but the option IS there.

Its not really winging it. As you say Tarox produce after market brake discs and big brake kits for the Ghibli II and 3200. So cad drawings exist of those designs.

The original oem discs were all cast. Unless im missing something they just need a set of discs to make a positive mould from assuming they no longer have the moulds. They will be able to get hold of a set from a museum car somewhere. You need to set up the gate system for the pour so that the moulton material fills the sand mould fully.

Scan the mould and you have a digital copy.

Hand brake cables and gear selector cables are no longer available for 3200 and 4200. They dont need a digital file to make those either.

I understand the need to digitise the files. It makes little sense to digitise everything first before you actually produce a single part.

How long will it take one part timer to digitise the entire parts list.

 

[Zep]

Maserati are in a no win situation to be honest, there are at least two scenarios.

1. They supply parts based on demand. So high movers are in stock or regularly replenished. Low usage parts aren’t available. They get criticised for not supporting their cars.

2. They create a spare parts catalogue, make a profit from low production run parts by charging for them at the appropriate rate. They get criticised for charging too much for parts.

I think it’s important to realise that you cannot have it both ways from a profitable business - which we need otherwise there will be no parts at all.

So they are damned if they don’t and damned if they don’t. No doubt somewhere in a boardroom, someone is saying that they can make a classiche program put something on the bottom line.

 

[Oneball]

A pattern used to make a mould isn’t the same size as the finished article. Not only is it machined in the case of a disc but the pattern isn’t the same size as the raw casting either as you have to account for shrinking.

This is the foundry my dad used to work at. The bit circled was the pattern store, it’s pretty much half the site.



Nowadays you want a digital pattern so you don’t need the storage.

 

[dt95aac]

You're missing the point, it's not about producing moulds, these already exist as the parts were as of very recently in production.
It's a management decision to order batches of parts to have available for consumables.
As mentioned above this is not a profit making enterprise for Maserati, it's more to do with brand value and customer satisfaction, which were never a priority for Maserati executives.

For bespoke parts they obviously need to digitize, but the priority must be the consumables.

 

[Potakas]

One other aspect is how much they will sell from these parts, 991s have great support but its one of the 911 series was build close to the 200k pieces, meaning that they have at least 150k owners as potential customers. 3200gt which was a successful model sold only 4,5 k pieces, if you assume that 20% is written off, then the potential clientele is less than 2% of the 911’s.

Obviously there is a financial scale that they need to consider and if they decide to produce only 500 throttle bodies, then these can be extremely expensive, so expensive that none will end up buying them. Everyone complains about the wishbones or the throttle bodies, but if they end up selling each one at 20-30% of the car’s resale value, then nobody is going to proceed.

Ghibli 2 is a popular model and produced 2k cars, how many are out there? 500? How many brake disks they have to produce to support the market? 500 sets max? And all the models used the same brake disks across the range ?

Starting production of brake disks all over again is going to be expensive and lets not start taking about the hundreds of other parts that are not needed so often, we are talking about producing quantities of less than 50 pieces and some of them need to be considerably ”fresh” in order to work properly (So they will need to produce them again after a couple of years) Then you have models like Shamal and others…


If this project goes ahead successfully and IF Maserati owners start supporting their cars with original parts then i bet that old Maserati models will start having the appeal of the F cars and the Porsches. Although, I doubt that this will happen, i just can’t see many UK owners (which is a super important market for Maserati) with the resale value that their cars have, spending that amount of money.

 

[Phil H]

The UK might be more important than it used to be, but I don't think it could ever be regarded as "super important" for the simple reason that they ignore existing Maserati owners, and it's alleged that dealers walked away from the brand because of unreasonable commercial demands placed on them. It would be nice to think that with the effort Stellantis has put into new models they will turn the corner, but I bought my last Maserati from a main dealer and I know I'm on Maserati's database, and yet I never get any communication from them as regards new purchase or support; south of the M4 Dick Lovett withdrew from the brand, as did Meridien for new sales, and although the Hendy group are now on board the only way I found that out was through this forum - not because Maserati had the wit to tell me.

It's all well and good developing £200k cars, but if the marketing folk don't get the basics right then history could repeat itself.