The Maserati brothers must be turning in their graves. DR Automobiles — the company twice caught selling Chinese cars dressed up as Italian ones — is reviving Osca. Yes, that Osca, the marque founded by the Maserati brothers in 1947 after they walked away from their own company. And guess how the legend's resurrection begins? With a rebadged Chinese crossover.
The first Osca of the new era is called MT6. The name isn't random: back in 1948, the MT4 — Maserati Tipo 4 cilindri — delivered the young brand's first victories. Half a century later, the MT6 badge ended up on… a Changan UNI-T with a redrawn bumper, a new grille and reshaped headlights. DR Automobiles promises a unique calibration for the 1.5-liter turbo, leather and Alcantara inside, and Recaro buckets. The price is €49,000, with Italian sales starting in September 2026. As usual, you're paying extra for the badge.
Osca closed its doors in 1967, and a comeback after nearly six decades of silence could have been a beautiful story. But not in these hands. Two years ago, Italy's antitrust authority fined DR Automobiles €6 million — roughly $6.8 million — precisely for making buyers believe the cars were Italian when they were arriving from China and getting only minor tweaks before sale. DR boss Massimo Di Risio bought the rights to the Osca name from the Maserati heirs in 2022. What happens next is a story we've seen before.
The second project, however, is where things get genuinely interesting. Talking to Askanews, Di Risio said the mid-engined Osca sports car prototype will be ready by year-end, with sales kicking off in 2027. The platform: the aluminum chassis from the Lotus Emira. The engine: Toyota's 3.5-liter supercharged V6. The bodywork: developed with Italdesign. On paper, it's almost a perfect recipe for a proper Italian sports car.
Now about the price. Osca wants at least €200,000 for this sports car — roughly $227,400 at current rates. For comparison, a well-equipped Lotus Emira with the same V6 will set you back €110,000 in Europe. So the buyer is being asked to cover the price of almost a second sports car — for exclusivity, for an Italdesign-penned body and for a revived badge with history attached.
The segment is tight. On the left — the Alpine A110 for those who value lightness. On the right — the Porsche 911 as the universal benchmark. Dead ahead — the very same Emira that's handing Osca its hardware. For the newcomer to be more than an Italian suit on a British body, it needs something beyond pretty styling: its own sound, its own setup, its own driving feel. Otherwise, this is just a Lotus — only more expensive.
The revival of a legend starts with a Chinese SUV, and its justification will rest on a sports car built on someone else's platform. One question hangs over it all: how much is a beautiful name actually worth today?
