Maserati wants to Break the Car Tattoo Taboo

Maserati's Furioserie personalization program is set to take an unusual turn by offering owners the opportunity to apply a tattoo to their car's bodywork.

Having perfected the use of lasers to turn recycled plastic into a luxury material for its Folgore electric cars, the Italians now plan to use them to etch bespoke designs into metal.

Maserati's head of design Klaus Busse suggests the technique is "like getting a tattoo." In the world of human body art lasers are usually used to reverse the inking process, but using them to cut designs into bare metal would definitely be permanent.

Maserati first demonstrated the technique on its GT Luce (top) shown at Monterey Car Week in 2023. That car featured a dynamically-etched pattern along its flanks and roof, enhanced through a mirror-like chrome finish.

Busse says that customers might like to adorn their cars with a family crest or other very personal design. He adds that the styling of Maserati cars is "extremely purified" to "create a design that serves as a canvas for our customers."

Recent completely bespoke models include the Prisma which blends 14 different colors and the striking, hand-painted MC20 Cielo Opera d'Arte. Cars such as these and future "tattooed" examples would stay in collections for ever, believes Busse. "My approach is I'm less interested in recycleability but I'm very interested in using recycled material, because the idea is that hopefully it never gets thrown away to be recycled."