First Drive Review
We are literally flying in a Maserati Quattroporte S Q4 at the automaker’s Balocco test track. Former WRC rally driver Alex Fiorio has launched Maserati’s sedan into a dipping left-hander—wham!—we land, and he deftly cranks the 4500-pound sedan into a rising right. A few corners later, Fiorio purposely misses an apex and slides the Maser several feet up and over the low corner curbing to demonstrate how unflappable the car is at speed. We'd already had time on the famed Balocco test track—nothing airborne—and found the Quattroporte to be quite stable at speed, with a little understeer in one tight corner, but nothing that couldn't be balanced with the throttle in the manner of a well-behaved all-wheel-drive car. And the point of this exercise is?
Leaping aside, this is a luxury sedan with an Italian heritage, and we're rushing around a road circuit to make this point: If you're looking for dead-quiet, silk-smooth luxury, check in with a Lexus dealer. Want more spirit to go with soft leather and prestige? Consider the Quattroporte—it's the difference between Ragú and a spicy homemade puttanesca sauce.
The sixth-gen Quattroporte is about a half-size larger than its predecessor, slotting it into the BMW 7-series, Mercedes S-class, Audi A8 category. Early-production cars were rear-wheel drive and powered by a 523-hp, 3.8-liter twin-turbo V-8, but this latest version—the S Q4—has a 3.0-liter V-6, with a pair of turbos and intercoolers, that drives all four wheels. The two Ferrari-built vees share a great deal, including combustion-chamber shape, cylinder-bore size, and direct injection. The V-8 has 90 degrees between cylinder banks; the V-6 is folded in to 60 degrees.
The day before driving the Q4, we watched the aluminum V-6s being assembled in Maranello in clean-room conditions. The V-6 generates 404 horsepower and 406 lb-ft of torque, channeled through an eight-speed ZF automatic. The Magna-developed Q4 four-wheel-drive layout currently is the sole drive system offered in the U.S. with the V-6, but we hear Fiat head Sergio Marchionne would like a Q4 V-8 Quattroporte variant in America as well. The twin-turbo V-6 gets Maserati’s big sedan to 60 mph in just under five seconds and tops out at 177 mph. The car confidently and securely whooshes up to speed without drama, carrying itself with all the leather-lined luxury befitting a $102,500 automobile.
The front seats snug nicely, all the better with Fiorio swooping us left-right-left at the track, and the rear seats in the new, larger body are downright inviting. Maserati’s signature tall shift paddles are column mounted, not fixed to the steering wheel, and make manual control of the eight-speed automatic much easier while bending the Quattroporte through the curves. One of the nicer updates over the previous Quattroporte is the adoption of Chrysler’s large, 8.4-inch Uconnect infotainment hub, one of the sharpest and most intuitive-to-use touch-screen displays in the business.
There are small compromises in elements such as ride that separate this Maserati from the likes of Lexus and some of the European competitors, but the Quattroporte hands back a sense of engagement and driving enjoyment that we think makes the trade-off worth it.
