There were notable exceptions — the Frua-designed Quattroporte of 1963, the Ghibli coupe of 1967 designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro — that had great reviews at birth. But without a proper marketing organization they became little more than footnotes in the company history until recently, when two of the company’s current models were given the same names.

Recently is a key word in Maserati’s story. Fiat Chrysler’s chief executive, Sergio Marchionne, has breathed new life into the company, establishing it as a luxury offering with its model prices starting under $70,000 and reaching to $150,000, and thus staying clear of the price levels left to Ferrari, its engine supplier and a sibling under the Fiat Chrysler umbrella. The current offering consists of four models, the Ghibli and Quattroporte with four doors, and coupe and convertible versions of the two-door Granturismo.

Indeed, it was the company’s sporting side, served brilliantly by racers like Juan Manuel Fangio of Argentina, Stirling Moss of Britain and the Americans Wilbur Shaw and Dan Gurney, that kept the Maserati name alive. While the company was struggling in the late 1950s, one of Formula One’s last front-engine machines maintained Maserati’s image as a contender, and even as a winner, because of some remarkable performances by Fangio.

His principal mount was the 250F, equipped with a 2.5-liter in-line 6-cylinder engine that ranged in output from 220 to 270 horsepower, depending on the stage of its development (and depending on whom you believed), and it was reliable. At the start of the 1954 season, with Fangio driving and Mercedes yet to make an appearance, the new car won the first two races. Moss’s performance in outrunning the Mercedes team — for a while, anyway — in the late-summer Grand Prix of Italy impressed the Germans to the extent that he was given a contract for 1955.

Fangio went to Ferrari for the 1956 campaign, then returned to Maserati the next year, which would prove to be his last full season and his fifth world championship. He won four of the seven races, including the one considered his greatest victory, at the 1957 Grand Prix of Germany.

Fangio started with a half-full gas tank, knowing that he would have to stop for tires halfway through the race, and he was in the lead, ahead of the Ferraris of Mike Hawthorn and Peter Collins, when he pitted. The stop was a slow one — he was delayed almost a full minute, resuming the chase in what appeared to be a hopeless cause. But in the remaining 11 laps of the 14.2-mile Nürburgring course, he broke his old lap record of 9:41.6 seven times, lowering it, finally, to 9:17.4 as he came from behind to win.

In a conversation years later, I reminded him of that performance. Fangio smiled and said, “I never tried harder than on that day — and I would never do it again.”