The Herald - The Herald Magazine
MASERATI GHIBLI
HIGH above me a large snake eagle gyrates over the Provençale moraine. Despite the brilliance of the winter’s morning, patches of ice lurk villainously in the shadows. If I’d still been a smoker I’d have lit a cigarette and leaned against the doorframe to admire the dazzling coastline of the Corniche, and the snow capped Alps to the north. Road tests are about stopping as well as starting, especially if you’re lucky enough to be in the South of France, and I was keen to test my new selfie stick.
We are doing a circuit from the Casino in Monte Carlo along the Côte d’Azur to Cannes and then up the Route Napoléon, along some gorges and across a high plateau. Somewhere near the absurdly pretty village of Gourdon a dark blue blur hurtles past me. And I can assure you I am not hanging about, despite the occasional cliff and hairpin bend.
I am hoofing it as much as I dare in this Maserati GranSport S. In fact I am concentrating so hard that I am unaware of what speed I am doing when the howling blue wraith warps past me. Okay, I exaggerate a little: I am not the world’s greatest driver, but clearly the driver of this blur is in a different league, otherwise he’d be at the bottom of the gorge rather than the top.
In a couple of seconds he is gone. I open the roof and listen to the engine howl as I change down a couple of gears to overtake the cyclist who had earlier overtaken me (of course, the Maserati has the option of a wonderfully flexible automatic gearbox or more exciting DIY touch paddles).
The sound from this Ferrari-built engine is something else, brutal yet symphonic. Shostakovich would, I suspect, have been fascinated by the split chords created in some dark chamber of the engine when you ease off the accelerator: a high-pitched scream coupled with a low rumble, and accompanying burbles. I think it could be seamlessly grafted into the climax of the fifth symphony.
The previous night, over dinner in the Michelin-starred restaurant of Monte Carlo’s Hermitage hotel, the Maserati production line boss Davide Danesin told me there was a team down at the factory in Modena devoted to such things as the precise sound of the engine.
If you press the Sport button (and who would not, within seconds of sitting in the cockpit, press the Sport button) the sound is amplified, and takes on a subtly threatening tone. People stop in their tracks and look. My old Jag doesn’t have this effect.
We stop in Gourdon for coffee and cakes and look at the different new Ghibli models for 2018. The baseline has been tweaked and is a more self-confident and handsome beast. The two new models are the GranSport and the GranLusso, refinements on the base model, but the difference is subtle. Aerodynamics are more efficient, with drag coefficient improved by 7%.
“We wanted to distinguish between luxury and sportiness more clearly, and
to give a double soul to the exterior of the car,” says Giovanni Ribotta, Maserati Head of Exterior Design.
I am testing the Ghibli GranSport S, which at 430bhp is 80bhp more powerful than the baseline V6 twin turbo: the difference in 0-60 performance is 0.6 seconds, with the S taking 4.9 seconds. The result is a comfortable road tourer that is also a blistering performance car. My model was as quick but more refined than the F-Type Jaguar convertible I had previously driven on the Route Napoléon, though for fun the Jag marginally pips it.
Ghibli and Quattroporte are the first Maserati models to adopt the Integrated Vehicle Control (IVC) system by Bosch, which helps to prevent (rather than simply correct) vehicle instability, providing enhanced active safety, improved driving dynamics and an even more thrilling performance.
The introduction of Electric Power Steering (EPS) is another first for Maserati. This improves the car’s handling and comfort, better supports the driving modes and enables the spanking new active functions of the Advanced Driving Assistance Systems (ADAS), while retaining the razor-sharp steering feel of the Italian thoroughbred. This may sound like promo-bumf, but it’s absolutely true.
In the car park in Gourdon I spy the blue blur: it is a top-of-the-range Maserati Levante, the newly launched off-roader with the monster performance.
“Who was driving this?” I enquire as we slurp a café crème in the restaurant by the ramparts.
A shy looking middle-aged chap with jet black hair and a mischievous glint in his eye comes forward. It is Alex Fiorio, the 1987 World Rally Champion.
I want to sit next to Alex for the journey back to Monaco, but the lure of the GranSport is greater so I roar up the Gorge du Loup, coming back down the valley which that afternoon is an explosion of late autumn colours before hitting the coastline at Nice and a gentle trundle back to Monaco past St-Jean Cap Ferrat and Cap d’Ail.