Car Pr0n: Stock Custom, The New Trend
By Chuck Cage
Remember how manufacturers tried to lock consumers out of the custom stereo market in the ’80s by making it ever more difficult to install aftermarket A/V gear? Remember how they failed, but eventually learned in the ’90s that the secret to success is to give buyers what they want from the factory? It looks like manufacturers learned the lesson well, and they’re offering more than just stereo options.
Besides being centerfold-quality sexy right from the start, Maserati’s Granturismo offers something unique: an incredible set of “custom” options available right from the factory. With their configurator, you can dial in the car’s colors and materials in such detail that you’d almost think you’re going custom.
You can select from nineteen (!) different exterior colors, six colors for brake calipers, and six wheel sets. Inside, the options expand even further: you get to pick from ten colors of leather – which you can apply individually and separately to the seats, dashboard, and steering wheel – four trim materials (including three real woods), four headliner materials, five carpets, two modes of stitching, and even two different colors of seatbelts.
The configurator is a blast to play with, and offers eight different views of your dream car, plus an “X-ray view” that shows additional detail. And it’s available to the public. So even if you’re on a Civic budget, you can design and screen-cap a pic to place on your hope chest.
Anyway, kudos to Maserati for realizing that it’s not raw horsepower that parts money from wealthy car-guys’ swiss accounts, it’s customization.
Note: Yes, that’s my custom version pictured above. And no, the hope chest hasn’t come through for me. Yet.
The Granturismo [Maserati]
September 18th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
Factory customization is nothing new. Opulent brands such as Rolls-Royce (especially their Phantom series) and Maybach (now owned by Daimler-Chrysler, formerly Daimler Benz) have been doing it for decades. I’d put the Maserati in a similar category albeit more driver-centric rather than the driven-centric.
On the mass market entry/midlevel, Scion has done it best with their fully factory customizable options that took the young urban male demographic of Generation Y and older Gen X’ers by storm back in 2003. The main advantage for younger buyers is the ability to finance all these custom upgrades into their monthly payments.
This factory mass customization started even earlier than that companies like Dell computers and has continued to proliferate to other industries such as cars and motorcycles (Yamaha V-Star series) and even new homes. Hopefully this trend continues beyond the entry level hipster Scions and propagates to trucks, SUVs and midlevel sports cars.
February 26th, 2008 at 12:28 am
That is one badass looking Buick.