Auto News 5

The Dodge Charger SRT8 looks undeniably sexy, with those awesome 20-inch wheels, glossy black paint, big spoiler, and full-width LED taillights. A passing police officer even slowed to stare at the car, slack-jawed and wide-eyed. (That, fortunately, was the extent of our interaction.) The Charger also is a serious performance machine, the 6.4-liter Hemi matching its 470-hp output with a trumpet-like soundtrack. Mash the gas at low speeds, and the tires will chirp in protest even with the traction control enabled. If you pull out of a parking lot too briskly, the rear wheels try to squirm sideways before the stability-control light blinks its disapproval. It's a bit of a hooligan car, frankly.

Maserati, like all automakers, wants to sell more cars, but one of the advantages of being a boutique carmaker is that you can maintain close relations with your customers because there simply aren't that many of them. Since Maserati sold only 2035 cars in the U.S. last year, top-level employees actually were able to call each buyer to welcome them to the brand and solicit feedback. It's not surprising that Maserati buyers---highly successful folks with the ability to lay down six-figure money for an Italian car---are pretty candid on the telephone. They've tended to tell Maserati USA execs exactly what they like, what they don't like, and what they'd like to see. Clearly, these wishes make it directly back to Maserati HQ in Modena, Italy, because the product portfolio has evolved to reflect some specific American tastes, most deliberately in the new, 2012 Maserati GranTurismo MC.