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19 October 2020Neptune's trident spurs the soul
Maserati’s new GranTurismo Sport marries eye-catching looks with unrivalled performance
A stiletto can be one of two things. On the one hand it’s the heel of a lady’s shoe, elongating the calf to provide an extra degree of elegance. On the other, it’s a slim, lethal dagger designed to catch its victim unawares with precision and unbridled threat.
So it is with the Maserati GranTurismo Sport.
From the moment you catch sight of her sleek lines a visceral longing grows in your belly. With a saucy wink the sculptured elegance of this 4.7-litre V8 coupled with the burbling grumble as she idles leaves you knowing you’re going to have a good time.
However, as always, you do have to be careful not to step out of line or that ever-lurking dagger will flash threateningly before your eyes.
Having posted this early caveat, it has to be said that the Sport is certainly more of an elegant cruiser than a bustling bruiser. Ideally suited to long, undulating A roads, it’s easy to wallow back into the multi-adjustable leather upholstery that comes as standard and let this sculpted wonder make you, as a driver, look far more accomplished than your innate talent perhaps deserves.
She’s a lady who won’t be available to just everyone, though, as her £90,750 base model price tag will require you to have achieved a certain amount in life.
Ideally suited to long, undulating A roads, it’s easy to wallow back into the multi-adjustable leather upholstery that comes as standard
Having reached a point where a Maserati features in your foreseeable future, you will probably not be a young pup any more. With age may come the occasional physical ailment, but these will be soon forgotten.
Such is the comfort provided by the Sport’s relaxed gait, superbly judged damping and hyper-responsive steering that whole new uncharted vistas open up in front of you.
Britain’s roads are not necessarily this machine’s ideal playground; driving through country lanes induced some gulping moments of breath-holding to squeeze past even small hatchbacks coming in the other direction.
But out in the wide, open spaces, you can push the ‘Sport’ button, tighten up the damping ever so slightly and listen to her sing melodious songs through her 40-a-day throat.
For all that she’s wide and loud, she’s also surprisingly subtle. Initially this correspondent was wary of being handed a model in bianco eldorado (which sounds better than merely ‘white’) as he was sure that heads would turn with an audible tut.
Driving any similar offering from a certain other Italian manufacturer would surely have generated far less respect from other road users. But Neptune’s Trident on her nose just inspired admiring intakes of breath and impressed glances.
They say you should never meet your heroes, but an exception has to be made with the GrandTurismo Sport. So many elegant, yet somewhat brittle, cars have come from Maserati’s Modena plant, that it had been a case of a secret yearning with an assumption of there-but-for-the-grace-of-God.
Not in this case. The Sport is not merely driving a car. It’s living life.
Words: TG
