Category: Large Executive 
Price Range: No data available
Superb ride and handling; luxurious; stylish; great engine/gearbox combo.
Switchgear could be better; sat nav is unreliable and unintuitive; expensive, especially when you start adding options.
This new, more powerful and sportier Quattroporte is great to drive and has a real presence on the road.
The Maserati Quattroporte S is a supremely comfortable place to spend time in. The Skyhook suspension system has been tweaked for the new car, the electronically controlled damping giving you the choice of two settings: the standard setting is perfect for wafting around in complete comfort; pressing the Sport button on the centre console firms up the ride, but it's still perfectly liveable with.
Electrically adjustable seats and a steering wheel that electrically adjusts for reach and rake mean that drivers of all shapes and sizes should have no difficulty in finding the perfect driving position.
The seats themselves deserve a special mention as they are wonderfully cosseting. Supportive and covered in the finest Italian leathers, we imagine you could blat down to your cottage in the Dordogne or even villa on the Cote d'Azur in a single run, get out and still feel as fresh as a daisy.
As the Quattroporte S is fundamentally a luxury executive saloon, it also means that there's plenty of space in the cabin, both fore and aft. Even with a six-footer in the driving seat, there's enough legroom for another in the rear seat behind, although headroom could become problematic for anyone taller.
In terms of equipment, the Quattroporte comes with all the kit you'd expect from a luxury saloon. There are those fine Italian leathers upholstering the seats, a range of different woods used as inlay and trim - including three new woods, Starwood, Vavona and Wenge - as well as polished lacquers in piano black or blue.
Standard equipment highlights include (deep breath) 19" alloys, multi-function steering wheel, dual-zone climate control with rear air vents, cruise control, a refrigerated storage area in the centre armrest, electrically adjustable heated door mirrors, an electric rear sun blind, bi-xenon headlights, rear parking sensors and rain-sensing wipers.
There's also an updated infotainment system that features sat nav, radio, CD with MP3 disc capability, hard disc with 30GB of storage for music files, voice control, Bluetooth, and Aux/USB ports for plugging in your MP3 player. An optional extra is a Bose multimedia system that adds surround sound, a DVD player, voice control, a larger-capacity hard disk and music library function. This latter system was the one fitted to our test car and it was a bit of disappointment, especially as it's a £2,538 option. The sound of the hi-fi is indeed excellent, but the sat nav wasn't intuitive and actually froze at one point, requiring us to stop the car, switch off the engine and allow it to reboot.
If all this isn't enough, there's also a huge list of options that can easily take your base £85K car into hundred grand territory. Apart from the dizzying array of paint, upholstery and trim options, there's stitching and piping on the leathers; an Alcantara headlining (£1,134); rear seats with heating, ventilation and massage capability (£4,053); an iPod interface (£254); rear-seat entertainment system with 7" LCD screen, DVD player and Aux input (£3,995); run-flat tyres with tyre pressure monitoring (£1,057); plus an Executive GT pack for £6,756.
