A beautiful blue Maserati GranTurismo 4.7L Sport, seen in 2015 in the Lido area in Beijing. The big coupe looked great in dark blue, dressed up further with tinted windows, black alloy wheels, red brake calipers, and carbon fiber mirrors and side skirts. The triple nine 京N·99MQ9 license plate is pretty special too.
The Maserati GranTurismo was a grand tourer coupe produced from 2007 until 2019. Over the years it was updated various times, with different model names and types. The car we have here is a GranTurismo Sport, made in this form from 2013 until 2015. In China, it was marketed as the ‘Gran Turismo 4.7L Sport’.
Power came from a 4.7 liter naturally aspirated V8 engine with an output of 460 hp and 520 Nm. The engine was mated to a six-speed automatic or of six-speed ‘F1’ automated manual. Price in China started at 2.46 million yuan, which was a lot of money. The Maserati brand was, and still is, relatively unknown in China and large coupe’s have never been particularly popular. So these GranTurismo Sport models are quite rare down here.
The SCC badge refers to the Sports Car Club. This club was very popular in the 2000’s. They had chapters in every major Chinese city. The club’s Beijing clubhouse was at the Workers’ Stadium. Sadly, due too societal and political changes in China in recent years, too complex to discuss here, clubs like the SCC have all but disappeared today. May they return one day.