New 2014 Maserati Quattroporte Gt S Ferrari 3.8 Liter V8 Loaded Nav Dvd on 2040-cars

Auto blog

2024 Maserati GranTurismo First Drive Review: Striking balance

ROME — ItÂ’s easy to argue that the coupe is dead — especially big coupes with four seats. Never a huge segment to begin with, this slice of the market has shrunk in recent years as buyers flock to SUVs and carmakers allocate their development budget accordingly. In 2023, it makes more sense from a business point of view to slap the “coupe” label on a four-door crossover than to put it on a real coupe with two doors. Maserati isnÂ’t giving up. ItÂ’s not just business; itÂ’s also personal. ThereÂ’s a big chunk of its heritage built on four-seater coupes, so it completely reinvented the GranTurismo instead of throwing the nameplate into the darkest locker of automotive history. ItÂ’s still a coupe, and it still has four seats, but significant changes to the powertrain (including a smaller engine and all-wheel drive) aim to broaden its appeal. Maserati planted its flag on this turf in 1947 when it released its first road car, the Pininfarina-designed A6 1500 Gran Turismo, and it has never strayed far from it since. Its designers channeled this heritage into the second-generation GranTurismo without veering into retro territory or using a Xerox machine. “People often ask me, ‘Are you inspired by the past?Â’ WeÂ’re not copying elements, weÂ’re not copying styles necessarily, but we do allow ourselves to be inspired by the way we were constructing our cars back then,” Klaus Busse, the head of MaseratiÂ’s design department, told me. He cited the proportions as an example: sitting low to the ground, the GranTurismo features a long hood and a short trunk lid, which are shapes that have characterized dozens of cars positioned in the gran turismo segment for decades. Beyond the basic shape, the GranTurismo shares little with its predecessor — it illustrates what Busse meant in 2020 when he told me that the then-new MC20 would influence the rest of the range. ItÂ’s recognizable as a Maserati thanks in part to vertical headlights mounted above an oval grille, and of course it features the three fender-mounted vents that have become the Italian carmakerÂ’s signature. The coupe features a pure, fluid design with one exception: the fin-like protrusion on the roof. It houses a camera, and itÂ’s only fitted to GranTurismo models ordered with the digital rear-view mirror. I learned that integrating it into the trunk lid, like a rear-view camera, wouldnÂ’t have provided sufficient visibility.

Maserati ditches hydraulic steering to add semi-autonomous driver aids

Related: We obsessively covered the Frankfurt Motor Show — here's our complete coverage FRANKFURT, Germany — One of the distinctive aspects of modern Maseratis has been the continued use of hydraulic-assisted power steering. The company used it on the entire lineup from the Ghibli sedan to the GranTurismo sports coupe, touting in press releases that in comparison to now-common electric power steering, it "prevents unpleasantly artificial assistance when the driver turns the wheel quickly." Priorities appear to have changed, though, as the 2018 Ghibli, Quattroporte and Levante are all going with electric steering. Those priorities would be adding a gaggle of semi-autonomous driving assists, which as Maserati CEO Reid Bigland confirmed, require electric power steering to fully implement. Specifically, the highway lane-centering, lane-keeping assist and blind-spot assist functions that can steer for you if necessary. Other new semi-autonomous functions include sign recognition, automatic emergency braking and adaptive cruise control. This may come as a disappointment to die-hard Maserati fans, but at the very least, the GranTurismo and GranCabrio sports cars still retain the classic hydraulic steering system. They also don't get the semi-autonomous features, but let's face it, those cars are ones you want to always be driving. As for the rest of the lineup, Bigland insisted the steering is still good. Of course you wouldn't expect anything less from the company's CEO. We'll reserve judgement until driving a 2018 Maserati ( that isn't a GranTurismo) to see if the new steering avoids being "unpleasantly artificial." Related Video:

Ferrari to stop supplying Maserati with its engines

The Ferrari Q1 earnings call was full of information, and perhaps the biggest revelation was that Ferrari is going to stop supplying engines to Maserati. CEO Louis Camilleri broke the news, and The Motley Fool posted a transcript of the whole call online. "Eventually, we will no longer supply engines to Maserati, which actually from our perspective is actually a good thing, both from a margin perspective, but also the fact that we can transfer a lot of the labor that's been focused on the engines to the car side of the business," Camilleri says. Maserati has used Ferrari engines (arguably, one of the most compelling reasons to buy a Maserati) in its vehicles since 2002, a little while after Fiat passed Maserati off to the prancing horse. The partnership continued as both Ferrari and Maserati were under the same house at FCA. Then when Ferrari was spun off from FCA in 2015, they kept the supply steady to Maserati. Those engines include a 3.8-liter twin-turbo V8, 3.0-liter twin-turbo V6 and a 4.7-liter naturally aspirated V8. Camilleri said Ferrari will officially stop in 2021 or 2022, with no intention of supplying anybody with engines beyond that. Of course, this leaves Maserati high and dry with no engines for its growing lineup. Maserati will have to reach into the FCA parts bin, find a new outside supplier or develop its own engines. Battery electric sounds out of the question. As of now, there doesn't appear to be a clear plan going forward. We've reached out to Maserati to see if they have any comment on the situation as it stands.