[MASERATIBI]

First Drive: 2008 Maserati GranTurismo
Disarming beauty: Looks that could kill a critical argument


By Frank Markus



Prepare for seething derision and witty zingers, because this car has it coming. The spec sheet is rife with fodder: Relative to its Porsche 911-fighting Coupe/Gran Sport predecessor, Maserati's new GranTurismo is over 14 inches longer, an inch wider, nearly two inches taller, and-mamma mia!-550 pounds heavier! And there's no commensurate power boost to help propel this porker, just a nudge up to 400 horses. To make things worse, the suspension's softer and the six-speed stick and auto-clutch manual transaxles are broomed for a front-mounted ZF six-speed slushbox. The livid car critic prepares to lob some bombast at the Trident, perhaps likening this jarring transition to that of an Italian woman from sexy seductress to rotund housewife.



Then he rounds the corner to find eight GranTurismos arrayed on the cathedral square in Bolzano, Italy and ashcans that line of attack. This car is twice as seductive as its predecessor, precisely because of its Amazon proportions. Supersizing to the Quattroporte sedan architecture afforded Pininfarina room to package a roomier rear seat under a sleeker fastback roof with classic long-hood, short-deck, flying-wedge proportions. Even the jewelry is gorgeous, much of it paying homage to historic Maseratis: The portholes recall the company's first road car, the 1947 A6 1500 Gran Turismo (by Pinin Farina), and the concave grille harks to the 1953 A6GCS. The headlamps and the optional 20-inch Trident-spoke wheels riff on Pininfarina's Birdcage concept car. The new shape is 0.33-Cd aero-slick too.



Having never successfully fought the 911, Maserati is abandoning that cutthroat market for greener ($) pastures now being grazed by the BMW 6 Series, Jag XKR, Mercedes CL-Class, and a few Bentley Continental GTs and Aston DB9s. Buyers in that crowd don't cotton to do-it-yourself shifting, nor do they adore a bone-crushing ride. They also demand a reasonable rear seat, and the GranTurismo's now seems competitive with the bigs in the class-Mercedes CL, Conti GT, and even Ferrari's 612 Scaglietti, though proper comparative SAE dimensions aren't available. (The tallest of the gathered critics, at six-foot-three, proclaimed it tolerable for a crosstown trek to dinner, as long as someone slightly less leggy sat in front.) Rear-cabin riders get their own A/C vents, cupholders, armrests, and stowage bins. The 9.2-cubic-foot trunk even holds two real golf bags or a set of Ferragamo fitted luggage. This mega-metamorphosis is starting to make sense.



Mechanically, the car is a Quattroporte automatic with 4.8 inches sawed out of the wheelbase and 2.6 inches off the tail. The drivetrain and "Skyhook" adaptive suspension are tailored to the GranTurismo's sportier mission. Press the dash button marked "Sport" and throttle responsiveness increases 20 percent, the dampers stiffen to curtail body roll and float, and the transmission shift logic becomes more aggressive. In that mode the torque converter stays locked during shifts that happen 40 percent quicker (in about 0.33 second), lower gears are held longer, upshifts happen at higher revs (up to 7200 rpm at full throttle-a claimed highest in class), and downshifts occur at lighter throttle openings. A separate "Ice" setting blocks first-gear launches and forces upshifts at 3000 rpm.



Graduating to the Q-porte's architecture also brings amenities like corner-illuminating Xenon headlamps, a seven-inch nav screen, and a new eight-channel/11-speaker Bose Surround Sound system with a 30-gig hard drive. (Sorry, no Bluetooth until mid-2008.) But perhaps the greatest luxury is personalization, and customers willing to wait four months for delivery can custom-tailor their GranTurismos with a choice of 10 Poltrona Frau leather colors, 13 stitching tones, four headliner colors (in cloth or Alcantara), five carpet hues, and a choice of three woods, five colored piano-lacquers, or metal for the dash trim. Outside there's a choice of 19 body colors and two wheel designs in three finishes. With over four million possible combinations, every GranTurismo will probably be unique.