Things at Maserati are so bad right now that the company didn't even break 8,000 sales last year. With just three models – a grand tourer now reaching 20 years old, an SUV that shares its bones with a Jeep, and a supercar that moves by the handful – it might seem like the storied brand is all but dead.But it's not dead, and the company is trying to reassure us. There is actually going to be a new concept car that will show up in October at the Paris Motor Show. 'The Next Thing' For Maserati Maserati "What we are looking at is what’s the next thing for Maserati," Gilles Vidal told Auto Express. Vidal is the recently appointed head of design for Stellantis in Europe and the one overseeing the new concept car.Referring to the brand's current design lanugage, he said that "the current look is now kind of finished." So it is working on a new look, presumably something that will be more than a reboot of the current line. Vidal said that Maserati's design direction has historically taken massive shifts every two decades or so. The '50s and '60s were curvy, the 1970s and 1980s were edgy and wedgy, and then it shifted back to a new kind of curves, he told the Auto Express.Now it's time for something new, and "if you wait a few months, you’ll see what we are thinking," Vidal said. He confirmed that a few months meant Paris in October.Maserati is a brand that has always seemed to be on the brink of failure. It has often been picked back up from the brink, with something about the company making sure it always finds someone new willing to make the effort. Most recently, the Italian company went all-in on electric vehicles, only for the market – at least in the US – to turn sour. Is Maserati Still Making An Effort? Maserati The automaker recently gave up on more than $1.5 billion in investments in EVs, canceling some projects even before they were revealed. The previous CEO of Stellantis said that Maserati was strong. That sales cut in half despite new model launches was just a problem with marketing and not a sign of some much broader issues.That CEO is out, though, and so, once again, the rumors are spreading that Maserati could be on the chopping block. Stellantis has 14 big brands, and frankly, that is probably at least half a dozen too many. Especially when many of them sell just a couple of unique models, or in some cases, no unique models at all.Maserati's New Models Can't Come Fast Enough is a headline that has been fresh for decades, and it remains relevant today. There's nothing visible in the pipeline, and little in the way of reassurance from company executives.This new concept model will be the first real sign of life at the company in some time. If it isn't a new one-off or bespoke project, that is. Vidal sounded optimistic about the future of the brand. We'll wait to see if that optimism is grounded, or if, like so many times before, it is just more cash drawn in by the siren's call of the Bolognese brand and its Neptune's Trident.