MASERATI Quattroporte GTS Review

Especially in a dark hue, such as the one of our test car, the Quattroporte is a tamer appearance now. We weren't fond of certain elements that seemed to go too far in this direction - the headlights, mirrors and door handles.

Look past these though and you'll find enough signs of power. These obviously start with the Trident grille, moving on to the strong character lines on the sides. The air vents on the front wings and the trapezoidal tail pipes wink at you as you behold the Quattroporte.

And we haven't even gotten to the smart bits yet. The new concave-convex aero work has brought a 12 percent improvement in drag coefficient, with a Cd of 0.31. And since they've boosted the top speed, the designers had a clear task: less lift. The result is an impressive 24 percent reduction. An important part of the aforementioned achievements come thanks to the part of the car you don't get to see, the underbody.

As for the structure, Maserati has learned some aluminum tricks from Ferrari. The doors, bonnet, front wings and luggage compartment lid are made of this. The chassis mixes the aluminum in the suspension, front subframe and cross strut with high strength steel, lighter than the conventional one.

The Quattroporte is about 200 lbs (90 kg) lighter, despite having grown over 4 inches ( 102 mm) to 207.2 inches (5,263 mm). Out of these, 124.9 inches (3,172 mm) belong to the wheelbase, which jumps by around 4 inches. The engineers just couldn't resist it, so they also increased the rigidity of the vehicle.

We were curious to look under the car, but the laminated side windows, free of door frames, lured us inside. By the way, these are single-layer units, while the windshield and the rear window are made of double laminated acoustic glass.

The wide aperture of the door leads into a cabin that's certainly worth our attention. Maserati has kept things impressively clean. The control layout is intuitive and things are nicely grouped. The switchgear does spell Chrysler though. Oh my.