THE 100,000th Maserati to be produced at the company's Giovanni Agnelli plant in Italy is heading for China, the firm's biggest export market.

The model in question was a white Quattroporte Model Year 2017, equipped with the 350 horsepower 3.0 litre V6 twin-turbo engine built by Ferrari.

The plant is where the Ghibli sports saloon and the Quattroporte flagship saloon are built, and celebrations were held to mark the production.

As well as the Giovanni Agnelli plant and Grugliasco and Mirafiori, Turin plants, Maserati has a third production location at its historic headquarters on Viale Ciro Menotti in Modena, where the GranTurismo and GranCabrio sports cars are built.

Alfredo Altavilla, chief operating fficer for the EMEA Region, said: "The Maserati brand's impressive growth during the last few years has been one of the major developments at the premium end of the market.

"The sixth generation of the Maserati saloon, developed here at Grugliasco, is the best-selling Quattroporte of all time and almost 70,000 units of the Ghibli, built here, have now left the production line, meaning that in little more than three years it has become the most successful Maserati of all time."