Devon Life Editor ANDY COOPER finds life comfortable at the wheel of a Maserati
Would you like a Maserati for the weekend?” ranks up there with work questions I have been asked such as “If you’re prepared to wait I can get you on first class back from San Francisco” or “You are royally commanded to attend Her Majesty the Queen’s summer garden party.”
It’s what we used to be allowed to call a no-brainer.
Maserati conjures up images of luxurious sports cars roaring their way around tight Italian hairpin bends before pulling up at a lakeside trattoria and disgorging a couple of beautiful people into its welcoming embrace. Or, at least it did to my mind as I eagerly anticipated delivery of my Quattroporte model for a long weekend.
So, does the marque live up to the mark? Well, yes, yes and yes thrice more, I cry. This is luxury motoring at its distinctive best – a true head-turner of a vehicle. The Quattroporte S I drove had a 3.0-litre, twin turbo V6 engine lurking like a caged tiger under its sleek bonnet and it wasn’t afraid to show its teeth when I pressed the pedal on the eight-speed automatic transmission.Sleekly slotted next to the automatic gear shift were the buttons which allow one to choose Normal and Sport mode – or indeed switch to manual. Heck, all of them made you feel like a king of the road as this superstar supercar roared along.
The spec talks of 0-60 in so many blah blah seconds, but this is Devon we are talking about: you’re never more than a few miles from a less than straight road, so it would be less than sensible to go silly. Instead luxuriate in a vehicle which feels like you are sitting at the centre of its universe every time you feel the warming, soft ‘clunk’ of the doors and you sit cosseted and comfortable in its luxurious, leather-clad interior.
