FantasyCars Maserati Quattroporte V

Maserati Quattroporte V

Maserati Quattroporte V Photo 321 Maserati introduced the first Quattroporte in 1963: a beautiful, elegant, hand-built, V-8-powered, luxury 4-door GT. With a recipe this good, it would be a shame to mess with it now, no? The sheet metal of Maserati's fifth Quattroporte, penned by Pininfarina, shares much with the original Pietro Frua design.The new Maser features a 400hp (DIN) V8 driving the rear wheels with the possibility for more exotic, race-derived engines (as on the first of the breed) in the future. 400 is a lot of horsepower, but in this class lots of power is implied; what only the Maserati brings is soul. Drop the windows when passing through a tunnel and savour the mighty V8 orchestra and ripped exhaust. Pushing the willing V8 up through it's power band to the lofty 7500-rpm redline over and over is easy with the 6-speed paddle-shifted manual gearbox lifted from the Coupé Cambiocorsa. It's a risky move, marrying a sports car gearbox to a luxury limo, and around town it doesn't bode to well for smoothness.Another high-performance carryover is the Skyhook active damping system. On the road the steering is quick and communicative, and the 'porte drives like no other 4500-lb luxury barge in the world: it's lively and willing to fling its tail about back and forth across the limits of adhesion and brake right up to the ABS threshold with crazed panic stops. Even when negotiating hairpins, the Quattroporte never feels like 2-tons.The interior is handsome and the best part is the steering wheel, which is a typical-Maserati three-spoke affair, but it's not these curves that will get you drooling. Step outside and, oh my Gawd, it's abssselouterly firkin' gorgeous! Open up the hood and your salivation problem is unlikely to be over yet. Why can't anyone but the Italians design a great engine bay? Even if this fifth generation Quattroporte does nothing to solve Maserati's suspicious reliability record, paying 100K for dubious quality has never, ever been so sweet. - by Traian Popescu

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Maserati Quattroporte V Technical Data

Engine
4244, dohc 32-valve V8
Horsepower
394@7000
Torque
333@4500
Max Speed
171
Speed 0 60mph
5.2
Speed 0 25mile
13.6@105