A while ago Maserati announced a rather ambitious plan to turn itself from a sort of boutique car maker into a full-on manufacturer by increasing production tenfold, setting itself a target to sell 50,000 cars a year by 2015. Looks like they are right on track, as the company’s Giovanni Agnelli plant in Grugliasco (Turin) has just reached its first 10,000 unit milestone.

Maserati’s expansion plan was the sole reason why they came up with the Ghiblil a mid-size sedan that slots below the Quattroporte and is the most affordable car the Italian manufacturer currently produces. As is usually the case with cars that are made just to fill a gap in the market, we were expecting the Ghibli to be a rubbish marketing exercise, but you know, they’ve come up with a complete winner.

The Ghibli is a proper Maser, that is to say exciting and beautiful, and it is a proper luxury sedan, powerful, luxurious, and comfortable. So they did manage to make a car that ticks all the right boxes in terms of Maseratiness, while carrying most of the weight of that ambitious expansion plan.

Maserati’s Giovanni Agnelli plant is these days enjoying its busiest time ever. With two daily shifts, the plant, with a huge production ramp up, is now capable of a daily production of about 140 cars of both Ghibli and Quattroporte. The new Quattroporte accounts for 8,200 units of that 10K record. The other 1,800 belong to the Ghibli, which is impressive, seeing as its production started at the end of July of this year.