A Grammy-winning DJ ordered a bespoke Maserati, it never came, so he took the brand to court and won
Ordering a supercar is supposed to end with the keys and a grin, not a courtroom
When you spend the price of a house on a bespoke Maserati, the least you expect is that the car eventually turns up. Grammy-winning South African DJ Black Coffee never got his, so he took Maserati to court, and won. A Johannesburg judge has ordered Maserati South Africa to hand back 7 million rand, around 375,000 euros or 438,000 dollars, for a supercar that was never delivered.
How a dream build became a lawsuit
The story starts happily enough. In 2022 Black Coffee, real name Nkosinathi Maphumulo, bought a Maserati MC20 coupe through his company Soulistic Music for 7 million rand. He later decided to upgrade to the open-top version, the MC20 Cielo, powered by Maserati's Nettuno V6, specified to the hilt: Blu Infinito paint, glossy black diamond-cut wheels, a leather and Alcantara cabin, a 12-speaker Sonus Faber sound system and bespoke stitching and brake calipers. The new car was valued at 9 million rand, with his coupe taken as a trade-in and a further 2 million rand to pay.
The car that never came
Then it unravelled. Black Coffee says the finished Cielo was promised for July 2025, but in June he was told production would only begin in August, with no firm delivery date at all. Fed up, he asked simply for his 7 million rand trade-in value back. Maserati South Africa refused, arguing that the coupe was worth 7 million only as part of the deal to buy the new car, and less on its own. So the matter went to the High Court.
The verdict
The judge sided firmly with the musician. Maserati South Africa was ordered to pay Soulistic Music the full 7 million rand, plus interest at 10.5 percent a year running from 22 August 2025 until the money is handed over, and to cover the legal costs on top. For a buyer who had waited years and received nothing, it is about as clean a win as these disputes get.
Why Maserati is struggling to deliver
The delay is easier to understand against the backdrop of Maserati's wider troubles. This is a brand in serious difficulty, its sales having collapsed from nearly 49,000 cars a year to barely 11,000, its factories running far below capacity and its very future inside Stellantis the subject of constant speculation. When a company is fighting for survival, even a flagship order for a well-known customer can fall through the cracks, and a delayed, undelivered halo car is exactly the kind of self-inflicted wound Maserati can least afford right now.
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It is hard not to feel for the buyer here, famous or not. Commissioning a bespoke supercar is meant to be one of motoring's great pleasures, and instead Black Coffee got years of waiting, a moving delivery date and, eventually, a lawsuit. It is a reminder that a signature and a deposit are not the same as a car in your garage, and that even the most glamorous badge can leave you stranded, something the celebrity supercar set knows all too well.
Black Coffee had the profile and the lawyers to force the issue and claw his millions back with interest. Most customers would not. That a globally famous artist had to go all the way to the High Court to recover his own money from Maserati says plenty, and not just about one delayed convertible. It says a great deal about a storied Italian brand that is currently struggling to keep even its most basic promises.
