Allow me to let you in on a little-known secret. It's not how fast your car will go that gets you the admiring glances and the most beautiful people in your passenger seat - it's what it looks like when it's crawling along at or below street speeds.Take this Maserati Quattroporte I've got here for instance. Pull out onto the road and you're just 5.2 seconds away from three penalty points, 170mph is within your grasp, but it's at its most elegant, its most attractive when those gorgeous 19" spoked alloys are paddling confidently and slowly through a Cotswold village in low winter sunlight.This is a four-door, four-seat luxury sports saloon, elegant as a running shoe, longer than a Mercedes-Benz E-Class estate, built and tuned to eat up the miles on the unrestricted toll roads of Europe. But it's just achingly beautiful to watch the tracery of reflected birch branches sliding over that long, sculpted bonnet, the mature gaze of those xenon headlamps sweeping across the village green, that extended nose and gaping grille breathing in the gentle aroma of damp earth and woodsmoke.When you’re driving, these things mean little to you, of course, but if you want someone to share the joys your £80,000 (including options) has just bought you, these things are important. I've had one of the most beautiful women I've ever met in the passenger seat beside me. Fair enough, she's firmly committed to someone else but that's beside the point - the fact she was there, just for a trip to the supermarket, bears testimony to the magnetism created by those alchemists at Maserati and Pininfarina.Maserati. A name steeped in motorsport heritage, born in Bologna between the wars and linked with some of the greatest drivers ever like Nuvolari and the great Juan Manuel Fangio, who took the trident badge to Grand Prix World Championship victory in 1954. Today, however, out there in the real world, it's surprising how many people have actually never heard of it. Image-wise, I reckon that's a great thing for the romantic, lone-wolf individualist. You don't shout about your car, you just quietly let it do the talking - and the Quattroporte speaks so eloquently."Four-door", even in Italian, isn't what you'd call an imaginative name for a saloon car, but it tells it how it is. All of the seats in the front and the back have plenty of head and knee room. I had a six foot four metalworker telling me how spacious and comfy it was in the back seat a few days ago.It's well-appointed too. My test model has satnav, a Bosch-Blaupunkt multi-media centre, a specially tailored Bose sound system with a five-disc CD autochanger, heated front and rear seats, electronically-adjustable front seats, parking sensors and all manner of extras. The fun toys, though, are all connected with the driving because whatever it looks like on the outside, inside it's a pure motoring thoroughbred. Push a few buttons on the dash and in seconds you can strip away the velvet glove to reveal the mailed fist within.Even though the car looks, indeed is, huge, weighing in at almost two tonnes, it seems to shrink as it leaps forwards with a roar. It steers tightly and accurately enough to confidently flash along single-carriageway lanes in the dark, holds you flat and level in the tightest of turns and all in all feels surprisingly nimble from the driving seat. The 400 horses under your right foot normally have their enthusiasm controlled and channelled by face-and-butt-saving traction and stability control, but if your enthusiasm for the raw spirit is irresistible, they can be dropped almost as fast as you can spin yourself into a ditch. Would that I had an airfield to play on.A less intimidating button is the one labelled Sport which firms up the already supportive Skyhook suspension, increases the sensitivity of the throttle, scales down the intervention of the stability programme and speeds up the gearshift.Ah yes, the gearshift. There is no manual option on the Quattroporte, which is a shame because the DuoSelect gearbox is the thing that will stop it ever being a chauffeur’s favourite. In standard automatic mode the lack of a torque converter means every change is as lurching as a clumsy attempt with a manual stick. And while using the steering column mounted paddle shift seems to tighten things up, anything approaching smooth is still as unattainable as innocence itself.Secondly, the fuel consumption is about as heavy as you can find anywhere, short of the sports cars from Maserati's parent company Ferrari. Maybe if you're spending 80k on a car you can afford an average 15mpg thirst, but you might lose your ecologically minded chums when they discover the grim truth. Even the Rolls-Royce Phantom with a 6.8-litre V12 does slightly better.But look, this is nitpicking. What the Quattroporte gives you is a rich and heady cocktail of unpretentious class and stirring performance, mixed with doses of practical everyday space for passengers and luggage, and that is extremely rare even today. So, is it value for money? Well as far as I’m concerned, oh yes . . . and then some. Engine 4244 cc, 8 cylinders Power 400bhp @7000 rpm Torque 340 ib/ft @4250 rpm Transmission 6 speed semi-auto Fuel/CO2 14.9 mpg / 443 g/km Acceleration 0-62mph: 5.2sec Top speed 171 mph Price From £76876.00 approx Release date 01/05/2004
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