2015 Maserati Quattroporte GTS

“ They don't get better than this: one fastidious owner, no expense-spared Maserati main dealer service history, dry garaged and only driven 900 miles a year. ”
Simply outstanding condition, 'as new' in fact. With Bowers/Wilkins Premium Audio and steering wheel shift paddles.

Background
The Italian language can always be relied upon to produce automotive vocabulary that sounds truly exotic when, in reality, it is describing something rather more quotidian and prosaic.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the nomenclature of the Maserati Quattroporte or, if you insist, - the ‘four-door’.

Introduced in 1963, it was the first production Maserati with more than two doors and also the first to be powered by a V8 engine.

The Pietro Frua-designed, full-sized sports saloon kicked off an almost unbroken run of this luxury car which has now undergone more regenerations than Dr Who.

Following Frua, the QP II (1974-1978) was designed by Bertone’s Marcello Gandini and, due largely to Citroen’s influence, it was fitted with a 3-litre V6 powering the front wheels.

Not entirely surprisingly, the model wasn’t a success and nor ultimately was Maserati’s relationship with Citroen - only 12 customer cars were produced between 1976 and 1978 before the company was bought by Alejandro de Tomaso.

The QP III (1979-1990) - now back to V8 power and rear-wheel-drive - was styled by Giorgetto Giugiuaro of Italdesign - widely considered at the time to be the greatest living car designer.

Another generation, another owner for Maserati - this time the Fiat Group - and Gandini was given another chance to style a winner in the QP IV (1994-2001). Powered at first by a twin-turbo V6, it was later upgraded to a bi-turbo V8.

The fifth generation Quattroporte (2003-2012) - styled by Pininfarina - is considered one of the best-looking four-door saloons ever built and was the most successful QP evolution to date with over 25,000 produced.

The QP V was based on the same underlying platform as the popular GranTurismo and GranCabrio models and, like them, was powered by V8 units from sister company Ferrari.

Initially, all variants were fitted with a 395bhp 4.2-litre V8 but from 2008, the Quattroporte S and Sport GTS had the larger 4.7-litre engine with power increasing from 424bhp to 434bhp and topping out at 444bhp.

Introduced in 2013, the QP VI continued the lineage, adding both the fastest variants to date and a diesel burner to the highly exclusive range.

Maserati, and particularly with their Quattroporte offering, has always understood the tastes and whims of those for whom a raging bull is

too vulgar, brash and in-your-face, and a prancing horse is just a bit too obvious and ‘me too’.

In the wild, the Quattroporte’s natural competitors at the top of the 4-door food chain are probably Bentley’s Flying Spur and Porsche’s Panamera (or even the Taycan, if you must).

Aston Martin no longer make their 4-door Rapide and poor old Jaguar, well, they don’t really make anything any more.

For fans of Neptune’s trident, the Flying Spur might seem a bit too close to corporate fat-cat territory and the Panamera would be considered rather too anodyne and bland.

So, the Quattroporte sits in a Goldilocks sweet spot of having all the right signifiers of taste, class and discernment, plus the associated glamour of Italian sportscar heritage, and the ability to out-perform a peregrine falcon in a stoop while transporting four people and their luggage across continents in considerable comfort.

Overview
If you are minded to tell us that there’s a better example of a Maserati Quattroporte GTS out there, we’ll assume you’re talking about a car that went straight from the factory to a hermetically-sealed display case in a museum.

Otherwise, we’re putting our money on this one – which is by some margin the best we’ve ever seen.

And we’ve seen a few.

This was bought new by the vendor in September 2015.

In the near decade that’s elapsed since then, the car has averaged a little more than 900 miles per year.

Quite a few of those miles will have been expended on visits to and from Meridien Modena, the Maserati main dealer to whom all servicing, maintenance and repair work has been entrusted since the car’s first service, which came courtesy of Ridgeway Maserati.

Full disclosure – the vendor is well-known to us here at our Oxfordshire HQ.

We’re sure he won’t mind if we tell you that he is a man who does things properly.

He doesn’t cut corners, entertain compromises or otherwise deviate from the right course of action, regardless of any cost implications.

He is as fastidious, exacting and timely in his upkeep and curation of his cars as he is with his collection of classic boats.

And he is only saying goodbye to this Quattroporte so that he can hello to a brand-new GranCabrio.

That will no doubt look very fine next to his Maserati Karif, which he also bought brand-new some 35 years ago.

As you may have gathered by now, the vendor likes a Maserati.

The car is in quite superb cosmetic, mechanical and dynamic condition.

It drives exactly as you would hope and expect of a car whose Ferrari-derived engine generates 530 PS, up to 710 N⋅m and, at the time of its launch, made the Maserati Quattroporte GTS the fastest four-door production car in the world with a top speed just shy of 200mph.

Estimate: £30,000 - £35,000

View Current Bid Price HERE