Maserati introduced the automatic transmission version of the Quattroporte earlier this year, and although there's no way this is ever going to be what you would call a mainstream model the expectation is that sales are going to increase spectacularly as a result.In the UK, the automatic is expected to outsell the heavily criticised DuoSelect (with its electronically-controlled manual gearbox) by about three to one. Choosing this transmission over that one makes no difference to the price, so either way the "basic" Quattroporte as tested here costs £77,090, the Sport GT £83,290 and the Executive GT £85,990. If you think this is a bit steep, then firstly you're probably not a potential Maserati customer, and secondly . . . well, wait till you have a look at the options list. Even in standard form the Quattroporte is lavishly equipped, but the extras take it into a new league of both refinement and expense. Opt for the front and reat seat comfort packs, the natural leather interior, the pearlescent paint and the rear seat entertainment package (to name only those items costing over £4000), plus everything else that Maserati offers, and you can find yourself shelling out over £120,000.Although the automatic costs the same as the DuoSelect, there are some significant mechanical differences between the two. It's not just a question of swapping one unit for another - while the DuoSelect gearbox is mounted next to the rear axle, the auto is much further ahead, right behind the engine, which is itself mounted 7mm further back than in the sister car.There's a corresponding alteration to the weight distribution from 47% front/53% rear to 49%/51%. Even the 4.2-litre V8 engine has been reworked; maximum power is still 420bhp, and it still comes in at 7000rpm, but there is now slightly more torque (339lb/ft rather than 333lb/ft) available 250rpm lower down the rev range at 4250rpm.The effect of the automatic on performance is negligible - 0.4 seconds on to the 0-62mph time (now 5.6 seconds), 4mph off the top speed (now 167mph). Fuel economy actually improves, though since the combined figure is still a shade under 20mpg this is nothing to shout about. Far more importantly, the automatic is much easier to drive than the DuoSelect. The gearchanges, cussedly difficult to make smooth in the DuoSelect, are almost perfect here - a good deal more suitable for a car designed to provide fast and elegant transport. Oh, and that's fast and elegant transport for properly-sized people. The Quattroporte is a four-door coupé (the name actually means "four doors" - a good example of the Italian language making a concept sound more exciting than it really is) and you might be tempted to think that this is a bit of a joke, and that you can really only fit adults in the front seats.Not a bit of it. The Quattroporte has an outstanding amount of interior space - more than enough for a quartet of plutocrats who have fed not wisely but too well at company dinners over the years. And Maserati has also expended tremendous effort on making them feel comfortable. The seats are as fine as you could wish for, and the general fit and finish of everything else in the cabin is magnificent.The only real downside I noticed during a brief period of being chauffeured in the Quattroporte was that, if nobody is sitting in the front passenger seat, it wobbles on its base when you're going over bumps. In similar circumstances, the steering wheel also shakes in your hands. I suppose these are relatively minor points, but damn and blast it, they are quite inappropriate in a car which even in its most basic form costs nearly £80,000, and they lead to a suspicion that the Quattroporte isn't quite as well-constructed as first impressions of the interior would persuade you to believe.I'm not entirely sure about the styling either. As Mike Grundon said in his review of the DuoSelect model, everything is fine as far back as the rear window. Thereafter, the Quattroporte becomes - hush! - slightly dull. I happened to have lunch with a few colleagues at a Maserati event a few days ago, and there was a model of a Quattroporte sitting on the table. We all agreed that, from the back, it looked remarkably like a Rover 75. Bearing in mind the company's very long sporting heritage, you would hope that any Maserati would be thrilling to drive. In fact, this one is at its best on a high-speed cruise; if you try to treat it like a sports car, it can quickly become disappointing. Despite the double wishbones at each corner and the anti-dive front and anti-squat rear suspension geometry, there's nothing to be done to disguise the Quattroporte's considerable weight when you start pushing it through corners.A high-speed session on the damp concrete of Elvington airfield on a miserable Tuesday morning proved very little except that the electronic control of the Maserati Stability Programme (a) works well and (b) allows you to go slightly sideways before it kicks in. I learned more on drier hill roads in Yorkshire, and the most important lesson of all was that the Sport button on the dashboard is there for a reason.It controls the Skyhook suspension system, which sounds (as it is meant to sound) rather magical, but is actually just a way of choosing the setting of the shock absorbers. Pressing the Sport button firms up the damping, and if you're going to make any attempt at enthusiastic driving I suggest you do this as soon as possible. In Normal mode, the Quattroporte feels very floaty, as if it won't be long before 400bhp becomes too much for the chassis to cope with. The Sport setting gives you much better body control, and allows you to have more fun than the considerable size of the car suggests is possible. There's a downside in terms of ride comfort, but not much of one, since the standard 245/45x18 front tyres and 285/40x18 rears don't absorb road imperfections particularly well (there are yet lower profiles available and I imagine they make things even worse).A curious machine, this. It's superb in some ways, puzzlingly ordinary in others. Oscar Wilde, you may remember, once described a "perfect pleasure - it is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied". He was talking about cigarettes, but he might have been discussing the Maserati Quattroporte. 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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