Modena dips a toe into AMG territory with a V8-engined performance limousine

PHOTOGRAPHY MAX EDLESTON

MODEL TESTED TROFEO

Price £128,100 • Power 572bhp • Torque 538lb ft • 0-60mph 4.2sec • 30-70mph in 4th 5.5sec • Fuel economy 20.3mpg • CO2 emissions 276-282g/km • 70-0mph 45.2m

Maserati has been guilty of mixed messaging lately about the kind of car maker it wants to be. With the memory of the Ferrari Enzo-based MC12 hypercar still fresh in our minds at the end of the noughties, it elected to spread its wings as a luxury brand. Once a kind of sharp-suited Italian answer to the BMW M5, the Quattroporte became an S-Class-fighting limousine. The Ghibli, which many will remember as a 1990s coupé (possibly even as a stylish 1960s GT), became a midsized executive saloon with all of the mechanical necessities to take on Mercedes, BMW and Audi – and one of them was quite an ordinary diesel engine. And then there was the firm’s debutant SUV, of course: the Levante.

The cars were part of a bold plan to transform Maserati’s global business; and although it has subsequently fallen some way short of its volume ambitions, it has certainly given the firm a more noticeable presence in our daily motoring lives than it has had before. But they were all more conventional, mid-market luxury models than the marque has tended to offer over the decades; cars with lots of leather and chrome and other luxury flavourings, but fewer technical points of differentiation about which to get excited.

But now, having done so little for years to build the sporting reputation of its brand, Maserati is evidently looking to restore some really interested drivers to its customer base. The MC20 supercar, which is due to arrive in the UK later this year, should certainly do that, but so might the subject of this week’s road test.

The Quattroporte Trofeo is one of two 200mph high-performance saloons that Maserati has recently launched to sit alongside its similarly positioned Levante Trofeo SUV. It has a Ferrari-derived V8; but how much more lasting dynamic appeal than any other modern Maserati besides, you may wonder. Stand by to find out.

DESIGN AND ENGINEERING

Maserati claims to have become one of the pioneers of the performance saloon market when it dropped a V8 into the very first Quattroporte 4200 in 1963. Now, having refined and redeveloped the 3.8-litre twin-turbocharged V8 of the 2014 Quattroporte GTS and then put it to work in the Levante Trofeo of 2019, it has endowed this new range-topping Quattroporte with that same engine, which makes up to 572bhp of peak power and 538lb ft of torque between 2250rpm and 5250rpm.

The Trofeo’s engine uses a Ferrari F154 cylinder block; but its crossplane crankshaft, special camshafts and high-tumble cylinder heads, wet sump lubrication system and parallel twin-scroll turbocharged, twin-intercooled induction system are all of Maserati’s own design. If the foundations of a great super-saloon are laid on a great performance engine, it certainly sounds like a promising start.