Four doors to design Eden

Source: Exec Digital UK

Date :11/02/2008 13:56:24

The 2008 Maserati Quattroporte GT Sport is the quintessence of gran turismo

By John O'Hanlon

Alfieri Maserati, though primarily motivated by competition, learned his craft on the public roads of Italy before he founded the company 94 years ago. Maserati’s flagship Quattroporte is the quintessence of gran turismo, which I would define as the aspiration to travel in style.

Used as a prefix or a suffix ‘GT’ now has the whiff of the boy racer. The ethos of gran turismo has been lost, if it was ever really understood, in the English speaking countries. But its very ubiquity is a reminder of the influence of Italian designers on the performance end of motoring. More recently GTI stood for gran turismo injezione when it was first used in 1961 - on a Maserati.

If you had a date to conduct a Beethoven overture, and you hadn’t done it before, you’d probably listen to a couple of recordings. In this spirit, before driving Maserati’s Quattroporte GT Sport I did something I don’t usually do. I read Jeremy Clarkson’s review.

The trouble with seasoned car buffs is that they are obsessed with performance, handling and the like. The minute the keys to this were handed to me I knew I had been right to step back from all that. Even at the bottom end, Italian cars are defined by the experience not the practicalities we get so hung up on further north. I once slated a Fiat Seicento for its high-revving brattishness – I think I compared it to a demented bluebottle – but I now see that what struck me at the time as a horrid little car is as much an expression of a certain aspect of the Italian genius (in its classical sense) as a Vespa.

Design

Since then I hope I’ve learned to be more sensitive and maybe more mature. That’s easier with the Quattroporte, even if these days it comes from the same stable as the (now discontinued) Seicento. To name it ‘Four Doors’ is not much better than calling it ‘Four Wheels’, which emphasises the irrelevance of fancy names when you already have ‘Maserati’ on the grille and the fact that most Maseratis have just the two (doors, that is).

So don’t look here for detailed discussion of the torque, the acceleration or the peripherals. If you are going to spend more than £80,000 on a car you are entitled to make certain assumptions. Before driving this car I decided I’d expect to experience the last word in Italian taste, style, savoir vivre and, of course, engineering. I have always had the greatest respect for Italian functional design – the ability that has sustained their industrial automation industry for example. If anything about the Quattroporte’s technical makeup had let it down I’d be seriously disappointed – disillusioned even.

That didn’t happen. As soon as you get into the car you are in an ok place. There’s nothing weird or gimmicky about the interior, and it’s only after time that you come to realise how exquisitely designed…

Click here to read the full review of the 2008 Maserati Quattroporte GT Sport