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New cars / TDCN ORIGINAL

Maserati builds a one-off GT2 Stradale in MC12 colours for a private collector

The Fuoriserie commission debuts at Villa La Massa in October alongside the race car that inspired it, with a signature from driver Andrea Bertolini under the bonnet.

Image: Motor1

Maserati has revealed a one-off GT2 Stradale built through its Fuoriserie personalisation program, finished in a Blu Victory livery that honours the MC12's championship-winning racing era. The car was commissioned by a collector and makes its public debut at the Villa La Massa Excellence 2026 concours near Florence, running October 16 to 18, where it will be displayed beside an actual MC12.

The build is a co-creation between the client and Maserati's design team, covering bodywork, interior trim, finishes and equipment. Its metallic Blu Victory paint marks the titles the MC12 took in the World GT1 Championship, and a large Bianco Pastello trident sits on the matte-carbon roof.

Racing details inside and out

The livery carries the competition theme through every panel. A white number plate wears the Italian flag, the word Italy and the number 33 in red, while black anodized center-lock wheels get white emblems. The Maserati lettering on the rear wing is picked out in the same white as the roof trident.

Inside, the cabin pairs blue Alcantara with tridents stitched in black on the headrests. The most personal touch came at the owner's request: Andrea Bertolini, Maserati's Reference Driver and Racing Advisor, signed the engine bay himself. Bertolini raced the MC12 through its title-winning years and took the 2010 FIA GT1 World Championship in the car.

The car underneath the paint

Beneath the tribute livery sits the road-homologated version of Maserati's GT2 racer, built at the historic Viale Ciro Menotti plant in Modena. It runs the Nettuno V6 rated at 631 horsepower, with independent estimates putting 0 to 60 mph at about 2.8 seconds and top speed close to 200 mph.

Maserati describes the GT2 Stradale as the most performance-focused road car it has ever built, a claim resting on weight savings and track-developed aerodynamics.

Why the MC12 matters to Maserati

The MC12 marked Maserati's return to international GT racing after 37 years away. Between 2004 and 2010 it took 22 victories and 14 titles, including two Constructors' Cups, five Drivers' Championships and six Team Championships.

It also won the 24 Hours of Spa three times, in 2005, 2006 and 2008, a record for that race, with second places in 2007 and 2009. The GT2 race car carried that form into the closed-wheel era, which is the competition machine the Stradale is homologated from.

A busy concours weekend

The one-off will not sit still at the event. On October 17 both cars join the Car Show and Contest in the villa's gardens, and on October 18 the GT2 Stradale heads to the Mugello Track Experience.

For buyers watching from the sidelines, the car also shows how the Fuoriserie program works in practice: a client brief translated into a finished car, down to a driver's signature in the engine bay. No pricing for this commission has been announced.

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New cars / TDCN ORIGINAL

Volvo turns to Nvidia for hands-free point-to-point driving by 2030

The partnership pairs Nvidia's Hyperion hardware with the Alpamayo reasoning software, and a later 'eyes-off, mind-off' system has no timeline or confirmed models.

Volvo will use Nvidia's Hyperion platform to bring hands-free, point-to-point automated driving to its next generation of cars, with the new models expected to debut by the end of 2030. The system is designed to work much like Tesla's Full Self-Driving (Supervised) or Rivian's Universal Hands-Free, using cameras and sensors to read the road rather than relying on pre-mapped areas.

Further out, Volvo says the AI-powered setup will eventually deliver 'eyes-off and mind-off' driving, though no timeline has been given and no models have been confirmed for that feature.

What the system will do

The initial setup offers what Volvo calls Level 2++ functionality, a label that does not appear on the Society of Automotive Engineers' official levels of driving automation chart. The automaker says the driver assistance system will cope with complex urban environments without explicit driver intervention, including stop signs, traffic lights and unprotected left turns, according to Ali Kani, VP and general manager of Nvidia's automotive team.

That is a step beyond Volvo's current Pilot Assist, which only works on roads with clear lane markings and bundles adaptive cruise control, steering assistance, lane change assistance and curve speed assistance. The new system, by contrast, is meant to handle point-to-point driving in urban traffic with the driver's hands off the wheel.

The hardware and software behind it

Nvidia's Hyperion platform bundles custom high-powered chips with a full suite of sensors mounted around the vehicle. Volvo will also adopt Nvidia's Alpamayo software stack, which uses 'reasoning' models to interpret complex road conditions and decide when to brake, accelerate or steer.

Nvidia argues that reasoning-based driving improves safety because the vehicle can work through rare situations it was never explicitly trained on, and that the reasoning trace makes each decision transparent and auditable for safety validation. Notably, the initial setup does not include lidar, although the platform can accommodate it if Volvo decides to add it later.

What it means for Volvo

Volvo is staking its safety reputation on a system that must actively adapt to real road conditions while offering true hands-free driving. The company has been under commercial pressure, with sales tumbling to the point where it abandoned its full-year guidance, so a credible driver assistance story could help it win back buyers.

The risk cuts both ways. A system that performs well would strengthen the brand's core selling point at a moment when Volvo needs the momentum. One that frustrates owners would damage the trust the brand has spent decades building.

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